Soundoff: The Bundesliga’s Best XI of the Hinrunde

The start of the second half of the season (Rückrunde) is mere hours away, but there’s still time to quickly let you honor the best XI of the first half of the season (Hinrunde). Presuming there is demand and given that not everyone agreed with Deutsche Welle’s picks.

To get you started, I’ll give you my favorite XI. I’ll go with a 4-4-2 with two defensive midfielders, but you can modify your tactics to suit your selection of course.

Defense

Bayern’s Hans-Jörg Butt gets my vote for goalkeeper of the Hinrude. That doesn’t turn him into a surprise candidate for Germany’s World Cup squad. Butt has his weaknesses coming off the line and he also made the odd mistake. But I think Bayern’s keeper had the biggest impact on games, with world class saves in crunch situations. Also, that penalty against Juventus gives him a bonus point for also scoring a crucial goal in a crunch situation. He certainly contributed a lot to Bayern’s November turnaround.

Picking a central defender pairing is difficult, as there is an embarrassment of riches to chose from this time. I’ll go with Cologne’s Pedro Geromel and Leverkusen’s Sami Hyypiä. Geromel is organizing and running the third best defense of the league and does it with the help of an in-form Mondragon in goal and his solid sidekick Mohamad, but that’s all the minimal help he gets. Cologne conceded four goals in two games without him and eleven goals in fifteen matches with him on board. Hyypiä has pretty much done the same at Leverkusen, but also managed to make an average defender like Manuel Friedrich look so good, that the easily deceived Kicker rated him almost as highly as Hyypiä.

The fullback position is the weakest position of the Bundesliga and Felix Magath playing Rafinha in midfield didn’t help either. Still, I need two for my formation and will chose Leverkusen’s Gonzalo Castro and Bayern’s Philipp Lahm. Not that Lahm’s season is standing out in any way, but if nobody else catches your eye during a season, you can always fall back on Lahm as a safe choice.

Midfield

Dortmund’s Nuri Sahin and Hamburg’s Ze Roberto run the show in the center, while Bremen’s Mesut Özil and Hamburg’s Eljero Elia deliver the creative sparks. When Sahin debuted in the Bundesliga he was only 16 years old, so despite being only 21 it feels like he has been around forever. Sahin is having his breakout season and is running Dortmund’s midfield with a maturity and consistency you wouldn’t expect from such a young player. Ze Roberto is already 35 years old but it feels like he just turned 21. Which makes for a great grand daddy – grand son combo, where you can’t really tell who is who. Mesut Özil has been voted the best overall player of the Hinrunde, which is just about good enough to make my team. Although, my personal favorite is Elia, with his extra pace and work rate.

Attack

While I have to admit, that I’m not entirely convinced about his overall class, Leverkusen’s Stefan Kießling deserves to be on this team for his current great run of form resulting in 12 goals. He is joined by Wolfsburg’s Edin Dzeko, who is still the league’s best striker, despite his club’s struggles. He scored seven and assisted six goals and had more shots on goal than any other striker (76) in the Bundesliga. He scored four goals in six Champions League matches, scored and assisted two goals during Wolfsburg’s brief DFB-Pokal campaign and has also been on target for his national team. AC Milan’s struggles to find a way to finance a deal, will be worth all the hassle.

Your turn.

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Category: Bundesliga