2011-12 Bundesliga - Dortmund Champion

Point forward · Post #821 » by **Point forward** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 3:55 pm

New gameday, old dominators: Bayern just steamrollers Hertha 4-0, and Neuer has not conceded a BL goal since 800-odd minutes. Dortmund upsets Bremen despite playing with only 10 guys for 43 minutes, Gladbach and Leverkusen draw, Augsburg gets the 1st ever BL win vs Mainz, Stuttgart beats Hoffenheim in the Swabia derby, and Schalke surprisingly drops vs Lautern.

PS: 3 Schalke hooligans were arrested for throwing "blunt heavy objects" at visiting TV expert Markus Merk. Will they never learn :banghead:

Point forward · Post #822 » by **Point forward** » Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:19 pm

My BL Dream Team for the first quarter of the season:

----------------------------------------- Ter Stegen (Gladbach)

Lell (Berlin) --------- Dante (Gladbach) --------- Badstuber (Bayern) ------- Lahm (Bayern)

Götze (Dortmund) --- Schweinsteiger (Bayern) --- Kvist (Stuttgart) ------ Ribery (Bayern)

------------------------------ Gomez (Bayern) ------ Pizarro (Bremen)

Point forward · Post #823 » by **Point forward** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 7:29 am

Bayern gets a slightly unexpected loss vs Hannover and loses J. Boateng with a red card. Dortmund and Schalke charge forward, whereas Freiburg continues to lose.

DFB Pokal tonight, matches this evening are:

Leipzig - Augsburg
Unterhaching - Bochum
Düsseldorf - 1860
Heidenheim - M'gladbach
Dortmund - Dresden
Fürth - Paderborn
Trier - Hamburger SV
Hoffenheim - Köln

No "killer" matches per se, but the Dortmund match could be interesting.

Foye · Post #824 » by **Foye** » Tue Oct 25, 2011 11:03 am

Point forward wrote:My BL Dream Team for the first quarter of the season:

----------------------------------------- Ter Stegen (Gladbach)

Lell (Berlin) --------- Dante (Gladbach) --------- Badstuber (Bayern) ------- Lahm (Bayern)

Götze (Dortmund) --- Schweinsteiger (Bayern) --- Kvist (Stuttgart) ------ Ribery (Bayern)

------------------------------ Gomez (Bayern) ------ Pizarro (Bremen)

BILD? I thought he's not been so good this season. He's constantly getting overrun by opponents.
Then again one could argue that there's still no better left back in the Bundesliga. :-?

Dortmund will run over Dresden. This would've been an interesting match if it was in Dresden.

Foye · Post #825 » by **Foye** » Wed Oct 26, 2011 8:07 pm

Great stuff. Winless in the league for 8 games now my Mainzer at least win 1:0 over Hannover in the DFB Pokal after extra time. Props to Wetklo for saving a penalty in extra time.

Point forward · Post #826 » by **Point forward** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 9:18 am

Lautern gets an ugly 1-0 win vs our archrivals Frankfurt. Crappy play pays off if you a) shoot the only goal in the 119th minute and b) the opponent is too stupid to score himself.

With our DFB Pokal record, I bet that we get to play on the road vs a tough 2nd BL team like Greuther Fürth and get owned 0-3. (Come on, let's beat Bayern at home) :pray:

Foye · Post #827 » by **Foye** » Thu Oct 27, 2011 7:57 pm

A Mainz - Lautern game would be great.

Point forward · Post #828 » by **Point forward** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 4:52 pm

The entire week has been depressing - dominated by the ugly hooligan riots at the Dresden and Frankfurt/Lautern Pokal games. Violence just sucks!!

Concerning the game, Bayern just demolishes Nuremberg, Schalke gets a big win vs Hoffenheim, and BVB "just" gets a draw. In the DFB Pokal draw, my Lautern team AS USUAL!!!!!!!! :banghead:

gets to play a tough team on the road, namely Hertha BSC.

Stuttgart - HSV
Hoffenheim - Augsburg
Hertha - FCK
Düsseldorf - BVB
Kiel - Mainz
Gladbach - Schalke
Bochum - Bayern
Fürth - Nuremberg

Apart from Lautern, nice draw! Düsseldorf - BVB, Gladbach - Schalke and Fürth - Nuremberg are very attractive games. LOL at Fürth vs Nuremberg - that is the Frankenderby b/c these 2 cities are directly adjacent.

Point forward · Post #829 » by **Point forward** » Sun Nov 13, 2011 6:02 pm

Cologne never fails to disapppoint. After a string of boringly good games, president Wolfgang Overath and his entire front office abruptly quit their jobs on the annual general meeting. 1. FC Cologne is now w/o any official representation.

Heckler: "Remember Wolfgang, we only won our sole championship after you stopped playing for us!" :X

Foye · Post #830 » by **Foye** » Mon Nov 14, 2011 8:38 am

Expectations and reality never fit together in Cologne.

Point forward · Post #831 » by **Point forward** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 9:06 am

Another club with some internal friction seems to be Werder (!). Apparently, manager Klaus Allofs and FO leader Willi Lemke "cherish" a long simmering feud: Lemke wants to cut costs, but Allofs insists on buying new players. Even after selling Mertesacker, Werder still seems to have financial trouble, and matters are not helped by the fact that several of Allofs's recent big signings (Arnautovic, Ekici, Wolf, Silvestre, Wesley) have been shaky at best. Now that Allofs's contract is running out, Lemke is unwilling to give him a big new contract - but losing him would be huge of course.

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/sport/klaus- ... -1.1190074

Foye · Post #832 » by **Foye** » Wed Nov 16, 2011 5:09 pm

I don't think Werder is in financial trouble. They come off a season in which they made profit (thanks to the CL probably).
They should wait on how they finish the season. There's a decent chance they can get 3rd behind Bayern and Dortmund and then they don't have to sell anybody.

Allofs recent signings weren't that bad. Arnautovic, Ekici and Wolf all are 1st team material. Wesley isn't that bad either. Silvestre just sucks. Everyone knew it before, though.
Their stadium renovation might hit them a little right now without money from international competitions but they should be able to keep their best players, IMO. At worst they have to sell one.

Point forward · Post #833 » by **Point forward** » Fri Nov 18, 2011 12:48 pm

Big match of this WE: Bayern vs Dortmund. Munich can land a crushing blow if they win. Gomez is openly trying to recruit Götze, but in general, the atmosphere is pretty calm and business like.

Cologne and Mainz meet in the "Carnival derby". Expect a lot of costumed spectators

Foye · Post #834 » by **Foye** » Sat Nov 19, 2011 2:46 pm

Point forward wrote:Big match of this WE: Bayern vs Dortmund. Munich can land a crushing blow if they win. Gomez is openly trying to recruit Götze, but in general, the atmosphere is pretty calm and business like.

Cologne and Mainz meet in the "Carnival derby". Expect a lot of costumed spectators

Expect no spectators. It got canceled because the ref Babak Rafati attempted suicide.
Dunno what's up with soccer lately.
They sure all are under immense medial pressure but that's no reason to attempt suicide, IMO. If you can't handle medial pressure just quit on professional soccer or reffing. Critizism is always hard in that business but there's a million better solutions than attempting suicide. Just quit on soccer if you can't take it anymore.
Anyway, I hope he recovers.

Foye · Post #835 » by **Foye** » Sat Nov 19, 2011 3:42 pm

Reus is destroying Werder Bremen right now.
3 goals from Reus so far and the scoreline is 5-0 for Gladbach.

Edit: Wingenbach is terrible today. First he misses a clear penalty for Freiburg and then he takes away their equalizer, saying he hasn't blown the whistle for Freiburg to be allowed to take their corner (which resulted in the 2-2). Horrible.

Foye · Post #836 » by **Foye** » Sat Nov 19, 2011 6:34 pm

The Topspiel is rather boring right now. 0-0 both teams neutralize themselves. Munich with 67% possession but haven't been able to create more than 1 chance. Dortmund only had 1 good opportunity, too, but that was cleared by Rafinha.

Point forward · Post #837 » by **Point forward** » Sat Nov 19, 2011 7:28 pm

BVB somewhat surprisingly beats Bayern with 1-0 after a dry Götze strike with Boateng napping. Munich had plenty of ball possession, but woke up too late.

But tbh, after the Rafati tragedy, my heart is hardly in it.

Foye · Post #838 » by **Foye** » Sat Nov 19, 2011 7:34 pm

Bayern Munich's dead ball situations are so undangerous it's unbelieveable.

The average Kreisligateam has probably a greater variety of how to shoot a free/corner kick. All they do is play long balls inside. So predictable.

Point forward · Post #839 » by **Point forward** » Mon Nov 21, 2011 12:02 pm

IMHO Bayern ran into the one team that exposed their weakness: creating chances vs a massive midfield. BVB let Bayern come and shut down Ribery, Robben and Kroos with smart spacing, hard-but-clean tackling and immense running (Bender ran 13.1km!!) - and then quickly countered vs their relatively slow defenders. That being said, I still see Bayern as the team to beat: firstly, too few teams have the player material (Gladbach? Schalke?) to pull this off, and secondly Schweinsteiger will return after the XMas break.

With BVB, it is utterly stunning how good Hummels was vs Bayern, and how sucky he is in the NT. If he could transfer 50% of his BVB performance into the NT, we would bet set, but like this, our defense remains an issue.

BTW, Babak Rafati has returned home. I hope he recovers quickly :|

Foye · Post #840 » by **Foye** » Sat Nov 26, 2011 9:33 am

Gladbach surely has a scary run lately. Winning 3-0 in Cologne yesterday again.