Champions/Europa League Matchday 1 Wrap-Up

By: Jan | September 17th, 2009

Grafite Three wins, two draws and one defeat makes for a balanced but not too glorious start to this year’s European season.

Wolfsburg. You are never too old for an impressive Champions League debut. Grafite (30) scored a hat-trick and became only (or already?) the sixth player to do so on his debut. Each of his goals really showed off his versatility as well. Cool finishing from a counter attack for the first goal. Winning a joke penalty and calmly converting it for the second. Killing the game with a great strike under pressure in the box for the third. The match itself was a bit underwhelming though. Moscow deserve a mention for playing the overall more polished football. Wolfsburg deserve credit for having simply more overall quality to win the game nonetheless. I still have the feeling that Armin Veh is step by step deconstructing Felix Magath’s title winning team. First he had this idea of a slick passing game, which so far resulted in games, in which the other teams pass the ball better and more often but no longer have to fear Wolfsburg’s counter attacks. Now he switched from a 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3, making Edin Dzeko look uncomfortable on the wings and Misimovic less of a brilliant playmaker on his new position in midfield.

Bayern. You are never too young for an impressive Champions League debut either. Though, in case of Thomas Müller this debut took place last season already against Sporting Lisbon, where he put the finishing touches on a 7-1 demolition. This season he put the finishing touches on a 3-0 victory over Haifa, where Bayern needed too much patience and too much Butt in goal for my taste. Head over to the Bayern Offside for match highlights.

Stuttgart. 60% possession, 11:2 shots on goal and a 1-0 half time lead against Glasgow Rangers were enough to make Stuttgart incredibly nervous, passive and overall rubbish in the second half. The resulting 1-1 draw ended up being rather fortunate for the Swabians. Badmouthing Thomas Hitzelsperger is one of my favorite past times over at the Germany Worldcupblog so this is getting old a bit but: as long as Hleb has the excuse, that his buttock pain keeps him from being fully fit, Hitzelsperger is one of the players who really should run the Stuttgart midfield. And by running I mean forward not backwards. He’s supposedly the captain of the team. A screaming Jens Lehmann who steals the opposition player’s shoes and headbands only gets you so far. For the full story of those two halves head over to the Stuttgart Offside.

Hamburg. When Hamburg are good, they are very very good. When Hamburg are bad, they are very very bad. In their match against Rapid Vienna they were very very bad and deservedly lost 3-0 in front of 50000 fans in Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadion. At least it was against another Bundesliga side – from an admittedly cute and tiny Bundesliga. I wonder how often these mood swings will pop up at inopportune moments, to make sure Hamburg remain without a title once again? Offload all your fury, disappointment or schadenfreude over at the Hamburg Offside’s rant box.

Berlin. 13.454 fans and a 1-1 draw against the Latvian champions. This should bring fuzzy warm feelings to panicking and demoralized Hertha fans. Lousy European nights are one of the few things that Hertha could preserve this season. What Hertha definitely couldn’t preserve was their defensive stability, or their ability to compensate injuries or an offense which was just about good enough to get the result from a late counter attack. Hertha lost Jaroslav Drobny in this match, so their magic defensive triangle is now down to the not so magical Arne Friedrich. This weekend’s game against Freiburg almost feels like a relegation play-off match now.

Bremen. More possession, more chances, more goals. After 55 minutes battered Bundesliga fans were seemingly looking at a top to bottom professional job by Bremen. Until Nacional Funchal equalized inside 10 minutes. Claudio Pizzaro eventually made sure Bremen got all three points. And let’s be honest: a Werder defense that doesn’t concede a goal or two is not really a Werder defense. Head over to the Werder Offside for a proper match report.

For more Europa League head over to our, uh, UEFA Cup Offside.
For more Champions League coverage head over to our Champions League Offside.