Salma Mitha has joined the ESPN Soccernet podcast this week as their Bundesliga correspondent. While it is understandable that the great Uli Hesse-Lichtenberger wouldn't have time to spend on a podcast, I do feel that it was a positive sign by ESPN, who produces a bi-weekly podcast dedicated to the EPL and MLS to try and include our great league in their discussion.

Following a busy season, Rafael Honigstein of The Guardian and Footbo was kind enough to talk with me and address a few questions I had about the end of the season and the start to the silly season.

Which player(s) surprised you the most this season?

a) Misimovic.

Believe it or not, we are just a week away from the start of another glorious Bundesliga season. Having taken the summer off from worrying about football (and cramming in seven Harry Potter books into those months), it is time to dive head-deep into my favorite passion.

The difficult thing about this year is that the season will start nearly a month before the end of the transfer window.

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 [.

While it comes out in September, I was fortunate enough to get an advanced copy of Englischer Fussball: A German's View of our Beautiful Game. It was handed to me by the man himself. But there was a problem with his timing. Rafa had handed this book to me right in the middle of book seven in the Harry Potter series.