2013-14 German Bundesliga Thread: Bayern Champs Again

Foye · Post #41 » by **Foye** » Thu Jul 4, 2013 8:09 am

J-Mezzy wrote:Lol at Gotze showing up to his Bayern introduction wearing a Nike t-shirt

Nike >>>> Adidas

Point forward · Post #42 » by **Point forward** » Thu Jul 4, 2013 9:00 am

Kahn_2001 wrote:As much as I love bayern, I hope to see a new champion this season. I know it will be very hard, but I don't want the bundesliga turning into the Spanish league.

Realistically, only Dortmund can beat them, and MAYBE Leverkusen or Schalke if they totally overachieve. But I am not too confident that Dortmund can become champs with this projected lineup:

Weidenfeller
Sokratis (Piszczek injured), Hummels, Subotic, Schmelzer
Gündogan, Reus, Bender
Kuba, Lewa, Aubameyang (?)

Also, their bench basically consists of MF Sebastian Kehl, MF Nuri Sahin, ST Kevin Großkreutz, and ST Julian Schieber. They are so thin on defense that it is not even funny.

Post #43 » by **ATL Boy** » Thu Jul 4, 2013 9:40 am

The best defender of the German 2. Bundesliga last year, Ermin Bicakcic, is officially a member of the Bosnian National Team!! Now we just gotta wait for Kolasinac

Point forward · Post #44 » by **Point forward** » Thu Jul 4, 2013 9:56 am

ATL Boy wrote:The best defender of the German 2. Bundesliga last year, Ermin Bicakcic, is officially a member of the Bosnian National Team!! Now we just gotta wait for Kolasinac

Darn, and I thought he was going to play for us.
(But then, Ermin is not a member of Bayern, Dortmund or Stuttgart, so Jogi would have snubbed him anyway. :X)

Det the Threat · Post #45 » by **Det the Threat** » Thu Jul 4, 2013 11:09 am

Nothing note worthy for the 1st Bundesliga, but still probably interesting for the american folks here.

Borussia Mönchengladbach has signed 19 year old striker Mario Rodrigues from Kaiserslautern. He scored lots of goals for Kaiserslauterns under 19 squad last season and will play for the 2nd team of Gladbach this upcoming season.

Currently, he just played at the under 20 world cup for the United States squad.

Point forward · Post #46 » by **Point forward** » Thu Jul 4, 2013 11:28 am

Det the Threat wrote:Borussia Mönchengladbach has signed 19 year old striker Mario Rodrigues from Kaiserslautern. He scored lots of goals for Kaiserslauterns under 19 squad last season and will play for the 2nd team of Gladbach this upcoming season. Currently, he just played at the under 20 world cup for the United States squad.

Always hurts to see our young Lautern talents go, but Rodrigues would not have had much playing time behind Idrissou, Bunjaku, Occean, Matmour, Derstroff, Zoller and Zellner, and in Gladbach, he "only" has Kruse, de Jong and Mlapa. Also, Gladbach plays one league higher.

(Knowing our luck, Rodrigues will become the second Miro Klose :X)

Foye · Post #47 » by **Foye** » Thu Jul 4, 2013 11:01 pm

So what are your predictions for the upcoming season?

Mine:
Meister: Bayern Munich
DFB Pokal: Borussia Dortmund
CL spots: BVB, S04, Leverkusen
EL spots: Gladbach, Wolfsburg (+ maybe Stuttgart if the Cup finalist is already qualified for Europe)
Most disappointing season: Hamburg
Relegated: Augsburg, Braunschweig
Promoted: Köln, Lautern

Most goals: Lewandowski
Most assists: Ribery
Most g+a: Kießling

I think this year it will be really close from spot 8 to 17.

As for Mainz 05, I'm just hoping we have a strong start to the season and can seperate us a bit from the relegation spots.
We need another quality winger and a striker if we want to be out of relegation trouble. However, I think our policy this year is investing in infrastructure instead of players. :-?

Hopefully, this won't turn out as a boomerang.

We had a terrible 2nd leg of 12/13 and important players are leaving us (Szalai, Ivanschitz). The new acquisitions (Geis, Polter, Moritz, Okazaki) don't exactly scream awesome at me.

El Turco · Post #48 » by **El Turco** » Fri Jul 5, 2013 1:29 am

champion for next 5 years: bayern munich

cgf · Post #49 » by **cgf** » Fri Jul 5, 2013 1:50 am

I actually think Dortmund will win the salad bowl if they hold onto Lewa. I expect Bayern to regress to the mean a little and lose the unstoppable fire that made them such a machine to finally end the losing. Plus I expect a little adjustment period as everyone adapts to Pep. If Lewa's still there so they can bring Aubs along slowly I think Dortmund are more likely to come out of the gates firing and maintain it than Bayern.

I've got Bayern and Schalke getting the two autospots with Leverkusen favorites for 4th, although seeing Gladbach or Stuttgart bounce them from that spot wouldn't surprise me at all and I honestly expect one them to do it, even if I do like what Kusen have done so far this summer in filling their holes.

Massimo · Post #50 » by **Massimo** » Fri Jul 5, 2013 3:43 am

El Turco wrote:champion for next 5 years: bayern munich

/end of this subject

Maex · Post #51 » by **Maex** » Fri Jul 5, 2013 11:13 am

Massimo wrote:
El Turco wrote:champion for next 5 years: bayern munich

/end of this subject

Funny, I heard that in the last 20 years a couple of times :lol:

Point forward · Post #52 » by **Point forward** » Tue Jul 9, 2013 9:15 am

Dortmund will have the most tongue twisting / letter eating squad in BL history :lol:

Weidenfeller
Piszczek
Subotic
Papasthapopoulos
Schmelzer
Gündogan
Blasczykowski
Mkhitaryan
Großkreutz
Aubameyang
Lewandowski

Who needs guys with boring names like Kehl or Reus :rofl:

Foye · Post #53 » by **Foye** » Tue Jul 9, 2013 10:41 am

They should look for an upgrade over Subotic. Not enough letters in his name.

Maex · Post #54 » by **Maex** » Tue Jul 9, 2013 10:44 am

Will be interesting to see how they line up. Are some of the new players starting, and Kuba comes of the bench? Will Reus play as a winger with Mkhitaryan in the middle?

This might be my preferred line up (also I didn't see to much of the new players):

--------------Lewa--------------
-Reus--------Mkhitar--------Auba-
-------Bender-----Gündogan-------
Schmelzer-Subotic-Hummels-Piszczek*
-----------Weidenfeller-------------

*Sokratis as long as Piszczek is injured.

Or they play Aubameyang straight in the front and bench Lewa, while Kuba is in the starting 11.
Other option would be to play Mkhitar in the front, Reus in the middle, Auba on the left and Kuba at the right.

Anyway they got some new options and very flexible players. They still need a couple of players to fill the bench.

Foye · Post #55 » by **Foye** » Tue Jul 9, 2013 11:00 am

I.expect Bender or Großkreutz to play RB.

Probably only Mkhitaryan.will be a starter right away from the new.additions.

Foye · Post #56 » by **Foye** » Tue Jul 9, 2013 11:21 pm

I know pre-season and blabla but Greuther freaking Fürth just beat Celtic Glasgow 6-2. :lol:

And we are talking about almost first XI from Celtic.

Point forward · Post #57 » by **Point forward** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 8:41 am

Bayern and Dortmund had their first serious games. Still too early to conclude anything, but the formations are interesting. With Schweini and Götze injured, Robben in light training only and the Confed guys on holiday (LG, Dante, Javi) Pep wheeled out a 4-1-4-1: Neuer - Lahm, van Buyten, Boateng, Alaba - Hojbjerg - Shaqiri, Müller, Kroos, Ribéry - Mandzukic

ATM Klopp favors the 4-2-3-1 with these guys: Weidenfeller - Sokratis, Subotic, Hummels, Schmelzer - Bender, Sahin - Kuba, Mkhitaryan, Reus - Lewa

Foye · Post #58 » by **Foye** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 9:28 am

So is Pep trying to create another tiki taka machine by signing Thiago and moving Javi to CB?

I gotta.say Im not a fan of this. I dont think a ball possession based play gives Bayern the most chances to.win in CL since they are a great counter attacking side. All teams will go into.park.the bus mode against them.

cgf · Post #59 » by **cgf** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 4:14 pm

Bayern have been behind only Barca in their patient possession based play. Sure their wingers let them counter well to, but their game has been about retention and patience for a long time now. Thiago will back up Schweini and Kroos in front of Javi with Gotze shifting between the front 3 and Kroos' spot as well.

Foye · Post #60 » by **Foye** » Thu Jul 11, 2013 6:17 pm

cgf wrote:Bayern have been behind only Barca in their patient possession based play. Sure their wingers let them counter well to, but their game has been about retention and patience for a long time now. Thiago will back up Schweini and Kroos in front of Javi with Gotze shifting between the front 3 and Kroos' spot as well.

Heynckes was still leaving them enough room to utilize their counter attacking strengths...which wasn't the case under van Gaal and also a huge reason why he failed in his 2nd year.

Lineups from Pep will look a lot like this:

Mandzukic
Ribery-Götze-Müller
Schweini-Thiago
Alaba-Dante-Javi-Lahm
Neuer

Honestly, I think Bayern are already at the max. possession that a team should have in a game. You need to give possession to the opponent, too. Sometimes you need to force the opponent to go into attacking mode before you'll be able to score a goal...now if you have like 70+% possession you are sacrifising a lot of potential errors that the opponent could do while trying to set up own attacks.

It will be no problem in the Bundesliga other than maybe against Dortmund but I don't think it's a good approach to aim for 65+% possession in CL ties against teams like Real Madrid who are lethal on the counter attack.