We can only hope that young players begin to take notice of Bayern Munich's youth policy, which is to strip other clubs of their promising youth, destroy their confidence and send them out on loan as disappointments. With Podolski, Hummels and Kroos all finding new homes in January, it's obvious that Bayern have become the only [.

Bild is reporting that Marko Marin will leave cellar-dwelling Borussia Mochengladbach at the end of the season. This comes as little surprise, as most of us assumed that unless Gladbach escaped relegation, the wonderkid would move to greener pastures, especially with his German National team future to consider.

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 [.

1. Hertha Berlin (2-1 home win against Bayern) Just think how good this team could be with half their starters back. Actually it probably wouldn't be much better as those injuries haven't been significant to their back line, and that is where the strength of the Old Lady lies. I will say, that after [.

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 [.

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.

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.

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 [.

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.

Finally Dusseldorf has come good for visiting dignitaries Bayer Leverkusen. After a poor run of form in the league at the LDU, the Werkself took apart Bayern Munich 4-2 in their temporary home to gain passage to the final four of the DFB Pokal. Klinsmann tinkered with his lineup a bit as [...]

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.

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.

• Clean it like the Kaiser. (The Local)
• Bayer may be only second in the Bundesliga but are top of the York Monday Six-a-side Football Leisure League. (The Press)
• Horst Hrubesch's crossbar challenge pwns Ronaldinho's crossbar challenge. (FANartisch)
• We've got our first title candidate (or second if you consider Bayern automatic seeds).

• The next generation of hooliganism is digital. (ESPN Soccernet).
• To attend Hertha's home games in Berlin's Olympiastadion just walk down Jesse Owens Alley and then turn left onto Mullholland Drive. (Ballspiel)
• Tim Vickery gives his verdict on some of the Bundesliga's South American imports.

• The merits and shortcomings of football's hire and fire practices. (Deutsche Welle)
• The merits and shortcomings of a controlled offense. (Guardian)
• The merits of Werder Bremen and the shortcomings of Bayer Leverkusen. (Some People are on the Pitch)
• The merits of having millers as ancestors.

Bayer Leverkusen returned to form and dismantled league leaders Hoffenheim in front of 30,000 at the Rhein-Neckar Arena. Scoring two minutes into the match set them up for an inspired first half and scoring again one minute into the second half sealed the three points for die Werkself. Hoffenheim struggled to find defensive [.

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 [.

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 [.

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.

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

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.

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

This week we pay tribute to the Fibonacci sequence and wonder what Hertha has to do with it.

0. Bayer Leverkusen haven't lost a game in the Bundesliga yet. They are the only undefeated team. It's still a bit early to say the title is their's to lose, but the doubts concerning the team's title credentials derived from the club's Neverkusen past are fading away.

... and the table clearly wants Hertha to win their first ever Bundesliga title this season. Why would a Bundesliga table otherwise decide to read like the standard chant of Hertha fans: Ha Ho He, Hertha BSC? Exactly. And now excuse me, I'm busy with my new assignment to look for patterns in magazines and [.

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.

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.

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.

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.