The clubs at the top of the table keep crawling along. The clubs at the bottom keep sinking. Referees had a forgettable weekend and in between a player and a coach dropped bombshells.

Philipp Lahm. Bayern's disappointing draw at home against Schalke. Robben's moment of madness for which he should have seen a red card.

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We keep it strictly binary this week.

0. The combined number of goals Bayern's strike duo Miroslav Klose and Luca Toni scored so far this season.

1. The number of goals former Bayern striker Lukas Podolski scored so far this season. Lukas Podolski joined Cologne in the summer, after Klose and Toni were continuously given the nod ahead of him.

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Saturday's Bundesliga action coincided with the 19th anniversary of Germany's reunification, which conveniently is also the country's national holiday albeit without lethal fireworks or military parades. To celebrate the event Berlin went all out artsy with some megalomaniac puppeteering, while the Bundesliga chose a more pragmatic approach, by retelling the the events through football over 90 minutes.

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Hamburg remain in control of the top, Hertha remain in control of the bottom and with his wins over Bochum, Dortmund and the Schalke fans Felix Magath is now in total control of the Ruhr Valley.

Battle Chess. When a commenter on one of Germany's public broadcasters attempted to summarize and categorize the match between Hamburg and Bayern, he kept talking about this game being for tactic freaks, but with an uncertainty to his statements, as though he didn't really know what was going on and didn't want to admit to it.

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Sorry for letting this blog rot away in the late August sun for so many weeks. Other work took over and left some time but not much energy to spend on other things. But the team blogs have been bursting with energy all the more at the same time and a few more came back to life, so I guess there were still enough places on The Offside for Bundesliga related updates.

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Sorry for letting this blog rot away in the late August sun for so many weeks. Other work took over and left some time but not much energy to spend on other things. But the team blogs have been bursting with energy all the more at the same time and a few more came back to life, so I guess there were still enough places on The Offside for Bundesliga related updates.

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It's time to preview the eight most important teams of the upcoming Bundesliga season.

Bayern
Pre-Season: Bayern's pre-season started like all pre-seasons during odd numbered years by putting between 50 to 100 million Euros into circulation, to make up for not signing anyone during the even numbered years.

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The transfer period started with two early big money moves. In fact, very big money moves anywhere outside of Madrid. Diego sealed a transfer to Juventus for €24.5m, while Bayern were willing to spend €30m for Mario Gomez; further bonus payments not included.

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What good is a liveblog in a tape-delayed world? I have no idea. I'll leave this philosophical question unanswered and let our American readers deal with it.

For everyone else it's season 46 episode 34 of the Bundesliga. We've already been served 2970 minutes high on excitement and low on answers - the latter will have to be packed into the upcoming 90 minutes.

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Uli Hoeness predicted that this championship won't be decided on goal difference, but rather that someone would slip up, and he was right albeit in the wrong places.

Hannover 0-5 Wolfsburg. Except for the sell out crowd there was nothing really derby-ish about this game (and then, the last match at home usually tends to be a sell out anyway).

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I never heard of Goldman Morgenstern & Partners Financial Intelligence Service before, but they published a press release which lists the turnover of each Bundesliga club for the 2007/2008 season. The data seems to come from an article in the print edition of Kicker magazine. Said article supposedly dealt with the official Bundesliga report for [. Click to continue reading...

A running commentary of the weekend's Bundesliga action. Feel free to share your thoughts via the comments. This weekend all times will be Pacific Standard Time (PST, CET -9h) to help Landon Donovan get used to life in Los Angeles again. *** Friday [22.00] Schalke 1-0 Cologne Schalke scored a brilliantly strung together team goal. Click to continue reading...

A running commentary of the weekend's Bundesliga action. Feel free to share your thoughts via the comments. This weekend all times will be Peru Time (PET, CET -6h), in honor of Werder Bremen's man of the match against Milan: Claudio Pizzarro. *** Saturday [07.35] This edition is a bit late. I was out on Friday and could only [. Click to continue reading...

A running commentary of the weekend's Bundesliga action. Feel free to share your thoughts via the comments. I modified the format a bit and introduced timestamps. Due to the time-zone spanning super-global nature of this blog, I decided to feature a different timezone each week. In honor of one of our most frequent commenters I'll [. Click to continue reading...

A running commentary of the weekend's Bundesliga action. Feel free to share your thoughts via the comments. *** Friday Trivial pre-match stats: Hoffenheim have lost four of five top of the table clashes. Hoffenheim will play four of those five top of the table clashes at home in the second half of the season. Click to continue reading...

"It would have been unthinkable in our day." - The Kaiser on Ribery's Pink revolution. (BILD) Meet Klinsmann Coleiro from Malta. (American Arena) Mourning the death of loved ones through impressive goal tallies. (DW Ballspiel) Bundesliga takes football fans to the 21st century - i.e. the present. (Telegraph) Basically the same article again, but structured in a clean and [. Click to continue reading...

In the light of ever more Hoffenheim table topping, coverage and hype, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at how much of their success is Dietmar Hopp's money and how much of it is Ralf Rangnick's genius. While at it, I decided to do the same for the remaining 17 Bundesliga [...] Click to continue reading...

A must read interview with Hoffenheim's sugar daddy Dietmar Hopp. (Spiegel Online) The swimsuit edition of the Hoffenheim story. And a small correction: the article quotes Ralf Rangnick as saying Hoffenheim has the same budget as Energie Cottbus. He was comparing Hoffenheim's wage budget (€23m) with Cottbus' overall budget (€23m). Click to continue reading...

Reviewing this year's Bundesliga kits pt.1 (oldfootballshirts.com) Reviewing this year's Bundesliga kits pt.2 (oldfootballshirts.com) Reviewing the history of kit sponsors in the Bundesliga. (ESPN Soccernet) Reviewing the life of someone who looks after all those kits. (DW Bundesliga Kick Off! - VOD - MP4) An interview with Germany's in-form striker Patrick Helmes. Click to continue reading...

When a Brazilian girl on the streets of New York starts to chant the carnival song Viva Colonia... ..and when a bunch of kids in South Africa join in... ...and when 50000 fans in Cologne's Rhein Energie Stadion do the same... ...then this global Cologne lovefest can only be explained with this: A rare big win against a big [. Click to continue reading...

The table never lies: Hamburg are on top. (Bundesliga Talk) That's why Rod Gilmor looks at the mixed fortunes of Martin Jol's current and former club. (Telegraph) Goals Lukas Podolski can actually celebrate become a rare sight. (Ballspiel) New Axis of Evil: you're either with Hoffenheim or against Hoffenheim. Click to continue reading...

Germany's worst football team is looking for sponsors. (Spiegel Online) Why take a new photo of Jens Lehmann, when an intern with a pirated copy of Photoshop does the trick for VfB Stuttgart? (The Local) Seven reasons why the Bundesliga is better than the English Premier League. (Bundesliga Talk) The grass is always greener. Click to continue reading...

Our regular reader Luke has volunteered to provide us with some previews for the upcoming DFB-Pokal first-round ties. He decided to begin with FC Cologne to make sure he gets into my good books. Clever... SV Nierderauerbach vs 1. FC Köln August 7, 2008 20:30 CET Sportpark Husterhöhe, Pirmasens 1. FC Köln Last Cup appearance: 2007-08 Last Cup title: 1982-83 Last year: [. Click to continue reading...

14 days till kick-off. The team blogs are buzzing with activity. This blog is slowly recovering from its' summer hibernation. Following the Weekly Dose's triumphant return to this blog, it's now time to have regular week-in-review posts again as well. Abby spent her time patiently waiting for Etoile's Amine Chermiti. Click to continue reading...

I skipped one week, because I wasn't busy enough collecting links. But here's an extra long episode you can skim through while listening to a Finnish YMCA cover. Frank Ribery plays keepy-up with a cartoon bomb to promote FIFA08. (Who Ate All The Pies) The Bundesliga is a league in transition. (New York Times) The Bundesliga is a [...] Click to continue reading...

This years second division (2. Bundesliga) has often been dubbed as the best ever. Part of it has been marketing by the TV stations, who hold the broadcasting rights, the other bit is true. There is an undoubtedly high number of former Bundesliga mainstays trying to make it back up to the top flight. To [...] Click to continue reading...

This year's second division (2. Bundesliga) has often been dubbed as the best ever. Part of it has been marketing by the TV stations, who hold the broadcasting rights, the other bit is true. There is an undoubtedly high number of former Bundesliga mainstays trying to make it back to the top flight. To spice [...] Click to continue reading...