Wir stehen auf Platz acht, das ist nicht normal, das kann nicht sein.
Louis van Gaal, Trainer des FC Bayern München, vor dem Spiel gegen den Spitzenreiter Bayer 04
Leverkusen. Sollte er das Spiel verlieren, werden seine Tage bei den Bayern wohl gezählt sein.
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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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Für mich war es nie ein Thema, mit welcher Nummer ich in München auf der Bank sitze.
Toni Kroos, Mittelfeldspieler bei Bayer 04 Leverkusen, im Rückblick über seine Zeit beim FC
Bayern München. Uli Hoeness hatte ihm damals die Nummer 10 reserviert...
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The top of the league collectively dropped points, allowing Hoffenheim to close the gap but not
much more. The bottom of the league collectively dropped points, allowing Hertha to keep dreaming
about Bundesliga survival but not much more.
Rookie Coach of the Year. Also known as the Markus Babbel Trophy.
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A few years ago Toni Kroos was hailed as the next big thing in German football. He won the best
player award at the 2007 U17 World Cup, joined Bayern Munich and was promised the #10 jersey. Far
from claiming the shirt he instead commuted between Bayern's bench and the reserves. Meanwhile
other next big things popped up, won youth tournaments, first team starting spots and call ups to
the German national team.
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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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Bayern were busy exercising control and dominance. Leverkusen were busy defending. Hamburg were
busy passing the ball around. Creativity, inspiration and excitement were busy waiting for a date
that would never show up. Not this weekend.
Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars. VfB Stuttgart will host Sevilla in
the Champions League on Tuesday and then head off to Hannover for, what is now, a relegation
six-pointer.
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It wasn't a good weekend for exciting football. It was a good weekend for exciting numbers. Or
rather, a good weekend for those who can find numbers exciting.
619. Tim Wiese has kept a clean sheet for 619 minutes and counting. Remember,
he did so while playing for Werder Bremen.
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Another week, another victory! This week was a 4-0 route of Nuremburg. Bayer 04 have become,
along with HSV, one of the dominant teams in the Bundesliga. But it was only a year ago that Bayer,
under Bruno Labbadia had a blistering start. But it wasn't anything comparable to this start,
because the Werkself aren't just winning, their winning with panache and style.
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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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Extra Time. We can end the debate about where the seven minutes of extra time
came from in the Manchester derby. They were taken from the Bundesliga's three Sunday fixtures,
where the refs decided to call it a day after pretty much exactly 90 minutes. It's not really a
coincidence but rather an annoying habit.
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Bayer Leverkusen striker Stefan Kießling has enjoyed an excellent start to the season, scoring
one goal in each of the five matches he played. Neither Germany coach Jogi Löw nor Kießling
himself seem to fully trust his run of good form yet though, with the first not inviting him to the
national team and the latter turning to male specific rituals.
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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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Popular German Bundesliga club Bayer 04 Leverkusen (commonly called Bayer Leverkusen ) have
launched their Adidas 2009/10 away kit. Some of you might be familiar with kit design as it was
used by a number of teams during the 2008/09 season. These included the Houston Dynamo of MLS and
English Football League Championship sides Plymouth Argyle [.
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With this weeks 4-0 drubbing of England u21s by the German u21s, Die Mannschaft completed a
hat-trick of youth level European Championships (winning the u17, u19, and u21 tournaments). Such
success indicates that the future of the Bundesliga is bright, and that while the Serie A begins a
period of decline, the Premier League is used as a scapegoat for the failures of the English
national team, and La Liga devolves into a 2 horse race, the Bundesliga is poised to regain its
place amongst the top 3 leagues in Europe.
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In other words: our Wolfsburg Offside is looking for someone to take over and join our lively
Bundesliga family here at The Offside.
Please send your fake takeover applications to admin@nufc.co.uk and the real ones to
daryl@theoffside.com.
Update: Just as I write this post the Borussia Dortmund Offside goes up for auction as well.
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The Tunisian defender's contract with Leverkusen was over at the end of the 2008-09 season.
Hannover wasted little time signing the 25-year-old.
Hannover 96 general manager Jorg Schmadtke was focused on Haggui. Schmadtke noted at the club's
official website.
"Karim is a young lad, however he has picked up a lot of experience in the game," said
Schmadtke.
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The 25-year-old forward had a fantastic season at Leverkusen.
2008-09 Bundesliga stats -- 34 games, 21 goals, 4 assists, 142 shouts, 53 shots on goal
He has been capped 12 times for his native Germany and recorded his first international goal on
November 19, 2008 vs. England.
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Middlesbrough winger Stuart Downing will find his opportunities of finding serenity away from the
desolation congregating over the Riverside extremely limited upon being told that surgery is
required on his injured right foot – indefinitely ruling the 23-capped international out of
England's World Cup qualifiers against Kazakhstan and Andorra in June.
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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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9:30 ET Schalke 04 VS TSG Hoffenheim
9:30 ET Bayern Munich VS VfB Stuttgart
9:30 ET VfL Wolfsburg VS Werder Bremen
9:30 ET Arminia Bielefeld VS Hannover 96
9:30 ET Energie Cottbus VS Bayer Leverkusen
9:30 ET FC Cologne VS VfL Bochum
9:30 ET Karlsruhe VS Hertha Berlin
9:30 ET Borussia Monchengladbach VS Borussia Dortmund
9:30 ET Eintracht Frankfurt VS Hamburg SV
The Meisterschaft will hinge on Wolfsburg, whom only need a draw at home to Werder Bremen, who
wouldn't been keen on helping Bayern Munich in the first place.
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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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Bayern eventually overcome Klinsmann's bad karma with an emphatic 3-0 victory over Leverkusen and
with referee Thorsten Kinhöfer still confused about what constitutes a penalty nowadays following
the Champions League semis.
Had Klinsmann been still in charge, Bayern would have played poorly and van Buyten and
Demichelis would have conceded a penalty each.
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FootieDB 11 May @ 12:25 PM EST
German Bundesliga Pre-register at the NEW football site 11×2 today Bayern Munchen vs Bayer 04
Leverkusen LIVE Bayern Munchen - Bayer 04 Leverkusen HIGHLIGHTS
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Here is this week's round up of transfer rumors.
Of course the big news has been about Klinsmann's replacement. Wenger is probably off the table
after Rummenigge's pleasant comments about the Arsenal manager, but the list of manager's linked is
fairly absurd: Jol, Ancelotti, Van Gaal, Hiddink, Gerets, Hitzfeld, Veh, Mancini, Schuster, Sven
and Scolari.
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May is the dawning of the much-heralded ‘business end to the season', the fitting climax to the
sweat, tears and bloodshed which have been sacrificed to guarantee a euphoric finale. It is the
curtain-fall that differentiates the genuine victors from the once-threatening aspirants and
creates an opportunity to watch mesmerising history unfold in front of our very own eyes.
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Rampant Commercialism
19 Football Clubs Whose Names Incorporate Those Of Companies And Other Organisations
1. Airbus UK - Wales
2. Air India - India
3. Bayer 04 Leverkusen - Germany
4. Cable & Wireless Pointe Michel - Dominica
5. Camell Laird - England
6. Carl Zeiss Jena - Germany
7.
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With Hamburg's win today over Energie Cottbus, the Dinosaurs join Wolfsburg and Bayern Munich in a
three way log jam in second place behind surprise front runners Hertha Berlin. All four are four
points behind the pace with upstarts Hoffenheim a mere five points off the pace with just ten games
remaining.
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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 [.
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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.
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Eight teams went in, four went out and on the surface the romance of the cup is alive and well. On
the inside, those teams "surprisingly" eliminated are in a deep crisis. Mainz 05 1-0
Schalke 04 Is there anyone still keeping track of the number of setbacks Schalke has to endure this
season? They are [.
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