2011-12 Bundesliga - Dortmund Champion

[Foye]

http://www.goal.com/en/news/11/transfer-zone/2011/05/05/2471948/bayern-munich-to-include-luiz-gustavo-in-manuel-neuer-deal

Usually don't trust goal.com but if this is true would suck to be dumped within six months

Pretty sure Luiz Gustavo would reject such a transfer

[Slava]

Apparently Nuri Sahin is on his way to Madrid for 8 mil.

[Basti]

The other day I read it's been completed but yet to be made official. Then again, yesterday I read from the same newspaper that nothing has been completed yet.

[Foye]

2nd to last day in the Bundesliga today:

FC Schalke 04 - 1. FSV Mainz 05
FC St. Pauli - Bayern München
Werder Bremen - Borussia Dortmund
Bayer Leverkusen - Hamburger SV
1. FC Nürnberg - 1899 Hoffenheim
Eintracht Frankfurt - 1. FC Köln
Bor. Mönchengladbach - SC Freiburg
VfB Stuttgart - Hannover 96
VfL Wolfsburg - 1. FC Kaiserslautern

Questions of the day:
Can Leverkusen lock up the CL spot?
Can Mainz 05 lock up the EL spot?
Can St.Pauli surprise Munich today to catch the last glimpse of hope of not being relegated?
Who will escape relegation?

[Foye]

Lol @ Kjaer doing the same mistake twice in one half...

[Foye]

My Mainzer lock up the Euroleague by winning against Schalke

Munich is up 7-1 right now against St. Pauli lol.

[Foye]

I correct myself: 8-1

[Basti]

Oh boy, I'm soooooooo contemplating going to St. Pauli next season with my old 95/96 season Hansa jersey. That'll be fun

Oh and, yes, Frankfurt is about to get relegated, too. How I loathe that club.

[Sleepy]

Best loss of the season.

Looks like Wolfsburg and Frankfurt will go down & fight it out in the playoffs. Wouldn't miss either team, but I hope Wolfsburg goes down directly. Screw Magath!

... and that really is only the third worst coaching decision this year. 2nd place goes to Gladbach for not firing Fronzeck any sooner and the golden turd goes to Frankfurt for hiring Christoph Daum. On the 1-10 scale of worst possible #@!%-ups, that's a solid 11.

[Foye]

I have a feeling Wolfsburg and Gladbach will at least draw or even win their games against Hoffenheim and Hamburg (all away) while Frankfurt loses 0-3 in Dortmund.

Oh and given Schalke's current condition I can very well see Duisburg winning the German Cup.

Frankfurt will pretty much be done if they get relegated. They'll have to sell a lot of players for cheap.

[JAIL BLAZER]

Sleepy, not trying to start an argument but what's the problem with Daum?

[JAIL BLAZER]

Sleepy, not trying to start an argument but what's the problem with Daum?

[Sleepy]

Daum is an incredible poor fit for the Eintracht.
The Diva vom Main has this name for a reason; the worst thing that could happen to that team after their disastrous run to begin the second halve of the season was more distraction. Hiring a big media figure like Daum guaranteed lots of noise around the team at the worst possible moment. If you read through their forums or talk with fans (I'm Hessian), you'll see how split the fans are about firing Skibbe and hiring Daum and given the craziness and fanatism of the Frankfurt fans, opening such battlefields at this time was nothing short of suicide.

His troublesome past (running away from Cologne in 2007 and obviously the coke thing & Hoeness clash) dragged him and his team again in the spotlight. Not a good idea if the confidence of your players is shot and they are in a dire need of some calm, steady weeks to stop their nerves from shaking...

Their team should easily (!) be able to compete for Euroleague spots. Their rooster is stronger than Nürnerg, Freiburg, perhaps even Mainz. Skibbe had a very solid run to start the season, which was imho representative for what they could do...
... and then suddenly nothing. Not being able to score for how many games? By far the worst team after the Christmas break. It's obvious that something is not quite right with them mentally. If the club decided that Skibbe couldn't reach the team anymore, fine. But did they honestly think that Christoph "Ich hab ein vollkommen reines Gewissen" Daum could get their heads straight twentysomehting match-days in the season?!?
Daum has never been somebody especially close to his players, has never been a good motivator or communicator.

Furthermore, he didn't knew the league (quite a lot has changed in the Bundesliga since 08/09) and didn't have any insight in the situation beforehand. Both is vital for such an emergency signing.

And finally, was this supposed to be a long-term signing? I think so, cause Daum would be way to expensive to sign for just a handful of games. But if they are really planning to go with him into next season, then good luck. He'll clash with Bruchhagen on player signings, which won't end well for one of them. That's a setup destined to fail...

Seriously, when I first learned of the Daum signing, I thought they were kidding. Here you got a club with some of the highest potential in Germany, which is in dire need for some calm, solid development work to flesh out the rooster for the next years and form a team out of their individual talent... and then you sign the most scandal-prone coach in the history of German football, making sure that the main coverage will be done by the BILD instead of the Kicker...

[Foye]

I'll disagree with you on the Eintracht team being able to compete for the Euroleague spots Sleepy.

Their team isn't deep enough. That's why we see them struggling in the BL as well.
The only above average players for their positions they have are Maik Franz (yes I'm serious) and Patrick Ochs. The rest of their team just plain sucks. When you have to give minutes to Halil Altinflop, Ca "I can't pass my lactate test" IO and your captain is Ioannis " always injured" Amanatidis you can't fight for a Euroleague spot.
And yes, Gekas IMHO is average at best. He doesn't participate at all other than scoring a few goals. Basically, it's almost like you have to play 10 vs. 11 every game.
Even worse, they haven't got a single player who can organize their game on offense. Meier is incapable of running any team.
Hell St. Pauli is more dangerous when it comes to scoring goals.


I might be a bit harsh here considering I hate that club. But IMO their team is filled with below average players, lazy bums and talents that haven't managed to break out yet.

Any team (other than maybe Gladbach) that is above of them in the ranking does either have a more experienced, better, more talented and/or deeper team. Frankfurt's management just slept before the season.

Also a big SMH @ their fans storming the field and vandalizing after the game.
I didn't expect anything else from their Ultra's, though. I know quite a lot Eintracht Fans and even a lot of them admit that their Ultra's consist of a lot of chaotic douches.

[Sleepy]

Not being deep enough != not being good enough

Defensively the Eintracht is way above average. Jung-Franz-Chris-Tzavellas (Ochs-Russ-Rode-Köhler) is a good line, I've seen way, way worse from my Freiburger.

Up front, Fenin, Gekas and Altintop have all proven in the past that they can hit the goal. They are just all terribly out of form right now and all struggle with mental problems.. Altintop scored 20 goals in a season for Lautern and while this was probably a fluke, there was no reason to think he would struggle like that this year.
Imho, there's something crazy going on inside the team which bothers the players so much they are totally paralysed in front of the goal...

... and I find it hard to believe that Daum should be the right guy to fix that. Perhaps after the season, either in league one or two, when they've blow the team up and are looking for a total rebuild, but not now. Not as an emergency coach trying to drag them above the waterline.


Before the season, I had the Eintracht where my Freiburger are right now. Fighting for the 5-6 place for a while and then finishing 8-10th in the end. That looked pretty spot on till they totally fell apart after Christmas. No idea what is exactly wrong with them, but the individual talent is not their main problem.

[Foye]

I actually agree with you that Eintracht Frankfurt is a solid defensive team. Just not way above average. They got 46 goals against which is a relatively decent amount in the Bundesliga (it puts them 8th in goals against).
Offensively, however they're the worst team in the league.
Altintop had to play midfield all season long. He's not suited to play midfielder. Not fast enough, not enough condition and too bad of a defender. He wouldn't look so bad if he played next to Gekas as a striker.
I've never liked Fenin. Overrated IMO.

Finally, they've got no creativity at all in their midfield. Even St. Pauli has a midfield that is better at creating chances.

[Sleepy]

Frankfurt scored a very good 47 goals in 09/10. Better than Hoffenheim, Cologne and Mainz. They lost exactly nobody between the season who mattered (perhaps Steinhöfer, but come on ) but added Gekas.

There's really no good reason that explains why they all of a sudden can't hit the goal anymore. Skibbe failing to condition them properly and his stupid feud with Amanatidis were probably a factor and imho the Daum signing only made things worse.

[JAIL BLAZER]

BTW guys is there a website where I can read good analysis of the Bundesliga in English and not German translated to English like kicker.de.

[Sleepy]

You can try the English version of transfermarkt
http://www.transfermarkt.de/en/

It's probably not really what you're looking for, as it's mostly just an English interface to statistics and results, not really stories and analysis. You'll find a few English reports and bits, but most of the stuff is in German.


For real in-deep tactical analysis, go for http://www.zonalmarking.net
They cover the Bundesliga very rarely, but it's still interesting to read.


Finally there's the guardian, which got the best coverage of the Bundesliga of the English newspapers.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/bundesligafootball

That's all I can think of right now...

[Point forward]

Kaiserslautern rocks!! Marco Kurz and Stefan Kuntz are geniuses, dark horses for the trophies "Best Coach" and "Best Team Manager"



Anyway, not that far away, Frankfurt is in some deep relegation s***. (Not that I mind too much ) They are 17th now and play their last game in Dortmund (duh), and to top it all, their fans invaded the pitch and fought vs the police. And that guy who trashed this brand new 600.000 Euro super-slomo camera in the midst of this ruckus is going to get royally pwned...



... b/c last thing the camera recorded before he kicked it into the ground was his face.