It was
Tim Vickery who said that of all the unimportant things in the world, football is the
most important. So while Germany comes to terms with the death of
Robert Enke, let us take a
few moments to reflect on trivial yet happier matters, namely last weekend's Bundesliga action.
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This week's Bundesbag was all set to go when we heard of the sudden death of the German
international Goalkeeper
Robert Enke. The Hannover 96 goalkeeper took over as Germany's
Number 1 after Jens Lehmann retired last year.
The circumstances surrounding his death are not confirmed at the time of writing but it is quite
clear that they are of the most tragic kind.
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Every league experiences them, sometimes more than once. That's a weekend where the championship
contenders all contrive to lose the initiative.
We'll begin with a shock defeat to Hamburg who were at home to
'Gladbach. A fixture, rare in
the Bundesliga as one in which you should have been able to put the house on a home win.
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It is very likely that
Stuttgart coach
Markus Babbel may be out of the job after the
forthcoming weekend. He received the
dreaded vote of confidence after their 1-0 defeat to
improving
Hannover 96 last Saturday but the club's Sporting Director
Horst Heldt made
it clear that he was looking for a response against the 2 Bundesliga side
Greuther Furth in
the German Cup (DFB Pokal) on Tuesday.
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I think the jury is still out on
Bayer Leverkusen as title contenders. So far this season
Jupp Heynckes team have beaten Hoffenheim, Freiburg, Bochum, Wolfsburg, Koln and Nurnberg.
Of those six results, only two were against teams from the top half of the table. More pertinently,
when they have played fellow contenders Bayer have come up short.
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It didn't take long for the bottom club Hertha to appoint a new coach after parting company with
Lucien Favre only days after Week 7.
Friedhelm Funkel had had a distinguished spell
at Frankfurt up until last season. However, he was let go in the summer in the hope that a new
manager will be able to inject some new zest in the side.
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There is something reassuring about a 1-0 win, particularly in top of the table clashes. 1-0 says a
keenly-contested game between two well-matched teams. 1-0 says attrition, tension, hard work and
good defending. 1-0 says a hard-fought, well-earned win. Unlike your 4-3 which says knockabout
hi-jinks and grown men wearing party hats.
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Cup Fever gripped Germany this week as the Second Round of the DFB Pokal took place on Tuesday and
Wednesday. The first round saw a few Bundesliga scalps claimed and a managerial casualty to boot.
While it is unlikely that any coaches will be tugging nervously at their collars today, there are a
few Bundesliga clubs who have a little more time on their hands thanks to dramatic defeats at the
hands of lower division teams.
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When
Thomas Tuchel took charge of
Mainz on the eve of the Bundesliga season, eyebrows
were raised and concerns expressed. What chance would a newly promoted club have? What chaos must
they be in to change managers before a ball is kicked? Well, it looks as though we needn't have
worried.
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Public displays of fake unity are never entirely convincing. Take Brown and Blair in the 2005
election campaign or Ritchie and Madonna in the final days of their marriage. However, the
post-goal celebration between
Franck Ribery and his boss
Louis van Gaal was
positively coital in its intensity.
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There is a good reason why I'm a mere football blogger and Louis Van Gaal is a successful football
manager and here's it is. When the news broke that Arjen Robben was signing for Bayern Munich I
scoffed. "Pah!" I said "What do Bayern need another winger for. They need an attacking central
midfielder, not competition for Franck Ribery.
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Anybody who uses the phrase "Hat's off!" is my kind of fella. That's why I like
Mainz coach
Thomas Tuchel. Not only has he taken control of his squad with less than a week's notice
prior to the start of the season following the dramatic dismissal of his predecessor, but when he
masterminded his team's magnificent 2-1 victory over the mighty
Bayern Munch at the weekend,
he proudly uttered the words "Hats off to my team".
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OK so we're only two games in but could we be seeing the early signs of how the new Bundesliga
season is going to shape up? At the end of last season, most pundits believed that Wolfsburg might
dip somewhat following their magnificent success last season and the inevitable departure of their
best forwards, not to mention that of Svengali coach Felix Magath.
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There are few sweeter occasions in the football calender than the opening day of a northern
European season. The sun shines down on the supporters of every club who turn up in their droves to
welcome the players back. The players themselves, grateful to be back in business after the tedium
of pre-season, can't wait to get started.
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And lo, the German club football season did come to a halt. Last week the Bundesbag took you
through the final round of what has been a vintage season for the Bundesliga. If you followed us
for the last ten months as a novice, you picked the right season to get involved. You may not
encounter a campaign quite as exciting as this one but the Bundesliga will still be relied upon to
produce unpredictable results and unlikely heroes in the future.
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In the end it was pretty straightforward. Nevertheless,
Wolfsburg have actually done it.
They are the German Champions for the first time ever.
Congratulations go to the players, particularly their impressive attackers
Dzeko,
Grafite and
Misimovic. Kudos should also be extended to their coach
Felix
Magath who has taken a club that was, for years, the very definition of mid table
mediocrity and transformed them into, not only the best team in Germany but one of the most
exciting teams in Europe.
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I can say with complete honesty that it's been a long time since I enjoyed a match day as much as I
did last Saturday. The permutations and complications leading up to the climax of the Bundesliga
season are such that in every game, something important was happening.
In Hannover, the home side were helping Wolfsburg shore up their goal difference by getting tonked
5-0 by the Wolves.
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With two rounds of matches this week I thought it was best to wait until today before posting this
week's Bundesbag. I'm glad I did because there have been even more twists and turns at both the top
and bottom of the Bundesliga table.
Last week, we speculated as to whether the news of
Wolfsburg coach
Felix Magath's
move to
Schalke at the end of the season would have a negative affect on the team,
particularly since their next fixture was against the side in uber-form,
Stuttgart.
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As previously threatened, the Bundesbag unmasks its official guide to the run-in of the Bundesliga
season. Join us as we look at the runners and riders at the top and bottom of the Europe's most
exciting league.
(Click on tables for a larger version.)
The Title Race
VfL Wolfsburg
Some potentially tough fixtures for the Wolves.
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For the second week running the Bundesbag begins with off-the-pitch shenanigans. Last week we
considered the dramatic removal of Jurgen Klinsmann as Bayern coach. This week, the Bundesliga
headlines are dominated by the sensational news of league leaders Wolfsburg's manager Felix Magath
who will join Schalke at the end of the season.
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Well, the story of the weekend would have been about Wolfsburg finally losing after a ten-match
winning streak and missing out on the record by one game. Alternatively, you could spin it another
way, and make the story about the victors, Cottbus. Their stunning 2-0 win comes just one week
after they were humiliated at Schalke and the club refunded their travelling supporters for the
price of their tickets.
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It happens very occasionally (in fact this is the first time it's happened this season) and when it
does I either have to front up and pretend it never happened or 'fess up and admit that it has. I
am, of course, talking about missing the Bundesliga highlights on TV. I won't go into the whys and
wherefores of the circumstances behind my missing the programme for fear of turning this blog into
a rant about Setanta's Scheduling Team.
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Well, it's taken them nine straight wins and ten games unbeaten in all but Wolfsburg are finally
top of the Bundesliga. And they're not top by a squeak either. There is in fact an enormous gulf of
3 (three) points behind the swarm of teams immediately behind them. OK that may not seem like much,
but by this season's standards it's a gaping chasm.
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The Wolfsburg v Bayern game was always going to be a classic. However, none who sat down to watch
the game could have anticipated what was to follow. The home sides 5-1 victory was an act of
deconstruction topped off by a moment of sporting genius.
Christian Geltner got things kicked off before Luca Toni equalised.
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Borussia Monchengladbach have clearly not read the script. Doomed before Christmas, not even the
magical powers of their coach and serial Houdini Hans Meyer looked likely to save them. After
Christmas, however, the green shoots of recovery could just be made out at Borussia Park.
Now it's official!
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The Bundesliga is beginning to turn into the championship that no-one seems to want but almost
anyone can win. At the start of the season, most commentators would have felt on safe ground by
looking to the usual suspects for a title race. Schalke, Werder and Hamburg would challenge before
falling away to scrap for the European places with Leverkusen, Wolfsburg and A N Other, perhaps
Dortmund.
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Usually, the Bundesbag is written and ready for action on Wednesdays. This is because I like to
watch the Bundesliga highlights on Tuesday nights and make some notes before getting down to
business. However, this Tuesday, those fine people at the Setanta Sports Scheduling Department
chose to move the highlights package to a much later timeslot in favour of something called UFC 95.
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It's been a fantastic weekend of dramatic results in the Bundesliga and almost impossible to know
where to start. Almost, but not quite for this was the week that Hertha Berlin rose to the top of
the table for the first time since 2006. Not only that but the team from the capital have never
topped the table in the second half of the season (Rückrunde) in the history of the
Bundesliga.
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Subscribers to SPAOTP may have noted with no small amount of mirth that yours truly is not the best
predictor. A cursory glance at the new Four To Follow table will tell you that. So when the
Bundesbag boldly predicted the demise of Karlsruhe and 'Gladbach to the 2 Bundesliga without giving
them a chance to demonstrate their fighting qualities, the writing was on the wall.
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You may recall, just before the Bundesliga's winter break, the first ever league match between the
traditional powerhouse of German football Bayern Munich and the new upstarts/young pretenders
Hoffenheim at the Allianz Arena. It was a pulsating match between the top two teams which resulted
in the current champions Bayern snatching a win right at the death.
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There are few things we Englanders enjoy more than a good German stereotype. Efficiency, electronic
music, good beer and appalling hair being the most prominent examples. Hard work being another.
It's also nice to see some of these stereotypes challenged and the Bundesliga winter break
certainly does that.
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The unofficial Autumn Championship may not be the most prestigious title in world football.
However, it is Hoffenheim's title and no one else's. Mind you they clinched it in a pretty
unconvincing way with a 1-1 draw against Schalke who were down to nine men.
The Bundesbag was bold enough to predict that the Hoff would come unstuck in this fixture and was
proved right in a way (although in a more accurate way I was wrong, but never mind).
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