The Bundesliga Blog | DW-WORLD

The soundtrack to a season in hell

So it’s 7PM, Friday evening, I’m thinking about having a quiet night, getting some sleep before an early-morning sports shift. The phone rings. My mate Magnus.

“Do we want to put ourselves through this?”

“Of course.”

An hour later, I’m in Bar 11, waiting for last-placed Hertha to get hammered by Leverkusen. Only, the funny thing is: we don’t. In fact, we play pretty well, go up early on a nifty goal in the 8th minute.

We hold that lead for over an hour. Victory is in sight. Something must be wrong here. This is Hertha, this is 2009. We never win.

My mate Lars bets me 5 euros that the misery is finally over. I take the bet. Leverkusen score out of nowhere. Then go ahead in the 90th minute on a ridiculous deflection. Lars pays up.

Hertha score a last minute equalizer. So close to a win and yet so far away. The regulars in the bar don’t know whether to be glad, sad, mad or indifferent.

I make my way back home through a frigid Berlin winter night, thinking: If this nightmare were a film, what would be on the soundtrack. I came up with the following.

Radiohead - Let Down
Cheap Trick – Auf Wiedersehen
Built to Spill – Things Fall Apart
Hüsker Dü – Everything Falls Apart
RL Burnside – It’s Bad, You Know
Belle and Sebastian – Get Me Away From Here, I’m Dying
Johnny Cash – Hurt
Guided By Voices – Game of Pricks
Bob Dylan – Desolation Row
Ween – Help Me Scrape the Mucus Off My Brain
dEUS – Worst Case Scenario
Herman Dune – So Not What I Wanted
Elliott Smith – A Distorted Reality is Now a Necessity to be Free
Motörhead – Ace of Spades

The thematic leitmotif here is pretty obvious, I think, but this list might raise two questions. Springsteen’s “I’m Going Down” isn’t on it because I can’t stand Springsteen. And Ace of Spades is because every soundtrack or mixed tape, in my opinion, should end with Ace of Spades.

Plus, if Hertha had Lemmy as a central defender, there’s no way we’d be where we are in know – almost at the halfway point of a season in hell.

Motivational speaking - Klinsi style

If he fails to find another job in soccer, former Germany and Bayern Munich coach Juergen Klinsmann may have to consider alternative employment, perhaps as a motivational speaker. He has made a good case for himself in this arena this week by launching a scathing attack on beleaguered Liverpool boss Rafa Benitez.

Klinsi could travel around slagging off the incumbent coaches in club boardrooms all around the world. Chairmen will gather to hear Klinsi tell them what is so obviously beyond their understanding, perhaps after a nice shiatsu massage or an hour's meditation. Klinsi could reveal the many flaws of the coaches and inspire the club's hierarchy to harness their inner power and sack the boss. After a closing session of primal scream therapy, Klinsi will depart knowing that another club has been saved from mediocrity – while dropping his CV and business card at reception when he leaves.

Klinsi's motivational skills may be just what Liverpool owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks need to refocus. After spending the last two seasons fighting with each other and with a myriad of international banks in an effort to keep their badly thought-out investment vehicle afloat, Klinsi could help them see the light.

Liverpool will never be the cash-cow they hoped it would be with Benitez at the helm. Best thing you can do is send the Spaniard packing. Once Benitez is safely on the Easyjet plane, Klinsi can then inspire Gillett and Hicks to believe in themselves again and trust their judgment. Remember when you thought a certain German coach would be the answer to your problems? Well, he can be again! And no, I'm not talking about Markus Babbel…

Just listen to Klinsi's lists of Liverpool's failings; lack of pace, lack of creativity and passing ability, lack of a second world-class striker, no consistency or quality. Don't you just want to sack Benitez too?! How does he do it? The man's a genius.

Germany would never have made it to third at the 2006 World Cup without Klinsi's insight and gift of the gab. And Bayern Munich would surely have been lower than third in the Bundesliga when he departed had he not talked to his players in soothing tones about chi and their place in the universe.

If Gillett – who is a huge Klinsmann fan already – and Hicks book a few motivational sessions with the great man himself in the next few months, who could rule out that Klinsi's planned return to football after the 2010 World Cup won't be at Anfield?

Given Liverpool's current form and position, the Americans would give their right hands for a bunch of Buddhist statues and a third-placed finish.

Bravo Markus Babbel!

Ernest Hemingway famously defined courage as grace under pressure, and Markus Babbel's performance in handling his firing as Stuttgart coach on Sunday lived up to that ideal.

The scenes outside Stuttgart's stadium this weekend, where a 3000-strong mob of "fans" gathered to berate and threaten players and coaches, were the epitome of loss of perspective.

Babbel took responsibility for his team's poor performance and accepted his dismissal. But he also defended his players - and rightly so.

I'm all for supporters letting players hear about it when they fail to give their all on the pitch. But that simply isn't the case with Stuttgart.

The squad lacks confidence and has gotten some bad breaks. But there hasn't been a lack of effort.

Stuttgart fans need to remind themselves that the man who scored their lone goal on Saturday was Serdar Tasci - a 22-year-old who ignored team doctors' recommendations to try and help his club.

Doesn't sound like the act of an overpaid, under-performing football mercenary to me.

Last month, in the wake of Robert Enke's suicide, the German football world was full of pious moralizing about the need to see players as human beings.

The Stuttgart fans who nearly rioted on Saturday, as Babbel also rightly pointed out, seemed to have learned nothing from that.

No player - and I say this as a Hertha Berlin fan - deserves to have his life threatened, even in jest, because of what happens on the pitch.

So, Stuttgart supporters, take a piece of well-meaning advice: Chill out! Your team is very unlikely to go down, and if they do, you should follow your ex-coach's example and show some grace instead of running amok like drunken louts.

Endangered species #1: The interesting coach

Louis van Gaal doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who takes things too personally. If he was, he may be feeling a little hurt that Bayern Munich striker Luca Toni is so out of love with the gruff Dutchman that he's even prepared to join West Ham United just to get away from him.

Imagine how intolerable life must be at the AllianzArena that a World Cup-winning striker, a regular in the Italy squad and former top scorer in the Bundesliga is considering heading to East London and a potential relegation dogfight. When he's not being fined and banished to the stands, Toni must be locked in a tea chest with the words "temporary urinal" stenciled over its solitary breathing hole. Poor Luca, he must be so desperately unhappy.

If this is the action the Italian is ready to take to escape Van Gaal, even the hardest heart may turn a little to introspection and ask "what have I done?"

This, of course, ignores the fact that Van Gaal is the Antichrist and the evil architect of Toni's discontent.

Seeing the lanky Italian board a Germanwings flight to Stansted would be the best Christmas gift the Dutchman could ever ask for. If he even celebrated Christmas…Which he probably doesn't…Given the blackness of his heart. He probably prefers to sit in solitude under his favorite inverted crucifix, happily breaking the legs of newborn kittens.

Except he doesn't. Louis van Gaal, despite his shortcomings as a man-manager and coach, is probably a very nice man. Okay, he seems detached and obstinate, but he never does anything really bad. He's just made a decision over one player and is being cast as a pantomime villain in a bid to make his personality and the extremely dull goings-on at Bayern a little bit more interesting.

In reality, this whole Toni-Van Gaal saga is one of the biggest examples of "handbags at dawn" the melodramatic world of modern soccer has produced in the last five minutes. Oh hang on…Manchester City's Mark Hughes and Arsene Wenger of Arsenal are fighting over the etiquette surrounding shaking hands. The refusal by Wenger to accept his opposite number's greasy mitt at the end of Arsenal's Carling Cup defeat last night is threatening the future of humanity. Soccer pundits are expecting a cataclysmic polar shift unless Wenger admits that he's a bad loser. Or not. Anyway, who cares?

I'm all for a bit of the sideshow entertainment which makes breaks between matches that little bit more enjoyable but surely these fully grown men can find something worthwhile to fight about.

"The coach doesn't like me…He won't play me." At least he's not sleeping with your wife, which is what they used to do in the good old days! "The Frenchman didn't shake my hand…He's out of order." Maybe you'd prefer it if he came round and burned down your favorite pub, just like the managers of the past used to do when they lost a match. (They didn't really but I hope you see my point).

When was the last time your saw Jose Mourinho slide across the wet turf on his Armani-suited knees, purposefully inciting riots and hatred among the opposing fans? When was the last time you heard reports of Sir Alex Ferguson kicking a soccer boot at someone's head or throwing a tray of tea cups against the wall?

All I can say - and I'm as surprised as anyone about this - is thank goodness for Diego Maradona.

The players are boring, the football experience is sanitized – all I ask is that the real characters of the game, those crazy bosses who used to lose their minds and their marriages over the love of the game, don't go the same way. Let's have a bit of real danger in the dug-out.

Horst Heldt makes a bid to become the new Hoeness

Uli Hoeness' ascension last week to the uppermost regions of Bayerrn Munich executive heaven meant not just, as cliche-happy analysts gleefully pointed out, the end of an era, but a potential devastating loss for German football fans.

For decades, the former striker and sausage manufacturer has been the Bundesliga's best ranter and raver. Who can count the times that Hoeness glared into a camera, his face turning scarlet and veins popping out of his neck, to berate officials, players and - above all - journalists.

His tirades were the highlight of many a weekend. Who, if anyone, was going to step to fill the enormous gap he was leaving behind?

Enter Stuttgart commercial manager Horst Heldt.

After watching his team passively concede two goals in the first half of their match against Leverkusen on Sunday, the diminutive ex-midfielder stopped on the touchline to preview the riot act he was about to read his players in the dressing room.

"We're stupid and playing crap," Heldt fumed. "We're seventeenth in the table and trying to play back-heel, tip-of-the-toes, one-two-three football. It's an utter catastrophe. What some of the players are putting on display is completely unacceptable. The best thing would be for the coach to substitute out all eleven of them."

I've toned down the translation somewhat top avoid offending the Ned Flanders faction, but you get the idea. This was a verbal smackdown in the best Hoeness tradition, on the mark, fun to watch and replete with the physical signs of a man whose head seemed to be in serious danger of exploding and scattering grey matter on the camera lens.

Stuttgart came out and played an equally listless second half, eventually losing 4-nil. If they keep up that form, we can expect to enjoy many more Heldt outbursts in the weeks and months to come.

The keeper's fear of the Blu-Bird bus

After the sad news of Robert Enke's suicide and the unfolding betting scandal, football fans needed some comic relief, and they got it last weekend with a number of laughable blowouts. Hoffenheim and Bremen both humiliated opponents in the Bundesliga, while Tottenham (boy, does it hurt an Arsenal fan to write this) made a mockery of Wigan in the Premiership.

Thrashings, thanks to some deeply sadistic impulse deep in football fans' subconscious, are always fun. While games that end 3-nil are really boring, matches' accrue a perverse fascination once the fourth goal has been scored.

Everyone loves a blow-out. Everyone, that is, except goalkeepers.

I know whereof I speak. When I was in seventh grade, I manned the posts one season for my junior high school team.

We were a decent squad with one fatal flaw. A kid named Matt scored all of our goals while the rest of us just ran around kicking each other and behaving like clowns. And one dreary day about this time of year, Matt was sick or on vacation or something, and we had to go it alone.

I seem to remember our opponents that day putting eight past us - or, more precisely: me. I fear, however, that the true tally could have been closer to fifteen.

About ten minutes into the match, the rest of the team decided they couldn't be bothered tracking back any more, and I was left to face a series of four-on-one situations. And it didn't help that we were playing on a converted baseball field so shots were coming at me from the acutest of angles after careening of the pitcher's mound and home plate.

When the referee mercifully called time, I was bruised, scratched, muddy and thoroughly humiliated. One of my teammates came up to me and offered the following words of consolation.

"You sucked."

On the trip home, I was left alone to ponder the import of those words in the back of a Blu-Bird bus, the kind with sticky green naugahyde seats, a corrugated aluminum floor and vaguely noxious fumes wafting in through the back door.

To this day, I think about that bus ride every time I see some team getting hammered five or six nil.

So Simon Pouplin, Fayrd Mondragon and, above all, Chris Kirkland, I felt your pain.

Don't believe (most of) the hype

There's a reason why they call the run-up to Christmas the Silly Season. It's not because everyone is going nuts about the coming holidays or getting high on the mad rush for presents, it's because of a completely different compulsion to spend obscene amounts of money on unnecessary luxury items which will be gathering dust by February: yes, it's the January transfer window.

Besides giving Arab sheikhs and Russian oligarchs yet another reason to expand their collection of expensive footballers, the close-season and January transfer windows give sportswriters another excuse to drop acid and come up with far-fetched speculation which fills their column inches and justifies their existence to editors and publishers alike. (Writing about writers writing about fanciful soccer dealings also has the same effect, I might add.)

The Internet is awash with rumors and half-truths right now so it would take me until the next transfer window to go through all the potential deals doing the rounds in the sports gossip pages so I'm going to concentrate on the Bundesliga pipedreams which are most prominent.

Andriy Voronin to…Anyone.

The pony-tailed Ukrainian must be eager for anyone to come in with a firm bid and end his Anfield hell. Probably not as eager as the majority of Liverpool fans to see the back of him, however. Voronin is not even booed any more on Merseyside. His inclusion in the side or even on the bench is met with painful groans from the Kop faithful, and this extreme lack of love is certainly having an effect on the former Bayer Leverkusen player's confidence - and waistline. After finding a modicum of form and happiness on loan at Hertha Berlin last season, Voronin returned to Liverpool after the two sides failed to agree on a permanent deal in the summer. Now, as Liverpool slump and Voronin – rather unfairly, it must be said – has been among those blamed for it, the Ukrainian shouldn't be judged for wanting to move on. Now if only someone...actually wanted him. Eintracht Frankfurt have made noises about taking him back to the Bundesliga but recently revealed that they can't afford him.

If Liverpool hadn't got hit by a plague of injuries, they may well have cut their asking price – just to get some funds in for their own transfer plans (see below). But while half the team is off having pureed horse placenta rubbed into various injuries, it's all bodies to the wheel. Even bloated, underperforming Ukrainian ones…

Eljero Elia to Liverpool

Hamburg's highly-rated Dutch winger only arrived at the HSH Nordbank Arena from FC Twente this summer but if Rafa Benitez can raise some funds, the 22-year-old could be plucked from Bruno Laddabia's team and thrust into the soap opera atmosphere at Anfield. Elia has been in barnstorming form for HSV since his arrival and has managed to transfer that form to the international stage with Holland. Elia's agent Klauss Vink has confirmed that a number of Premiership clubs are already tracking the winger, and has said that there is "big interest" from Liverpool.

A number of issues will need to be addressed,though, before this one is either revealed as wishful thinking from Merseyside or the real deal: Will Benitez have cash to spend? Will Elia want to become the new Ryan Babel (Dutch talent misused and abused to the point of ordinariness)? Will Liverpool be able to offer Elia Champions League football next season? So Elia will probably be staying at Hamburg then…

Neven Subotic to Manchester City (or Arsenal)

Man City are like a kid who has had all his pocket money for the year given to him at once. Instead of considering over the space of 12 months what they can save up to buy, the other Manchester club runs around with change falling out all over the shop floor, buying up random players for positions they already have filled – just because they can.

It can be argued that City don't need Subotic, the highly-rated Serbian international center-back, but because Arsenal have also shown an interest, they feel that they should too. Subotic would be much better suited and utilized under Arsene Wenger, who is still looking for a bit of strength at the back since Kolo Toure went to, yep – you've guessed it – Man City. Both Premiership clubs are likely to go home empty-handed however. Subotic has recently signed a new contract at Borussia Dortmund, keeping him at BVB until 2014, and the player himself has said he doesn't want to leave, rather to stay and achieve something with Dortmund.

Maicosuel to Arsenal

The Hoffenheim midfielder only joined the club side last summer in a €4.5 million deal which ties him to the Bundesliga outfit until 2014. But this hasn't stopped the rumor mongers stirring up a potential love-fest between the rangy Brazilian and Arsene Wenger. Maicosuel has been earning rave reviews in the Bundesliga this term and the Gunners' French boss has reportedly been alerted to his talents.

Those in the know – and those who are just good at sitting in a pub and making stuff up – say that Maicosuel would fit in beautifully at the Emirates stadium where compatriot Denilson is a regular member of the first team. These "insiders" fail to explain just where Maicosuel would fit in a midfield boasting Cesc Fabregas, Andrey Arshavin and Samir Nasri unless the Brazilian is being lined up for the role of the defensive holding player Wenger has been looking for since Gilberto departed. However Alex Song and Denilson may have something to say about that…

Zvjezdan Misimovic to Arsenal

Arsenal scouts must have some kind of deal with a travel agency specializing in trips to Germany because the Gunners pop up again when the name of Wolfsburg's playmaker Zvjezdan Misimovic is mentioned. As with Maicosuel above, it seems unlikely that the Bosnia-Herzegovina star would be willing to sit on the bench at the Emirates until Fabregas gets crocked (or is sold to Barcelona).

Another impressive season to date has, however, fuelled speculation that Arsenal could be poised to swoop in January, especially given Misimovic's impressive debut in the Champions League this year. But the midfielder signed a new contract at Wolfsburg at the beginning of the year which runs until 2013 and has yet to make any noises over a move.

Edin Dzeko to Manchester United or AC Milan

This one is the most likely to actually turn from speculation to realization. Dzeko has made no secret of his desire to leave the Bundesliga champions after three years at the Volkswagen Arena and his continued good form has made him a target for some of the biggest teams in Europe. Manchester United, still flush with cash from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo in the summer, and still feeling the void left by the Portuguese star's defection to Madrid, are leading the pack. United are looking for a goal scorer to take the pressure off Wayne Rooney with Dimitar Berbatov again looking disinterested and Michael Owen proving to be only a bit-part player in less important games.

United could face stiff opposition from Milan, however, who may be preparing for life without Alexandre Pato. And Dzeko has gone on record so many times about AC being the 'club of his boyhood dreams' he's beginning to put readers to sleep. Wherever he goes, it looks as though Wolfsburg and manager Armin Veh are resigned to losing star striker Dzeko – but will want a pretty penny for him, which puts United in the driving seat.

A terrible shock from Hanover

Robert Enke, Hanover 96's splendid goalkeeper who was in contention to be Germany's number one at the coming world cup, is dead at 32.

He was run over by a train at a rail crossing near Hanover this Tuesday evening, and because of that circumstance police suspect he committed suicide.

It's a tragedy in any case, and one that will surely generate a lot of digging into Enke's psyche. Not too sure where that will lead.

He was hardly a big media personality, and it's a fool's game anyway, to assume we can know the private people behind even the most loquacious public personalities.

My only clear impression of Enke came from reading one particular long interview - one that actually made me like him very much. He came off as a thoughtful man who enjoyed the game that was at the center of his life, but wasn't consumed by it.

A particularly affable moment came when he told the interviewer of having shared his house for a while with the famous painter from whom he'd bought it, and who hadn't been quite ready to leave.

When asked if his career as a footballer was a "dream come true," he answered "No, it's just my life. I'm no dreamer. There's a lot I have to do, and a lot I can't do. On a normal training day I work less than other people, but I'm busy on the weekends and can't spend time with my wife."

It's probably good Enke tried to keep himself balanced, considering how tough things went for him at times in his career.

The Jena native started his career strongly, moving to Gladbach and Benfica before securing a dream move to Barcelona in 2002, but got stuck on the bench his one year there. He then spent a rocky subsequent season bouncing from Turkey back to the Spanish second division before finding a new home at Hanover.

In his Germany career, Enke was first overshadowed by Oliver Kahn and Jens Lehmann, and then seemed to get injured at all the wrong times, missing key national team dates.

But all these sporting setbacks pale in comparison to the tragedy he and his wife suffered three years ago, when their two-year-old daughter Lara died of a heart defect. That Enke came back and put his own heart into football after that was amazing enough for one career.

A great career it was, really - Enke was an outrageously gifted shot-stopper, and one who played for a team that gave him plenty of chances to show his stuff.

I only saw him twice in person. The first was a 4-0 loss at Hertha where he wasn't given much chance, but the second was vintage Enke: a 0-0 home draw to Hamburg that may well have been another 4-0 loss were it not for him.

(For a taste of his efforts in that match, see the first part of this video, especially the 0:42 mark in which he stops three shots from three different players at three different angles in FOUR SECONDS. Amazing stuff.)

Rest in peace, Robert. I hope you've found it.

Philipp Lahm gets it right and gets hammered; Luca Toni gets in his car and gets off easy

Bayern defender Philipp Lahm has been a bad, bad boy. In fact, he's done the worst thing a footballer in Munich can do these days -- tell the truth about the club in public.

In a newspaper interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, published on Saturday before Munich's big match with Schalke, Lahm discussed how Bayern's transfer policies may have contributed to the team's descent in the table.

Commercial manager Uli Hoeness was furious, promising that Lahm would regret opening his mouth and seeing to it that the defender was given a record fine.

The interview had the headline "Yes, the coach is right." So what precisely did Lahm say to cause such offense?

He had the audacity to question the logic of spending tens of millions on both Mario Gomez, a classic center forward best used in a 4-4-2 formation, and Arjen Robben, a winger more suited to a 4-3-3.

He pointed out that teams like Barcelona and Manchester United purchase new players with a specific system in mind, rather than just going after whatever top talent is within their reach.

And he opined that Bayern could well use a playmaker midfielder in the Michael Ballack/Frank Lampard mold.

In short, he cogently summed up what's wrong with Bayern this year -- that the players' talents don't complement one another. What he didn't do was criticize either individual teammates or his coach.

A few hours later, striker Luca Toni was so enraged at being replaced by Robben in the half-time break that he decided not to stick around for the rest of match, leaving the stadium for home.

Toni was clearly in the wrong and apologized. He, too, was fined by the club, though not as severely as Lahm.

Lahm's problem is not just that he stepped slightly out of line, but that he was right.

Instead of going ballistic on the defender, who remains Bayern's best player, perhaps Hoeness and Co. might want to ask for his opinion, when they return to the transfer market in the winter break and try to salvage Bayern's season.

Magath's Sisyphus complex

You can say a lot of things about Felix Magath but one thing he can't be accused of is shying away from a challenge.

After winning the league with a mid-table team full of previously mid-table players at Wolfsburg, Felix decided that trying to retain the Bundesliga title wasn't going to be stressful enough for him. Instead, he decided to take on what amounts to the most masochistic of challenges – that of making Schalke 04 German champions.

So far, he's not making too bad a job of it. Schalke are fourth but only two points off the summit. Plus he's managed to get the infuriating Kevin Kuranyi scoring again – no mean feat in itself.

But even this level of early season success doesn't appear to be challenging enough for the man who constantly needs to push himself. Magath, with a little help from the Schalke hierarchy and the current economic crisis, has found a new test.

Felix not only wants to win the Bundesliga with Schalke but with a team shorn of all its best players!

It seems that the cash-strapped Royal Blues are looking to sell some of their stars as the club tries to reduce its wage bill. In debt to the tune of 180 million euros, Schalke are looking to offload a host of top names to lower their reported wage bill of 55 million euros.

"Even if we have some breathing space now, we must - and will - considerably reduce our wage bill for next season," Magath told German tabloid Bild. "Up to the sale of goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, everything is possible."

Neuer is a target for English champions Manchester United as a long-term replacement for Edwin van der Sar and while Felix is unhappy about letting his goalkeeper leave, the likes of Kuranyi and Brazilian defender Rafinha are apparently up for grabs with Magath's blessing.

Magath is keen to move on at least eight top players according to Bild in a bid to ease Schalke's outgoings, with strikers Halil Altintop and Gerald Asamoah, and midfielders Levan Kobiashvili, Ivan Rakitic, Vicente Sanchez and Albert Streit all apparently up for sale.

Should Felix manage to flog all his wage-heavy professionals in the summer – and if he doesn't manage to win the league this season and therefore leave for pastures more difficult – we may see a very happy Magath on the touchlines of Germany next season as he goes about his self-imposed Sisyphean task of winning the league with the Schalke under-16 squad.

Flogging a half-dead horse and wishing the Wolves get Gunned

I’m always of two minds when watching Bayern in the Champions League.

On the one hand, as a fan of German football, I want to see Bundesliga teams as long as possible in the competition. On the other, I can’t help but revel in matches where Munich’s ultra-expensive, poorly conceived squad takes a pasting as they did against Bordeaux on Tuesday.

Had a couple of questionable refereeing decisions gone their way, Bayern might have been able to earn a draw. But the sad truth was that all Munich’s millions bought them against the Frenchmen was a squad that played kick-and-rush for final twenty minutes.

I’ve already written more than once about how Munich need a playmaker, so let me restrict my criticism to a question. How much better would Bayern be, if they had retained the services of Ze Roberto this season? Or invested their riches in a player like this:

Cesc Fabregas scored twice in Arsenal’s 4-1 demolition of Alkmaar on Wednesday. And the Gunners not only won. They won with the sort of fun, flowing football that made fans glad that they did.

Another team I have no problem rooting for is Wolfsburg, who picked up an impressive victory in Turkey at the same time that Bayern were disappointing their home fans in Munich.

The Wolves looked a bit like a miniature Arsenal last year in winning the Bundesliga, and they’ve done well enough in their first-ever Champions League campaign to have an inside track on second-place in their group.

With Arsenal all but assured of winning their group, that sets up the intriguing prospect that the two teams could get drawn against one another in the KO round.

The Wolves against the Gunners. Sounds cool, doesn’t it?

Better than kick-and-rush in any case.

Just when I say something nice about Bayern Munich...

...they go and play like they did against foundering Stuttgart.

For once Louis van Gaal had a clear choice up front. You pretty much have to start newly acquired players against their former teams. Otherwise, those players throw a hissy fit and start calling you nasty names behind your back and drawing obscene caricatures of you dressing room walls.

And lo and behold, there was Mario Gomez in the starting eleven on Saturday. The only problem was he didn't get enough decent balls to do any damage against his old club.

Against Frankfurt in the Cup, Bayern looked as though they had their midfield creativity problems sorted out. But against Stuttgart the glaring deficiencies at the center of the pitch re-emerged. Schweinsteiger and Tymoschuck were useless and van Bommel reverted to his former, solely destructive ways.

Bayern few chances in the match came on long balls into the middle or bursts of inspiration from their best player this season, youngster Thomas Müller.

On the positive side, Bayern have just announced they're about to sign mega-deals with Audi and Deutsche Telekom that will bring even more euros into the club's bursting coffers.

But whether they'll use the cash to sign the sort of player they need most, a big midfield general in the mold of Stefan Effenberg or Michael Ballack, is an open question.

Van Gaal needs to put his foot down and insist they do. The Dutchman was hired for his tactical acumen, but there's been little of it on display this season. In fact, his record of this writing is worse than Jürgen Klinsmann's.

The winter break will give him a chance to prove he has a vision for the team. He needs to insist that Bayern shake things up.

Otherwise, Bayern are not going to win the title this year. And he, most certainly, will be out of a job.

Who flicked the “on” switch at Bayern Munich?

I’m confused. Very, very confused.

Last Saturday, Bayern barely scrape out three points at home against Frankfurt thanks to a goal that probably should have been disallowed and a hail-mary substitution that saw defender Daniel van Buyten pushed up front in the dying seconds.

All of Bayern’s flaws were on display, including a lack of midfield creativity and disorientation in front of the opponents’ goal.

Then yesterday, in German Cup, the Bavarian juggernaut takes on the exact same team in Frankfurt, and what do they do?

Play the best football I’ve seen from them in almost two years. Braafheid had Frankfurt’s defense reeling from the opening whistle, Van Bommel discovered a heretofore unknown talent for deadly opening passes, and rising star Thomas Müller was nearly flawless with both his challenges and crosses.

This was old-school Bayern Munich, and their performance came without Ribery or Robben. In other words, it was a demonstration of collective superiority from the Bundesliga’s most expensive and should-be-most-talented team.

Based on that match, it would seem that Louis van Gaal, much criticized for over-rotating his personnel, has found a core squad.

But Van Gaal reminds me of an extraterrestrial, and not just because of his physical appearance, and I’m very curious to see which eleven he fields in Stuttgart this weekend.

If he benched Klose in favor of Van Buyten, promoted Philipp Lahm to playmaker and put Müller in goal, it wouldn’t surprise me. The General’s mind works in ways that simply aren’t transparent to us mere mortals.

But I’ll give credit where credit is due. I dislike Bayern intensely, but even I was applauding on Wednesday, as the side got a win that for once had nothing to do with luck.

Win your challenges? Why bother?

One of the commenest of football commonplaces is that you’ve got to win your challenges and maintain possession of the ball to have success.

It’s the sort of thing pot-bellied fathers love to yell at their progeny on the pitch in youth leagues, and habits once learned are hard to break – even when coaches make it up to the top divisions of the professional game.

But a quick look at statistics provided by www.wahretabelle.de (the Bundesliga nerd’s best friend), gives the lie to all the adages about getting boots stuck in and the like.

According to their reckoning, the league side that’s third best in winning challenges is Mönchengladbach. And where were The Foals in the table after nine rounds? Yep, third from bottom.

Schalke, meanwhile, are only fourteenth in this category, winning less than half of their challenges. Hasn’t seem to have hurt them – they came into Saturday as the league’s third-best team.

And where were Schalke in terms of ball possession? Dead last. (Bayern Munich are way ahead in first.) So much for the theory that you need to have the ball a lot to score.

Anyone who knows Schalke coach Felix Magath knows that he tolerates no slacking in his squads. Clearly, the Royal Blues statistical “deficiencies” are not the result of lack of effort. In fact, they don’t seem to matter at all.

So if you’re team is flailing, as mine is this season, don’t necessarily trust all the numbers when you’re looking for a reason.

Thar he blows – what Diego Maradona should have said

Well, well, well.

By now I think we’ve all heard about the Argentina coach’s little outburst after the Gauchos finally secured qualification for the World Cup.

Lots of people have come down hard on Maradona for telling critics to perform an act on him that’s illegal throughout much of the Muslim world and the southern United States.

A bit hypocritically in my opinion. I’ve used roughly the same expression on the odd occasion after someone riled me up, and Maradona was speaking after a thrilling 1-nil win with virtually everything at stake.

You just wish Diego had been a bit more inventive in his choice of words. So if he ever finds himself in a similar situation, I suggest he use the following pre-prepared speech.

“Esteemed representatives of the press,

we all know that no coach is above criticism, but considering the personalities involved I would respectfully suggest that you produce a fifteen-foot-high statue of my genitalia, cast in 24 karat gold, before which you genuflect, every morning, prior to any questioning of my acumen in the sport I played and you did not.

I may appear to mortal eyes to be little more than a bloated, drug-addled fool, but I would call to mind that these are not just any family jewels we are talking about, but in fact the Member of God, the reproductive organs attached to a man who scored the Goal of the Century and spent more money on cocaine than any of you are likely to see in a lifetime.

If, after an appropriate period of silent prayer at the altar of my manhood, you still feel the need to criticize my job performance, you can all $=&() my !/$%&.

Love,
Diego”

Now that would be a press conference. Unfortunately, footballers are rarely so articulate, as Germany’s Lukas Podolski – and here we go from the sublime to the ridiculous – showed in commenting on Germany 1-1 draw against Finland on Wednesday.

When asked what outweighed the other, his relief at scoring a face-saving equalizer or his dismay that Germany nearly lost at home to a rank outsider, Poldolski answered…

…”Both.”

Babbel plays the blame game

It's one of soccer's most enigmatic questions: who is to blame for a team's bad form?

The usual suspects are, of course, the same at whichever club you pick as your test case. There's the coach, the players or the board. Each have a level of responsibility and involvement which can have either a good or bad effect on the club's fortunes.

The coach has the choice of getting everything right or everything wrong. His tactics, his team sheet, his transfers…All these can combine to make the club a force to be reckoned with at the business end of the league or a whipping boy in the basement when they are completely at odds to each other.

The players are the ones who are charged with getting the ball in the net more times than their opponents, which puts quite a heavy burden on them when it comes to the club's position. Confidence in their abilities and the plan they play to can combine with skill to make them an unassailable eleven, while insecurities can quickly eradicate any prowess.

The board have the luxury of being behind the scenes and, in most cases, away from the sharp end of the week in-week out action. But their backing – both in confidence and financial terms – can create a strong squad and a solid basis for success. Once the board starts to meddle, however, by chopping and changing personnel, withholding funds for improvement or getting involved in very public confrontations with prominent staff, then the tremors from these actions can rapidly destabilize the club.

As you can see, each of these three usual suspects are reliant on each other in success and failure – which is why "who's to blame?" is such a difficult question to answer. The fortunes of a club are so entwined with the relationships and symbiosis between these three that it is hard to get to the root of the problem when it occurs.

Not so for Markus Babbel, however.

The VfB Stuttgart coach is in no doubt that it's his players who are to blame for his side's poor start to the Bundesliga season.

Apparently the former German international sees nothing wrong in his game plan, his tactics or his motivation. He looks to the director's box and sees club manager Horst Heldt exhibiting serenity and trust. But when he looks out onto the pitch at the performances which have taken last season's third-placed team to 13th, he sees only fault with his players.

Babbel makes the unusual connection between the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the lack of form his Stuttgart side are experiencing. He seems to think that his charges are more concerned about making it into Joachim Loew's Germany squad than pushing for a better league finish than last season.

"It's not good enough to only dream of the World Cup, the club should be the priority," Babbel told Wednesday's Bild newspaper. "The international players should realize why there were called up in the first place."

If you're a player wanting to go to the World Cup to represent your country at the greatest soccer competition on the globe, would you attempt to get noticed by the national coach by playing like a paraplegic donkey? No – you'd play out of your skin to get the kind of interest which leads to your inclusion in the national team.

And with the Stuttgart board showing in pre-season that they were willing to splash the cash on the likes of Real Madrid's Klaas-Jan Huntelaar (who opted to go elsewhere admittedly) and Barcelona's Alexander Hleb, and giving Babbel himself a vote of confidence, that leaves just one of the usual suspects to blame.

Maybe you're right, Markus - it isn't such a hard question to answer after all.

Whoever wrote this script must be a Hamburg fan with a weird sense of humor

Hamburg had every reason to feel jittery coming into Berlin. After all, one of the classic storylines in football is a down-in-the-doldrums team with a new coach rallying to pull an upset over a squad cruising along at the top of the table.

And true to form, Hertha jumped all over the Northern Germans at the start of their Sunday match, deservedly going up 1-0.

Then, in a twist worthy of David Lynch movie, three bizarre things happened - one of them twice.

First, Berlin defender Kaka, a surprise inclusion to the squad after spending nearly a year-and-a-half warming the bench, converted an entirely harmless cross into an own goal.

Then, Timo Ochs - a late signing only brought in after Hertha had lost it's top two goalkeepers - tore a muscle. That meant that 19-year-old Sascha Burchert was forced once again to man the posts.

Five minutes later, the teenager ventured out of his box to head away a ball that would have given Hamburg striker Marcus Berg a one-on-one. It landed directly at the feet of Hamburg midfielder David Jarolim, who lobbed it into the goal.

86 seconds later - and this is the truly improbable bit - Burchert did the exact same thing with the exact same result, only this time the Hamburg midfielder doing him in from distance was Ze Roberto.

Hertha had essentially scored 4 goals, three against themselves, and match was as good as over. Both sides spent the second half wondering what wormhole to the Bizarro dimension had opened up at the Olympic Stadium.

Predictably a debate has commenced about who was truly at fault for a most unlikely pair of blunders. The tabloid Bild newspaper has dubbed poor Burchert "the idiot keeper." Hamburg keeper Frank Rost defended the teenager, blaming Hertha's midfield, as did Berlin captain Arne Friedrich.

Speaking of Friedrich, who has incurred much ire for alleged playing against the team in an attempt to hurry ex-coach Lucien Favre's departure. He ran to the Hertha block twice during the match. Once to cheers, after he scored. And once more after the match was over - to the turned backs of disappointed supporters.

Hamburg probably could have cared less about all this. They got three of the easiest points any team is likely to get in football - and no doubt shared some laughs on the team bus home.

Not everyone with the last name Boateng is a useless clown

Running around on a rubbery artificial pitch in the cold of Moscow may not be most people's idea of a dream vacation. But Jerome Boateng has nothing against the idea -- he's the latest newcomer called up by Germany coach Joachim Loew to the national squad.

Readers in England might be rubbing their eyes after reading this so let me explain. I'm not talking about Kevin-Prince Boateng, the Portsmouth midfielder who bombed with Tottenham, but rather his younger half-brother, the Hamburg defender.

I watched both a lot at the start of their professional careers in Berlin, where they grew up in a German-Ghanaian family. Kevin was prodigious talent, whose lack of effectiveness on the pitch was equaled only by his ability to get into trouble off of it.

Jerome was less flamboyant, but built of far sterner stuff. Both big and fast, he can be deployed either in central defense or on the right-hand side. He's very good with long-range opening passes and has the ball skills to be able to push up the field as well.

He was a major reason why the German under-21 team captured its first-ever European Championship this summer, and he also proved his worth in Hamburg's win against Bayern a week ago.

Not only did Jerome help stymie Bayern star-studded midfield. No one in the Munich squad could stop him penetrating -- and only a world-class save by keeper Joerg Butt kept him from getting on the score sheet and notching his first-ever Bundesliga goal.

So Loew has picked a winner, I think. And don't be surprised if this still relatively obscure defender ends up playing a significant role for Germany in next year's World Cup.

Meanwhile, Kevin-Prince is trying to secure a spot on Ghana's national side. He must be wondering precisely when it was that his little brother left him in his dust.

Reasons to be cheerful

Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg both met their most serious competition in their respective Champions League groups on Wednesday night and although neither came away from matches against Juventus and Manchester United with victories, there were reasons for further optimism.

Wolfsburg may have surprised themselves into defeat after taking the lead against United at Old Trafford through Edin Dzeko's header on 56 minutes. The Bundesliga side had given a good account of themselves despite heavy pressure from the home side and when Dzeko silenced the Theater of Dreams, a team with more European experience may have weathered the subsequent storm. But United are past masters of coming from behind, and have a European pedigree far beyond what the Wolves can call on.

Saying that, United were fortunate with their equalizer, with Ryan Giggs' free-kick getting a wicked deflection on its way in, just three minutes after the Wolves had taken the lead. Nothing was fortunate about Michael Carrick's winner, however, and Wolfsburg were eventually exposed as the Champions League novices they are.

Despite this, for long periods of the game, the Germans fought on an even keel with the reigning Premiership champions, suggesting that the return leg in Wolfsburg on Dec. 8 could be a very different proposition. The Wolves also showed enough to suggest that should Man United go through as group winners, the German side have the goods to qualify in second. After Grafite's hat-trick shot down CSKA Moscow two weeks ago, Wolfsburg have now added an impressive – however losing – performance against last year's beaten finalists. For a team enjoying the rarity of European football while holding its first title as German champions, things could look a lot worse for Wolfsburg's chances of progressing.

Bayern, it seems, can't get a break anywhere. Despite leading a group which includes the current French champions and the Old Lady of Italian football, Louis van Gaal's team are searching around for both praise and goals.

Coach van Gaal said he was happy with the fact that his team had created so many chances against Juventus and that when Munich start scoring, they'll be unstoppable.

On the one hand, he can rightly feel satisfied. Italian defenses are notoriously stingy and as Bayern opened Juve up seemingly at will on Wednesday, it showed a real potency from the German team. On the other hand of course, Bayern were lucky not to have their profligacy punished at the other end.

Also, how long can a team go on generating dozens of chances and looking like an attacking force before its lack of actual goals starts to derail its league and cup campaigns? Not long in such lofty company, is the answer.

However, right now Bayern are top of Group A after two games with a win and a draw to their name and given that only Juventus have a similar Champions League pedigree as the Germans, Munich are in a good position right now to look ahead to qualification. All of which means that Louis van Gaal may have some breathing space in Europe to sort out his scoring difficulties, something he'll need to have fixed by the time Bayern meet stronger opponents in the latter stages.

Manny gets mean

Schalke goalkeeper Manuel Neuer is coming in for a roasting in the German press, held responsible for a “scandal” by both kicker and Bild. What did he do? He led his team to a win, away, against its most hated rival, and dared to enjoy himself afterward.

Neuer’s Schalke didn’t exactly brush Dortmund aside in a hard-fought Ruhr derby. The home side had a goal disallowed which, on another day, might have counted - and in truth a draw would have done the balance of play more justice. But the table doesn't have separate columns for pretty, deserved, or half-hearted wins, just the one with a “W” on top, and on Saturday Schalke added another there.

The 23-year-old keeper himself, however, was probably less concerned with the win’s effect on the table than on getting one over on the fans from the next town over. After the whistle, Neuer headed over to the 27,000-strong south stand, home to the Dortmund ultras, to raise his arms and do a little victory hop.

He was told off by a group of Dortmund players, and headed back toward the center circle, where, a few moments later, an indeterminate part of his body made contact with the face of Dortmund’s Kevin Grosskreutz.

Now, in the present era of “professionalism” and DFB and UEFA-led campaigns for “respect,” some people see such roughhousing - and such glee in beating one’s rivals - as passé, or even dangerous. Me, I love it.

You see, Neuer is one of a dying breed: an actual supporter of the club he plays for. He grew up rooting for Schalke, standing in the fan block and singing the songs about loving Schalke and hating Dortmund. For him, beating Dortmund away is the next best thing to winning a trophy - it’s the highlight of his season.

For Neuer it’s about pride, about bragging rights, about crushing you enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women - just like it is for the fans. And in today's game, that’s jarring. And wonderful.

Grosskreutz says Neuer gave him an elbow to the face. Neuer says he “didn’t see any Grosskreutz” and that if anybody threw an elbow at the guy “it must have been some other Manuel Neuer.”

TV cameras missed whatever happened, but a fan’s mobile phone camera video posted to the internet appears to show Neuer back into the Dortmund striker and give him a shoulder block, most probably on purpose. Not a nice thing to do, but nothing much to pout about.

Grosskreutz might seem like an unusual target for a star like Neuer, being that he’s just a bit player for Dortmund. The 21-year-old entered Saturday’s match, as he often does, with less than half an hour to play and struggled to make an impression.

But he is also, just like Neuer, a born-and-raised fan of his club, and ready to play the part. He told the Bild newspaper prior to the season that he “hates Schalke like the plague” and that they were “public enemy number one” to him.

So the kid likes his trash talk - good for him. Now he just needs to take his in-game lumps (and post-match intentional bumps) like a grown-up.

Hamburg v Bayern completely outclasses Merkel v Steinmeier

After suffering through another Hertha debacle, I spent yesterday at an election party watching the results of the least interesting political campaign in German history come in. The conversation, as it inevitably does when I'm in a room, quickly turned to football.

My interlocutor was a fan of both Bayern and the Social Democrats -- and thus a double loser on the weekend. Yet even he admitted that Hamburg's 1-nil victory over Munich was a great game for neutral fans.

Indeed, it was a fascinating match. Faced with the choice between Mario Gomez, Miro Klose and (at least theoretically) Luca Toni, Bayern coach Louis van Gaal left them all out of his starting eleven. (Toni played with the amateurs!)

Instead van Gaal went for speed with Olic, Mueller, Ribery, Robben and -- surprisingly -- Philipp Lahm in midfield and Breno at the back. It was the sort of daring, innovative, scarcely anticipated strategy for which the Dutchman is famous.

The only thing was: It didn't work.

The idea was clearly that Bayern would steamroll Hamburg into submission early on, and for the first thirty minutes, they certainly did have Hamburg on their back heels. Hamburg's defenders only just managed to thwart Ribery and Robben, mostly by triple- and quadruple-teaming them.

But then Hamburg found Bayern's weak spots, chiefly on the left side, where Jerome Boateng was often able to dribble the length the field, and in the middle, where Bayern's lack of midfield size left them vulnerable to long balls.

And making the difference in the end was the guile and skill of former Bayern midfielder Ze Roberto, who set up the lone goal of the match with an absolutely killer pass.

In the end, and ironically, it was Bayern's variety of options that was their undoing, whereas Hamburg's strength was the fact that who should play where is pretty obvious.

But the outcome could have gone either way -- which is a lot more than you can say for the Merkel-Steinmeier snoozer.

A host of favourites lose but a loss saves a coach in classic Cup absurdity

After a relatively uneventful first round, the German Cup finally returned to its usual wacky form on Wednesday with no fewer than five major upsets.

Hamburg are hanging their heads in shame after going out to third-division Osnabrueck, Leverkusen failed against second-division Kaiserslautern, and Wolfsburg slipped up in Cologne.

The two top teams in the table and last year’s league champs all became history within the space of a couple hours, and if you’d had a decent-sized bet on that constellation of results, you could probably start thinking about early retirement.

A bit earlier in the evening Freiburg and Hertha also lost to second-division clubs Augsburg and 1860 Munich respectively.

I followed exactly 30 seconds of the action. Waiting in line at a broiled chicken stand, I peeped through the window of a betting shop and saw that Hertha were down 2-nil in the 65th minute.

Mindful of the harm Berlin’s last loss did to one of my favourite internal organs (see below), I thought ‘Well that’s it for Coach Favre’ and decided I’d seen enough.

It turned out to be a match full of irony. 1860 was Hertha’s main rival when they last fought relegation in 2004 – Berlin stayed up thanks to a narrow draw in a head-to-head duel, in which 1860 missed a late penalty.

And as I found out in Thursday’s papers, Munich almost did Hertha another favour, conceding two late goals to send the match in extra time.

In the additional 30 minutes, Hertha apparently did everything but put the ball in the net. The man who thwarted them was goalkeeper Gabor Kiraly – the same mad Hungarian who used to mind the posts here in Berlin.

1860 then went on to win the penalty shoot-out. All things considered, not a bad result.

Berlin never wins the Cup, and no one expects Hertha players to be able to do something as difficult as put the ball into a 7.3-meter-wide goal, when there’s a little guy who can use his hands standing on the touchline. As an astute fan at offside.com put it, give Hertha five penalty shoot-outs against England and they’d probably lose all five – though the fourth one might be close.

So the absence of real regrets that Berlin blew it in this fashion probably saved Favre’s job. Hamburg, Wolfsburg and Leverkusen, though, will be kicking themselves for squandering realistic chances of hoisting the easiest bit of silverware a Bundesliga club can win.

Hertha made me lose my lunch -- literally!

As threatened, here's a blow-by-blow account of my visit to the Olympic Stadium on Sunday to watch Hertha Berlin against Freiburg.

The city of Berlin has both an above-ground and underground subway system, but the former is currently out of commission because it's operated by Germany's national rail company and Hertha's main sponsor, the Deutsche Bahn. It's seems that some penny-pinching folks at the Bahn thought they could save money by not checking the brakes.

So my partner-in-crime Kaspar and I had no choice to go subterranean. Kaspar, who's in the sixth grade, is very knowledgeable young football fan, and what could be better than to spend a beautiful late summer day watching the beautiful game with someone not yet jaded by the ups-and-downs of the German capital club?

As it turned out the weather was a bit too beautiful, and the game could hardly have been uglier.

The match kicked off with the home fans booing luckless striker Artur Wichniarek and coach Lucien Favre, and Hertha conceded a goal within five minutes after their interior defense did a disappearing act.

Three more goals were to follow, all for Freiburg, and all set up by horrible lapses at the back for Hertha. It wasn't that Freiburg were any good. Hertha were simply dreadful. It was the worst defensive performance I've seen since Turbine Potsdam lost last season's women's cup final 7-nil.

I write "seen," although much of the time I was peering against a glaring sun that was pleasant on the skin but full of unpleasant consequences to come.

Now, for the record, I'd like to say that I only had two beers at the match and wasn't even feeling that queasy about the debacle, as Kaspar and I crammed ourselves into the over-crowded subway car for the hour's journey.

But halfway through, I noticed that something was seriously wrong. Beads of sweat began dripping off my forehead and everything started to spin. I just made it out of the train and to garbage can on a station platform before becoming violently ill.

I used to think violently ill was a metaphor. I know better now.

With a bit of luck and forbearance from my young friend, we made it home in the end, and I'll spare you the rest of the gory details of my night. I think it was a case of sun stroke. But I'm not entirely sure.

I've seen lots of sporting performance that made me want to puke. This Sunday, it's possible I saw one that actually did make me lose my lunch.

A pretty good week for German clubs (well, at least the ones that scored three goals)

It ain't easy going from the Bundesliga to the Champions League. Just ask Hamburg and Stuttgart, both of whom humiliated themselves in recent years after returning to club football's premier competition.

So Wolfsburg's Tuesday win over CSKA Moscow was all the more impressive. It was the Wolves' first-ever CL match, and the Russians -- who won the UEFA Cup 2005 -- are no pushovers.

Despite Wolfsburg's faltering start in the league, things are looking up. Grafite, who scored all three of the Wolves' goals, showed last year was no fluke, and if Edin Dzeko gets back on track, they could reel off a bunch of wins.

Bayern struggled at the start but dispatched of Maccabi Haifa, 3-nil. They'll be cheered by the emergence of Thomas Mueller, a 21-one-year old player who comes from Munich's youth program. That's a refreshing change to Bayern's usual collection of international divas.

And Bremen took up where they last off -- not bothering to play defense but scoring enough to compensate. Their 3-2 Europa League win in Portugal was tighter than it should have been, but on the other hand, if it hadn't been, we probably wouldn't have gotten to see Pizarro's game winner -- a marvelous curling shot from just outside the area.

On the down side, Stuttgart's home draw against Rangers suggests that they've not gotten over the departure of striker Mario Gomez. It's going to be a fight for them to stay near the top of the league -- and progress out of the CL group stage.

Back in the EL, or whatever the acronym is, Vienna gave Hamburg some serious comeuppance. The Northern Germans' defense was a shambles, but assuming that performance was a one-off, and perhaps the result of believing the hype (see my last blog), Hamburg should be able to recover.

The side that's really in trouble is, alas, my beloved Hertha. I'm not sure what's worse: losing away to Mainz or only getting a draw at home against a side with the word "pils" in ist name. (The match certainly made me want to drink pils -- and lots of it.)

What's more, Berlin have lost goalkeeper Jaroslav Drobny to injury. If there was one player Hertha could not afford to do without, it was the giant Czech. Now, Hertha are probably better off forgetting about Europe and concentrate on not digging themselves an impossible hole in the first half of Bundesliga season.

In any case, I'm going to Olympic Stadium on Sunday to check out live how bad things are. I'll report back with the news.

Unexpectedly good, unexpectedly soon

One of the biggest mysteries in football is why some new arrivals to teams need weeks, if not months to settle in, while others hit their stride instantly and make an immediate impact.

Luck is probably part of the answer, but only a part of it. And while some of this season's fast starters, Frankfurt and Leverkusen, have been blessed with good fortune, one team looks as though it's already ready to make a title bid.

Like most commentators, I was impressed with Hamburg's new signings. And like most, I thought it would take this team a few months to gel.

It hasn't. Midfielder Eljero Elia, who I thought would suffer from some nerves in front of goal, has confounded defenses with his pace and dribbling skills. And he's popped in two extraordinary goals in his first five matches.

35-year-old Ze Roberto, whom Bayern Munich deemed past his sell-by date, has also scored a pair and given the Northern German side a winners' swagger.

Indeed, the only summer acquisition who's yet to perform is striker Marcus Berg, but I have little doubt, unless he gets hurt, that we'll be hearing from the big Swedish forward too.

Bruno Labbadia isn't one of my favorite coaches. In fact, he's one of my least favorite. But I have to tip my hat to him for forming a squad that has already beaten three of last season's top six teams.

Perhaps, the secret is that he is new to Hamburg as well.

In any case, Hamburg's fans haven't had to wait for the highlights. They're coming right now. And there's another big chance for the team to shine, when Bayern Munich hit town on September 26.

Mark that one down in your calendars. Elia versus Arjen Robben is one duel you won't want to miss.

Germany's new-and-improved, non-golden generation

What is it about golden generations in international football that almost always makes them disappoint expectations?

Ten years ago, it was Beckham, Owen and Co. leading England to one premature exit after another. And more recently, no sooner Bastian Schweinsteiger and Lukas Podolski were named potential saviors, than Germany began racking up second and third place finishes instead of titles?

We shouldn't read too much into the Nationalelf's 2-nil victory over South Africa on Saturday, especially as it was just a friendly. But one thing is clear, Germany's Schweini-Poldi obsession is over, and the squad is probably better off for it.

Mesut Oezil probably isn't a familiar name to people who don't follow German football closely, but believe me he's the real deal. He played a key role in his club Werder Bremen's German Cup win last season and the Germany Under-21 team's European Championship triumph this summer.

On Saturday, he scored one of Germany's goals and set up the other -- not bad for a 20-year-old.

I've seen him live and am impressed. He's not really a classic playmaker, but his pace up both of the flanks is going to cause lots of teams problems at next year's World Cup -- especially as he's become an efficient finisher as well.

I'm also getting more and more taken with Mario Gomez. A very slow starter in the national team, Gomez is finally finding the range he displays week in, week out in the Bundesliga. And that means he should supplant Miroslav Klose, who's in a prolonged slump, as Germany's top center forward.

Germany are a virtually shoe-in to qualify for South Africa, as are -- coincidentally or not -- England. Could this be a case of two teams emerging from the jinx that seems to accompany the label "golden generation?"

The Grass isn't Always Greener

With no apologies to those who may be getting a little tired of our apparent obsession with the uniquely featured Frenchman, our Ribery debate rumbles on like the after-effects of an ill-advised 3am kebab with all the trimmings.

This time, however, we have a new character to throw into the mix.

Perhaps the oldest looking 25-year old in history, Arjen Robben made his bid for Bayern immortality at the weekend by netting two goals on his debut to help Munich sink champions Wolfsburg. The Dutchman, arriving as the transfer window creaked towards closure, stepped up to make his claim as the Bundesliga's new star with a second-half performance of the kind of attacking instinct Ribery and Co. have been lacking. Far from looking glum (well, glum-er) the former Chelsea flyer looked positively reborn after swapping Real Madrid for 14th place in the German league.

And here lies our link to Monsieur Franck.

Robben arrived at the Bernabeu in 2007 with a couple of Premiership winners medals, a pair of English league cup medals, and an FA Cup medal after just three seasons with Chelsea. His marauding wing play, electric pace and ability to get in among the goals made his a much sought-after talent. It was only natural then that when he came to move on, one of Europe's biggest clubs was there to snap him up and send him onto the fields of Spain in the colors of Los Blancos. It should have been a dream come true. It wasn't.

While he managed to nail down a first team place in Madrid's 2007/8 La Liga-winning team and show flashes of the form he enjoyed in England, injuries and the subsequent arrival of Cristiano Ronaldo et al cut his five-year contract at Madrid short. His move to Real had promised much but delivered much less than expected and he joined Bayern earlier this month for €22 million after being pimped to the cream of European soccer as part of Madrid's transfer fee recuperation operation.

Robben's slept-in face had been looking particularly downcast for the last couple of months as Madrid began building a new Galacticos project and he became - very publicly - excess to requirements. By Saturday evening. however, that crumpled visage was creased in happiness as he celebrated not only a debut double but the resurrection of a career.

The Santiago Bernabeu could legitimately challenge Man United's stadium as the real Theatre of Dreams but to many established stars it has become the Elephant's Graveyard. The Bundesliga may not have the bling of La Liga or the caché of the Premiership but when top players get there, more often than not they get the chance to play and the chance to shine. Bayern Munich may be behind in brand recognition and may not currently be seen as a force to be reckoned with in European competition but Robben has the potential to make an impact in Bavaria unlike any he could have hoped for in the Spanish capital.

Those looking wistfully at pastures new may do well to look at the Dutchman and listen to his story.

That means you, Franck.

A Star is Being Born, and a League is on the Rise

As a Hertha fan, I’m not going to get any points for objectivity here, but in my eyes the emerging star of the new season is Berlin’s Gojko Kacar. Just how good is the 22-year-old Serbian midfielder?

Well, he’s scored ALL of Hertha’s goals in the Bundesliga after three weeks. And he found the net twice in the space of a quarter of an hour on Thursday against Danish side Brondy to engineer a remarkable comeback and send Berlin through to the group stage of the Europa Cup.

Stuttgart recently offered Hertha 12 million euros for Kacar, and the Old Lady, as the club is known, politely told them to get bent. Wise decision. Kacar reminds me of Patrick Viera in his Arsenal prime, and a number of Europe’s biggest clubs (Man U, Real) is reportedly tracking his progress in the footballing province of the German capital.

Given his relative youth and assuming his form curve continues to rise, his value should be around 20 million – enough to balance even Hertha’s books.

And Gojko’s goals in Berlin’s Jahnparkstadium did more than just help otherwise hapless Hertha. They also meant that all the German teams qualified for the group stages of the two international club competitions.

And that, as an astute colleague over at the Offside points out (http://hertha.theoffside.com/match-reports/gehn-wir-nicht.html), means that the Bundesliga has a good chance to overtake Italy’s Serie A in the UEFA rankings and earn a coveted fourth spot in the Champions League. Bayern and Stuttgart both got fairly easy draws in that competition, and look for Wolfsburg to pull one or two upsets as well.

Again, no points for or claim to objectivity, but I’d welcome seeing more of Germany and less of Italy in the CL. Whatever it’s flaws, the Bundesliga is a more-or-less financially responsible league with a reasonable amount of competitiveness and a fairly attractive style of play.

There’s no German word for cantenaccio. And if I were building a team right now, I’d take Kacar over Viera in a heartbeat.

Round One goes to Ribery

The season is barely underway, but one classic battle is already in full swing. In this corner, weighing in at 62 kilos, is Franck Ribery – the marvelously skilled Frenchman who figures that, having served out half his contract, the time is ripe for him to move on to bigger and better things, namely, Real Madrid.

And in the other corner: his opponent, current employer and Bundesliga heavyweight champion of the ages Bayern Munich, who reckon that, having given Ribery the chance to earn a medium-sized fortune, they can expect him to serve out the term of his legal obligations to play for the club.

Ribery’s strategy is the one perennially favored by players who want to leave and are being made to stay – develop a bewildering variety of niggling illnesses and injuries that force the employer into selling mode.

Bayern, in turn, are counting on the fact that with the next World Cup drawing nigh the Frenchman will have to play if he wants to secure his spot on his national team.

And thus far, Monsieur Ribery has landed the better blows.

Bayern’s strategy is based on the idea that if a prima donna doesn’t want to take the pitch, the rest of the squad can compensate. Go ahead and be that way, club bosses would like to be able to say, and you can watch your teammates win from the stands.

But as Munich’s humiliating defeat this weekend to featherweights Mainz showed, Bayern need Ribery more than vice versa. The lack of creative punch in midfield was shocking and exposed a defense that has so far been the footballing equivalent of a glass chin.

Bayern manager Uli Hoeness may want to consider throwing in the towel while the transfer window is still open. The way the squad has played to date – two points from three matches against less-than-stellar competition – there’s nothing to stop Ribery sitting back and watching the pressure build until Bayern have no option but to flog him off in the winter break.

And if he needs any encouragement, he should watch a tape of the Rumble in the Jungle, Muhammed Ali’s 1974 championship bout against George Foreman. For eight rounds, underdog Ali did nothing but bide his time and provoke his mighty opponent into squandering all his energy.

Foreman eventually went down like a sack of potatoes. Bayern – currently in 14th place – have to be worried as well about landing face down on the canvas.

It's Not Over 'Til it's Over

Despite the fact that there are officially 16 days left in this summer's transfer window, you can imagine the management at Bayern Munich relaxing slightly as the pages of the calendar turn. Each day that passes brings that satisfying slam in the faces of all those covetous, swarthy foreign types who keep sneaking a peak through the curtains at their best players ever closer.

Given the declaration by Florentino Perez earlier this month that his ostentatious shopping spree with his Real Madrid club card was at an end, the likes of Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Uli Hoeness and Franz Beckenbauer may have even let out a sigh of relief and chinked Weissbier glasses, satisfied that their league campaign could start with all their stars still on the books.

It's not too far-fetched to believe they even called off the private investigator they may have had tailing Franck Ribery to his secret Spanish classes or the surveillance team monitoring the Frenchman's phone for the words "Amigo", "Los Blancos" and "shedloads of cash".

After all, when Senor Perez announced that Xabi Alonso's 30 million euro ($43 million) move from Liverpool was his last signing of the summer, why would there be any reason to doubt him?

Maybe because Senor Perez has a reputation for collecting star players like Paris Hilton collects tiny, slightly neurotic-looking dogs?

The news that Real Madrid could re-launch their bid to sign Ribery will have Bavarian SWAT teams and packs of trained Dobermans surrounding the diminutive French midfielder's Munich mansion as the Bayern hierarchy realize the folly of believing a man who has already chosen the title of Real Madrid's end of season DVD: "Confessions of a Shopaholic".

If the Spanish sports dailies Marca and AS are right, Real are preparing a tantalizing offer to prise Ribery from Bayern's grip.

According to Marca, in a bid to persuade the Bavarian giants to part with Ribery, Perez is parading a number of Dutch players in front of the Bayern hierarchy in the manner of some down-at-heel landowner in a Bronte novel, trying to find rich husbands for his slightly dowdy and unwanted daughters.

Marca said "the key" to capturing the Frenchman may be for Real to offer "two of their Dutch internationals and more than 30 million euros for Ribery" to Bayern coach Louis Van Gaal, a Dutchman.

Wesley Sneijder, Arjen Robben, Royston Drenthe and Rafael Van der Vaart – once coveted like the last X-Box in the shop on Christmas Eve – are all available. However, the Dutchmen are now the soccer equivalent of Gran's self-knitted reindeer jumper on Boxing Day. Perez can't even give them away after inheriting them from his predecessor.

It remains to be seen whether Rummenigge, Hoeness et al will be seduced by this assortment of Dutchmen with reputations for surliness and the habit of getting injured when coming into contact with grass.

Marca believes that the deal would make "an appetizing offer to the German team as the amount would surpass 60 million euros -- 30 in cash and a bit more than 30 more for the players released, a figure approaching the 80 million that Bayern was demanding at the start of the summer for Franck Ribery".

My guess is that Perez will get his man, either in a deal which takes Ribery to the Bernabeu before the end of August or in a deal which sees the Frenchman paraded in white as the first mega-signing of the 2010/11 season. It could be the cash-plus-players deal which seals it or the reaching of the end of Bayern's patience with a player who so obviously wants for pastures new.

And if Ribery does leave for Spain, don't bet against Perez adding others stars to his menagerie of talent before September.

Time for Some Ball Gazing

Welcome back. This being the start of the season, and I myself being a geek, it's time to make some predictions -- and also reflect on what a weird pursuit making predictions is.

If you think about it, there's very little to be gained, and much credibility to be lost, trying to reverse the normal relations of past, present and future. So why are football fans driven to do this?

I'm reminded of the late, great Hunter S. Thompson's characterization of the types of people who become Hell's Angels: "They are urban outlaws with a rural ethic and a new improvised style of self-preservation. Their image of themselves derives mainly from celluloid, from Western movies and the two-fisted TV shows that have taught them most of what they know about the world they live in. Very few read books, and in most cases their formal education ended at fifteen or sixteen…They are the sons of poor men and drifters, losers and the sons of losers."

Or maybe, we're just geeks.

Whatever the case may be, here's how I predict the table will look next May.

1. Bayern
2. Wolfsburg
3. Dortmund
4. Bremen
5. Schalke
6. Hamburg
7. Stuttgart
8. Hoffenheim
9. Hertha
10. Leverkusen
11. Cologne
12. Moenchengladbach
13. Bochum
14. Nuremberg
15. Freiburg
16. Frankfurt
17. Hanover
18. Mainz

And while I'm in my Delphi oracle mode, here are a few more random pronouncements. Mehmet Scholl will be the next coach of Bayern and sooner than anyone thinks. Wolfsburg will get into the final sixteen of the Champions League. At least one of following will be out of work before January: Jupp Heynckes, Bruno Labbadia, Michael Skibbe, Michael Frontzeck, Dieter Hecking. Schalke will not win the title this year -- or any year for that matter.

Do you agree, disagree or think I'm an absolute moron. You're all free to write in with your opinions -- just keep 'em clean.

Let the fun and games begin.

If You're Happy and You Know it...

After what seems like eons wondering whether Florentino Pérez is going to stop behaving like a Somali pirate and leave the rest of the world's clubs to negotiate their league campaigns in peace, we're finally at the point we've long been waiting for. The 2009/10 season is underway at last.

There are many reasons to be cheerful at this fact:

1) We won't have to be concerned with trying to work out the baffling rules of cricket for much longer.

2) The onset of soccer means that the stifling hot weather will soon pass and we can soon return to grumbling merrily about the gloom and damp which accompanies most of the Bundesliga season.

3) Ballspiel gets underway again and gives you, most beloved reader, respite from the wars and pestilence that blight the time between league championships.

Yes indeed. Like a death row inmate with Johnnie Cochran as his lawyer (before his demise, of course), the blog writers-slash-soccer nuts at Deutsche Welle have escaped the chair and have been given a season-long reprieve. On the condition that we continue to follow the ins and outs of the German league with the irreverence it deserves, while actually getting some of you to tune in from time to time, the powers-that-be-paying-us have decided that Ballspiel is once again a going concern.

Stay tuned from August to May as we try and answer the following questions:

- Does Franck Ribery sleep under a Chelsea FC duvet or does he have a Real Madrid toilet seat cover both of which he's keeping secret from Franz Beckenbauer?

- Does Felix Magath really believe he can win the Bundesliga title with Schalke or is he conducting a scientific experiment to see if having a decent coach makes any difference at all to the club's ability to embarrassingly implode?

- Will Louis Van Gaal's mind control device have enough juice left in it to convince Mario Gomez he's a prolific striker beyond the first month of the season?

- Can moving back to Cologne reignite Lukas Podolski's love of the game or will it just ignite his love of the local beer and penchant for sporadically dressing like a clown?

All these questions and more will be thoroughly researched and investigated by our crack team of pub experts and crippled former lower league players. Now that's a promise you can believe in.

Ballspiel: Because we care…and someone out there might be mildly curious.

So what did we learn here, Palmer?

I don't know but the last weekend of the season reminded me of the ending to a Coen Brothers movie, one of their screwball comedies where a bunch of weird stuff happens and then kind of stops, in medias res, because, well, it has to stop somewhere.

Wolfsburg raced out to a big lead, and Hertha completely blew it in Karlsruhe, so there was little drama at the top end of the table.

The Wolves got their first-ever title, and deservedly so, but are faced with the prospect of a maiden trip throught the Champions League without the coach that built their success.

The retribution you would have expected Bayern to get for fielding a poorly coached (and by some accounts not really physically fit) team never materialized. They coasted through with pride and budget intact.

Stuttgart got what they wanted -- and then promptly lost their best player Mario Gomez to Bayern thanks to a secret 30-million-euro transfer clause in his contract (cue up Brad Pitt whispering "I've got your secret s%&t" to John Malkovich).

Hertha and Hamburg don't know whether to happy or not -- especially Hamburg who were gifted a spot in whatever the UEFA Cup will be called by a last-minute, clearly offside goal.

In the end, it was a season of anomalies, curious twists and occasional bits of farce that may not have signaled a new direction for the Bundesliga, or taught us anything about the football, but that was more fun to watch than I would have thought last August.

If that goal wasn’t offside, I’m gonna kill myself…

…muttered my despondent fellow Hertha fan Krishnan in block F16.5 of Berlin’s Olympic Stadium, as the clock ticked down, the taunting chants of Schalke supporters grew louder and the gigantic 0:0 refused to yield from the stadium video screen.

It was one of those afternoons. The only time the ball crossed the line was in the twentieth minute, after Marko Pantelic beat Schalke keeper Manuel Neuer – but the goal was ruled offside.

The consensus is that it was a bad call, but that’s no consolation or excuse. Hertha are out of the title race, while Wolfsburg and Stuttgart got big wins to keep their dream of hoisting the “salad bowl” alive.

They deserve it because they played attacking football (especially the Wolves who absolutely crushed Hanover). Meanwhile, Hertha stuck with the counter-attacking strategy that kept them in the race for 33 rounds but that was unlikely to break down the team with the best defense in the league and sole goal of spoiling our party.

What else could we have done? The good news is that Hertha are guaranteed at least a Champions League qualification spot if we beat Karlsruhe – a bottom-of-the-table team with no choice but to attack -- on Saturday.

No one committed suicide, no one lost an eye – the only casualty was a beer I dumped all over my trousers and the poor lady sitting in front of me.

And there’s no point in crying over spilt beer or bad calls, though I would recommend the linesman stay away from the German capital for a couple of weeks.

Who are the Big Bad Wolves Afraid of?

After this weekend's nasty 4-1 loss to Stuttgart, the answer would have to be almost everyone in the top five.

First and foremost, still-table-toppers Wolfsburg have to be concerned about Dortmund, who are their mid-week opponents. Dortmund have the league's longest winning streak at present, and though the Wolves have been unbeatable at home this season, Dortmund have only lost four times.

If the Wolves drop points to the men in yellow and black, they can likely kiss the top spot good-bye.

Bayern, of course, have stabilized themselves under interim manager Jupp Heynckesand will now be thinking that the league title may be within reach after all.

Third-placed Hertha are also lurking and have the advantage of an easier run-in. Their remaining opponents are Cologne, Schalke and last-placed Karlsruhe, compared to Dortmund, Hanover and Bremen for the Wolves.

Wolfsburg would have run away with the title, had they not had troubles winning outside the VW Arena, so their away match in Hanover could prove a snag. And Bremen are capable of beating anyone on the right day.

Finally, Wolfsburg probably won't need reminding that Stuttgart are also less than one win behind them, and that the Southern Germans already proved in 2006-7 season that they can keep their nerves in the clutch.

Keeping one's nerve -- that's what the title will come down to in final three rounds of one of the tightest Bundesliga seasons ever.

Adding absurdity to insult added to injury

Boy, do I feel sorry for Hamburg and their fans. A couple of weeks ago, the Northern Germans were in the hunt for three titles. Now, they’re out of the UEFA and German Cups and have only an outside chance of capturing the league crown.

To make matters worse, their failures in the two cup competitions came against their most hated rivals, fellow Northern Germans Werder Bremen.

And to cap it all off, the corner kick that led to Bremen’s decisive third goal in Thursday’s game apparently happened when the ball hit a rolled-up wad of paper thrown on to the pitch by one of Hamburg’s own fans.

Talk about absurdity added insult added to injury!

And there many be a further bitter irony in store.

Bremen have come in for heavy criticism of late for resting star players like Diego in the league to save them for the cup competition. The loudest complainer was, of course, Hamburg.

But with Diego now banned from the UEFA Cup final after picking up a third yellow card, coach Thomas Schaaf will have little reason to leave him out of the squad for Bremen’s next match – which is, of course, against Hamburg

What’s Going on Behind Those Beady Little Eyes?

After Wolfsburg’s 4-nil demolition of Hoffenheim, Felix Magath is poised to win a league title with his third different club and cement his reputation as one of the Bundesliga’s all-time greatest coaches.

He’s already secured the title of its most inscrutable.

It's now official that, despite his success with Wolves, Magath is heading to Schalke. That's after the coach himself fuelled months of speculation by refusing to confirm or deny anything.

Now, in normal times, most people would say Schalke is a better gig than Wolfsburg. But these are anything but normal times, and you have to scratch your head at someone voluntarily giving up a chance to play in the Champions League next season in order to take over a team with a notoriously crotchety management that will be likely watching the 2009-10 international matches on TV.

Or so what will be the upshot of Magath’s decision for this season? Will it take the pressure off his young team as they try to wrap up the league trophy?

Last weekend, the focus was all on the coach while Edin Dzeko quietly scored a hat-trick to clinch a pivotal win.

In his post-match interview, Magath, who’s played down expectations all season, said the title was Wolfsburg’s to lose – the verbal equivalent of a two-finger salute in Munich’s direction.

What’s going on with this man? Someone please tell me because I surely can’t figure it out.

Fasten your seat belts and get ready for a wild ride

When the history of the 2008-9 Bundesliga season is finally written, I suspect it will include the name Gerhard Tremmel.

In the 17th minute of Wolfsburg's Sunday match, the Cottbus keeper came up with one of those saves of the week. The eastern Germans went on to beat the league leaders -- a result that has implications for lots of people far away from either the Polish border or VW's headquarters.

First and foremost, it's going to make the Wolves, previously riding a ten-game winning streak, even more skittish as they try to close out the title. Had Wolfsburg won in Cottbus, the race would have been theirs to lose. Now it's wide open.

Second, Hertha Berlin -- now trailing Magath's men by only two points -- will start dreaming once more of hoisting the trophy. And take it from a Hertha fan: this is NOT usually a good thing.

Third, Wolfsburg's 2-nil slip-up may have cost Jürgen Klinsmann his job and Bayern a lot of short-term money. Klinsi is rumoured to have a five-million-euro severance clause in his contract that kicks in if he's fired during his first season.

He now has, and it's hard to imagine Hoeness and Co. spending that sort of money, if they had been trailing the Wolves by six points. As they would have, had Wolfsburg not been stymied by Cottbus.

Fourth, Stuttgart have to be feeling very, very confident right now. Of all the top five, they're the only ones who've been there, done that when it comes to a national title. And their last opponent is Bayern Munich.

Fifth, at only three points behind, Hamburg's hopes haven't entirely died yet. But they'll have to deal with Bremen in the UEFA Cup during the week and Hertha at the weekend.

And in that vein, sixth and seventh, Schalke and Dortmund may be too far back to have anything but a outside shot at the league title. But they could realistically qualify for international competition. And that's means there are going to be multiple top matches with lots at stake every round of play.

It's going to be quite a spectacle. So buckle up (in this case to a comfy couch or sturdy bar stool) and enjoy what's certain to be a frantic homestretch sprint with plenty of twists and turns.

Bayern brass makes it easy to hate the team again

A newly avowed Schalke fan, I have been personally delivered from temptation by none other than Bayern Munich's team manager Uli Hoeness and chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

Completely of my own volition, I confess to flirting with the possibility of making FC Bayern Munich my Bundesliga club of choice and now solemnly swear to reject the false icons the team uses to lure unsuspecting soccer fans to a fiery hell of red and white colored merchandise.

But don't get me wrong, I won't deny attraction I felt for the team and now recognize as prurient and base.

I was pulled in first by fond -- but now aging -- memories of Philipp Lahm, Lukas Podolski and Bastian Schweinsteiger during the 2006 World Cup. Then awe for Luca Toni and Franck Ribery blinded me. And the team's illustrious record possesses a magnetism of its own.

But it was Juergen Klinsman's sheer charisma that finally led to my fall from grace.

A Klinsi devotee since his days as a player, I kneeled before the soccer gods and prayed for his success at the head of the national team when others questioned his methods, and I nearly folded my hands again for his sake after the surprise take over at Bayern.

Now, with Klinsmann out of the picture, the battle for my soul can come to an end. Jupp Heynckes just doesn't have what Klinsi did, and I suspect wishing a rash of own-goals and missed opportunities on him will come with a long-practiced ease.

My this be the first, last and only time I have to say it, but thank you Uli Hoeness and thank you Karl-Heinz Rummenigge for you have saved me.

Why You'd Rather Support Bremen than Hamburg Right Now

Reflecting on Bremen's win on penalties over Hamburg in the German Cup on Wednesday, I found myself humming a line from my favorite songwriter Elliott Smith: "It's all about taking the easy way out, I suppose."

Werder Bremen have had a disastrous season in the league, and yet, like Hamburg, they're still in it with a shout to win two titles. And unlike Hamburg, Bremen's chances for some silverware come down to only four games.

One win by a wide-enough margin over Hamburg in the UEFA Cup semifinals would be enough to send Werder to the big show in Istanbul. And a single result against fellow underachievers Leverkusen would net them the German Cup.

Not too shabby for a team that, in the weekly grind of the league, has disappointed more than any other.

Bremen can afford to rest their top players on weekends -- knowing that they're not part of the relegation battle and too far behind to climb into the top five in the table.

Hamburg, on the other hand, have got to go all out in the remaining six league matches, plus play Bremen twice more in the UEFA semis.

With a goal difference in the league of only plus 4, Hamburg are arguably fortunate to be third in the standings and have to be worried that luck will even itself out.

One bad break has come already -- the injury picked up by striker Mladen Petric in Wednesday's Cup match.

There's nothing more agonizing than to be in contention for multiple titles and win none -- ask Leverkusen who in 2002 managed to lose the Champions League, the league title and German Cup in the space of a few short weeks.

So, personal loyalties aside, you're far better off supporting Bremen at the moment. They've got the easier way -- I suppose.

The Season of the Living Dead

Wolfsburg and Bayern aren't the only ones currently riding winning streaks. In fact, three teams that looked to be pretty much deceased have put together series of wins and gotten themselves back in contention for international competition.

The first, of course, is Stuttgart. Having put aside his dreams of a move to Munich, striker Mario Gomez is looking like his old self again, popping in a hat-trick against an overmatched Cologne on Saturday.

The scary thing, for the competition, about Stuttgart's resurgence is that they've been in this position before and gotten the job done -- having come from nowhere to win the league title in 2006-7.

They don't eat brains, but they have come back from the dead

Players like Gomez, Thomas Hitzlsperger and Roberto Hilbert can draw on that experience. And since they've still yet to play both Wolfsburg and Bayern, they have the opportunity to make up ground on leaders fast.

The second squad to climb out of the grave is Schalke. They handed out such a beating to Cottbus on Friday that the Eastern German team had to refund money paid for tickets to their disgruntled fans.

Schalke's resurrection seems to be down to a coaching change. For the second year in a row, former players Mike Büskens and Youri Mulder have been brought in to rescue the Royal Blues -- and for the second year in a row they're getting the job done.

The bosses in Gelsenkirchen need to seriously consider retaining the duo, rather than squandering money on yet another high-profile Dutch coach. After all, who better equipped to deal with the madhouse that is Schalke than guys who've survived it for years?

Finally another question -- and no cheating: which Bundesliga team has the fewest losses?

Hard to believe but it's Dortmund. They, too, have strung together some wins and are threatening to crack the top five.

That's been due in part to scheduling -- after starting 2009 slowly in matches against top competition, coach Jürgen Klopp's men have begun piling up points versus mediocre opposition.

That could change. In their final six matches, Dortmund have to play Hamburg and Wolfsburg as well as three of the four main relegation candidates -- never an easy task late in a season.

But in any case, how these three teams -- the undead, if you will -- perform is going to have a major influence on who wins the league title this season.

It S*!%ks Being Right

Well, it took a few weeks, but a couple of predictions I made came true this weekend. And I'm anything but happy about it.

The first was that Wolfsburg and not Bayern would be the biggest threat to take over first place from Hertha Berlin.

Boy, did that one ever come true. The Wolves didn't just beat Munich on Saturday. They beat the living crap out of them, with super striker Grafite scoring a final goal that was the football equivalent of a rim-hanging, crotch-grabbing, wave-my-finger-in-your-face dunk in basketball.

Strikers Dzeko and Grafite humiliated Bayern

All of Bayern's deficiencies were on display -- a wobbly back four, a lack of midfield creativity and an absence of tactical acumen on the sidelines. Munich do have a home game in hand, but even if one grants them a three-point advantage over the rest of the competition, they'd still probably lose a tie-break to Wolfsburg.

Meanwhile, Hertha's big shortcoming was also apparent. While they're a disciplined team capable of scoring big goals on the counter-attack, they're hard pressed when they have to take the game to their opponents.

We in the capital, I think, can shelve our dreams of a title for the immediate future and concentrate on hoping that Hertha can hang on to a top-three spot. With five of their last eight on the road, it will be an uphill struggle.

Hoffenheim also fell out of the top five, as I forecast this winter. But it's hard to fault them for what's been a disappointing 2009.

No team has been harder hit with injuries, suspensions and unwelcome distractions, and Ralf Rangnick and his squad deserve credit for avoiding total collapse.

And they've had poor luck as well -- Boubacar Sanogo hitting the post three times against Bremen, for example, or the ball skipping through for the otherwise harmless Jonathan Pitroipa to score the lone goal in Hoffenheim's 1-nil loss to Hamburg.

I would have loved to see Hoffenheim challenging for the top spots until the final weeks of the season, but I just couldn't see it happening back in February.

Unfortunately, I was right.

Pangs of Betrayal Strike New Schalke Fan as Depression Looms

Months ago I promised to announce which Bundesliga team would bask in the glow of my adoration, and, loath as I am to run contrary to readers' opinions (you said I should support Bielefeld -- and they got close), I've decided to extend my love to FC Gelsenkirchen-Schalke 04.

And ever since I made the decision the bad news doesn't stop rolling in. Results from the second leg of the season have been like multiple stab wounds to the chest -- the most recent of which was the 4-3 loss to Wolfsburg last week.

But now, even as the team works to reclaim its title as the "struggling also rans" and "perennial bridesmaids" of the Bundesliga, the Royal Blues are looking to plunge the knife into my back.

Ollie Kahn? In Gelsenkirchen? Say it ain't so.

Even though I don't doubt his qualification for the job (much) is looking at the one-time "King Kahn" really something Schalke execs have the nerve to ask their fans to stomach?

Please, give me something to be happy about on Sunday in the match at home against Hamburg.

I'd like to hope for a UEFA Cup spot, but part of me is already resigned to the fact that I've sworn allegiance to Schalke in a season that will go down as (another) one that leaves fans in tears.

One of the Best Crap Matches Ever

Bayer Leverkusen -- the young side many people tipped as a dark horse to win the league this season -- came into Saturday's match with Hertha Berlin knowing it was do or die.

Leverkusen died, but it was the way they did it that was most curious.

Instead of playing their usual pressing, offensive football, coach Bruno Labbadia's squad tried to match Hertha at a game of hang back, win the ball and counterattack.

The result -- from the perspective of a Hertha fan -- was one of the best crap matches ever. Leverkusen didn't generate a single serious scoring opportunity. Indeed, ace striker Patrick Helmes only had one shot on goal, late in the day and from an impossible angle.

Rarely has a 1-nil outcome seemed so natural, so self-evident,so...well, easy.

The game illustrated why Leverkusen are currently twelve points behind Hertha. While they're capable of scoring prodigiously and elegantly, they don't do the little things that win games.

Case in point: the lone goal of the match. Hertha striker Raffael tracked back to win the ball in midfield. Three passes later and a somewhat lucky rebound off of striker Andriy Voronin's chest, and Hertha had all the advantage they needed to secure three big points and take Leverkusen out of contention.

Leverkusen should take a good hard look at the video of this match and learn two lessons. Always play your own game, and remember that it's sometimes the basics, and not the brilliance, that gets results.

Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolves?

There are some worries I like having. For instance, concerns about which team poses the greatest challenge to Hertha Berlin at the top of the table – never thought I’d write that sentence in March!

But that’s the way things stand, and the team making me most nervous at the moment isn’t Bayern Munich. The press will be full of Munich-is-back reports this week, but I’m not convinced. The team I’m afraid of is Wolfsburg.

The Wolves are on a serious roll in 2009, taking 16 points from their first 6 matches. And unlike Klinsmann’s collection of often underperforming big names, Wolfsburg is balanced side without any obvious weaknesses.

Grafite and Edin Dzeko are, for my money, the best forward duo in the league. They’re both big, burly guys capable of outmuscling opponents – which is precisely what happened to Hertha when they lost to the Wolves three weeks ago.

They also have Zvjezdan Misimovic, a midfielder capable of scoring directly from free kicks, which is becoming something of a lost art in the league. In any case I’d take him over Bastian Schweinsteiger most days.

And their defense is the third-best in Germany. They don’t allow opponents many scoring opportunities, and when they do, keeper Diego Benaglio – in contrast to Bayern’s Michael Rensing – is usually up to the job.

Finally, whereas Bayern have a motivator in Juergen Klinsmann, the Wolves are run by strategist Felix Magath. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer coaches who concentrate on tactics and whose teams have won something in the past.

The two teams play one another the first week of April, and I think it will be one of the key games of the season. I’ll be watching in any case – and praying for a draw.

Who is that Masked Man, or Why Schalke are in Trouble

If you need a symbol for Schalke's troubled season thus far, look no further than reserve goalkeeper Ralf Faehrmann. The youngster got clonked in the face with a beer bottle during a late-night visit to a disco this week and showed up at practice wearing a protective mask.

The words "late-night disco" and "football player" almost always seem yield some sort of disaster, and though police said Faehrmann was blameless, he should have known -- given Schalke's current luck -- that he was courting trouble.

Last week, a presumably Dortmund-supporting computer geek hacked the club's website and posted a message that striker Kevin Kuranyi had been unconditionally released. On second thought, considering Kuranyi's season, maybe it was a Schalke fan engaging in some wishful thinking.

The fact is that, despite their enormous payroll, the Royal Blues are anything but regal. They haven't gelled as a team, and what's worse, if last week's loss to Bochum is any indication, some players have given up trying.

So Friday's match against arch-rivals Dortmund is a must-win. Schalke fans will forgive the team a lot if it can put the hurt on their hated enemy. On the other hand, the players will be lucky to get out of the arena alive, if they fail to give one-hundred percent.

Maybe they should give Faehrmann a start in goal. At least he's shown he's willing to play through a little pain.

Please Do Not Wake the Lunatic

I have to preface this entry with a confession. I am completely out of my mind.

You see last weekend I sprinted away from my job to catch the Hertha-Bayern match, secure in the knowledge that Bayern would win and go top of the table, and hoping against hope that Berlin would at least put up a good fight.

But at some point, I started hallucinating. I imagined that Hertha, who were missing their three best players, completely stymied the reigning champions in midfield. Players like Max Nico and Rodnei, who was making his Bundesliga debut, discovered previously untapped reserves of strength and held their own against Franck Ribery and Bastian Schweinsteiger.

In Jefferson's parallel universe, Andriy Voronin scored both of Hertha's goals.

In my mind's eye, I saw Berlin exploit a bad defensive lapse to take the lead and coolly execute a counterattack to win the match after Bayern had equalized.

After the match, I fantasized about a post-game interview with the Hoeness brothers, in which Dieter couldn't stop smiling and Uli could only play with his glasses and grumble about the pitch.

And in the days that followed, a vision of the Bundesliga table with Hertha Berlin at the top refused to loosen their grip on my overheated psyche. Even the Berlin newspapers, who never have much good to say about Hertha, speculated about the Bundesliga title coming back to the capital for the first time since 1931.

Obviously, I've gone insane. Completely lost touch with reality. Taken an extended vacation in la-la land. Hertha Berlin beats Bayern to go top of the Bundesliga after round 20? Couldn't happen. Has to be a dream.

But do me a favour. Don't wake me up just yet.

The Return of the Professional

As recently as the beginning of the year, it would have seemed ludicrous to use the name David Beckham in the same sentence as the phrase "for sporting reasons."

Ever since the former England captain turned his back on Europe for the dizzying lights, if not heights, of Major League Soccer, many have questioned whether Becks was ever going to do anything "for sporting reasons" again. Signing a money-bags contract with LA Galaxy had the distinct whiff of being nothing more than the latest in a long line of advertising contracts that he has tucked under his Armani belt. Beckham would be given America and in exchange, US soccer would be given a glamorous and high-profile shot in the arm. Those critics in Europe, myself included, saw the move as the death of Beckham's ambition; a final, fat pay day to soften the blow of age and immobility catching up with him.

But since January, I have rediscovered the joy of Becks. I have even found myself giddy with excitement at the sight of him in the black and red of AC Milan. I've become a fan again. Beckham of all people has added his considerable star-studded weight to what could be a growing trend, that of the footballer who does what he does for the love of the game, pure and simple.

At around the same time of Beckham's loan move to Milan, I wrote in this very blog about the transfer of Bayern Munich's Lukas Podolski to his spiritual home at FC Köln (there’s my link to Germany, by the way, before editors and audience alike start complaining about random non-Bundesliga stories cropping up). Poldi will head back to his heartland this summer in a move which is motivated, for the most part, by a desire to play for a team he loves in an environment that he feels comfortable with. While the personal details of the contract he's signed have not been divulged, just the standing of the two clubs involved in Podolski's transfer suggest that Cologne may not be able to lavish the riches on him that Bayern can. So I like to think that Podolski's move has less to do with the cash and more to do with what feels right in a sporting context.

Beckham, if his loan move at San Siro becomes permanent, is unlikely to go wanting in the money department. Milan can and probably will pay him a wage that any multi-millionaire soccer star would consider quite adequate, thank you very much. But it warms the very cockles of my heart to see that Becks is doing it for the chance to play at the top of the game again. Okay, some may say he may be doing it just to get back into the England team but if that was the case, then why not just join Manchester City? They have more money than sense there and he could walk into their first team on a weekly basis. No, Becks wants to be at Milan because they are one of the best clubs in the world and he wants to prove that he is still good enough and still has the desire to be a part of such a team. He wants to show all those armchair experts that he's more than just a walking endorsement in a pair of obscenely tight designer trunks.

Right, I'd better go…My humble pie is ready.

Bremen's Boo-Boo, or There Ain't No Lottery in the Bundesliga

So the transfer window is closed and one deal in particular had me raising my eyebrows -- Werder Bremen loaning out striker Boubacar Sanogo to Hoffenheim.

On the one hand, I'm glad because the deal means the standings leaders acquire someone who could take over for injured goal-machine Vedad Ibisevic -- and help the upstarts give Bayern a run for their money.

On the other, though, I wonder what in the world Werder were thinking. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought one golden rule of transfer was NOT to strengthen the competition. With Werder languishing in the middle of the table, you'd have figured the last thing they would have wanted was to help out any of the teams above them.

And it's not as if Bremen have talent to spare up front. While Sanogo was scoring a goal for his new employers against Cottbus last weekend, Bremen were playing -- and losing to -- lowly Bielefeld with only one striker in their starting eleven.

The decision to move Sanogo would be understandable, if Bremen were playing basketball in North America. The NBA rewards teams who finish outside the playoff with better chances of signing rookies in the league's annual lottery.

But there are no ping-pong balls in the Bundesliga. You finish in ninth, you finish in ninth -- and lose the big bucks that come with qualifying for international competition. Even if Hoffenheim decide to purchase the Ivorian striker, the money doesn't add up for Werder.

Does this mean that Bremen commercial manager Klaus Allofs and coach Thomas Schaaf has decided to throw in the towel this season? Or has someone somewhere seriously lost the plot?

B’s Knee, or an Extremely Cruel Twist to the Season

Injuries are part of the game, and it's statistically inevitable that a certain number of players will find their seasons ended prematurely. Still, as a Bundesliga fan, you couldn’t help cursing the football gods, when the news broke that Hoffenheim's Vedad Ibisevic had hurt his knee in a winter-break friendly and would have to sit out the remainder of 2008-9.

Ibisevic – accent on the second syllable – was the league's hands down MVP (most valuable player) in the first half of the season and had led the first-division debutantes as they usurped Bayern Munich's place at the top of the table.

So good was the Bosnian striker (18 goals, 7 assists), many were beginning to believe he could break Gerd Mueller first division record of 40 goals in a single season.

Now, the proverbial ice bag on Ibisevic's knee has put that scenario into cold storage – together, most likely, with any hopes Hoffenheim had of claiming the title. In a recent poll carried out by Germany's leading football magazine Kicker, two out every three readers thought that Hoffenheim's chances of besting Bayern were over.

I agree. Last season Arsenal were leading the English Premiership until a horrific injury to striker Eduardo. They subsequently fell out of the hunt, and Ibisevic was far more valuable to Hoffenheim than Eduardo was to the Gunners.

So Hoffenheim and Bundesliga fans hoping for an exciting title race will probably lose out, while the only winners are Bayern.

Detractors claim that Munich enjoy more than their fair share of Lady Luck, while supporters claim they make their own good fortune.

But with their main title rivals having suffered such a serious blow, in a meaningless training match at that, the men in Munich's Saebener Street have to believe that some higher power is smiling down upon them.

The Podolski Anomaly

Apart from the love of the game, most footballers do what they do to be successful and win things. Okay, some also do it so they can marry supermodels, drive Bentleys and set fire to a million euros if the urge takes them. But aside from monetary gain, players want medals. They want to look back over their short careers and see their names in the history books as winners of this cup or that league.

To achieve this, you have to get yourself into a good team. If you're a good - or even great - player, this isn't usually a problem because clubs normally have the same objectives as ambitious players and that is to be the best. To be the best, it helps to have the best.

Lukas Podolski is a good player. Maybe one day he will even be a great player. He was such a good player back in 2006 that the likes of Real Madrid were interested in taking him away from FC Köln. The Spanish giants wanted to make him rich and successful, and to enter his name into the annals of one of the world's greatest clubs. Germany's premier team Bayern Munich offered him the same thing. In the end, Poldi chose the Bavarians over Los Blancos.

Maybe Poldi wasn't ready to leave Germany. Maybe he thought his chances of getting into the first team were higher at Bayern. Maybe he saw Bayern as the next logical step in a well thought-out career plan which would see him at the Bernabeu or Camp Nou or even the San Siro in a few years down the line.

Or maybe he could see glittering prizes ahead of him at the Allianz Arena. If so, his crystal ball didn't let him down. In his first season at Bayern, he collected a championship winners medal and a DFB Cup winners medal. A career full of those coveted gongs looked set to follow.

While this may have given Poldi a taste of the glory to come, that first desire I mentioned - that of footballers wanting to play the game they love - wasn't being satisfied nearly enough. Podolski was more likely to get splinters in his backside from sitting on the bench than getting time on the pitch. And so, he made it clear that he would look elsewhere for a game if Bayern weren't going to play him. Reluctantly, but eventually, the bosses at Bayern agreed that Poldi could go.

Now, our story could have taken our hero to Spain, Italy or England at this point with interested parties from Europe's top leagues all ready to give Poldi playing time and the prospect of more glory. Instead, we go back to the start.

Podolski looks set to rejoin FC Köln in the summer. He could still end up at a big continental club if someone offers the Bayern chiefs more money but his heart, if not his boots as yet, lies in Cologne.

Now, with all due respect to FC Köln, this seems - on the surface at least - to be a rather confounding choice. Just as in the summer of 2006, top clubs with great traditions and trophy-winning prospects are looking to employ the Germany striker. And again, Poldi chooses to stay in Germany - but as he already plays for the biggest club in the land, he can only really go down the ladder, reducing his prospects of medals and glory by joining a currently mid-table club which has a long-standing on-off affair with the second division.

Why, if a footballer's motivation is glory and success, would Podolski do this?

Footballers are just people (albeit people who can ping a ball fifty yards to the feet of a sprinting colleague or curl shots into the top corner from mathematical angles). People need to feel loved. There is only really one place in the football world where Lukas Podolski really feels the love and that's in Cologne. So what if it means that one of Germany's potentially great talents never gets to add to his medal collection? So what if he can only afford one Ferrari on his Cologne wages? Maybe for Podolski it much more important for him to look back over his career and see that he was happy and that he played for a club and supporters who really appreciated his worth.

If these are the reasons for Podolski's potential return to Cologne then he deserves the title his faithful give him: The Prince.

Uli Criticizes Milan's Walk of Fame

Uli Hoeness claims that David Beckham has turned AC Milan into a Hollywood film set after the former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder played his first game for the Italian giants since his loan move from LA Galaxy began at the turn of the year.

Hoeness and Bayern Munich shared training facilities with Milan in Dubai as the Italians prepared for their Dubai Football Challenge match against SV Hamburg and said that the furor surrounding Beckham before, during and after Milan's 4-3 win on penalties was like a "Hollywood production".

Hoeness said the game had made him think that "the difference between Bayern and Milan is that one team plays football and the other makes a film as in Hollywood," adding that the game before a 30,000 crowd at The Sevens stadium, was "not a football match but a production."

The gruff Bayern general manager said he would not be involved in anything similar. "I am employed as a football manager and not to see that Mrs. Beckham has a large apartment in a hotel, which corresponds to her wishes," he said.

Hoeness, however sour his grapes may be, may have a point but it must be said that the Italians have always been a bit Hollywood, even before the Beckham travelling circus rolled into town.

Veteran defender Paulo Maldini has the smoldering looks which would have made him a star, while the boyish charm of Kaka would certainly be put to good use by producers of romantic comedies (but with a body double employed to protect the evangelical Brazilian from having to film sex scenes). Rino Gattuso was born to play a silent movie villain while Andrea Pirlo could give Antonio Banderas a run for his money should the Zorro gig become available. Even Ronaldinho, bless him, could grace the silver screen, even if it is in the live-action adaptation of 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'

Who do Bayern have? Well, poor old Franck Ribery* could live up to his cruel nickname of Quasimodo in a remake of 'The Hunchback of Notre Dame', Bastian Schweinsteiger may scrape a living along the lines of Johnny Drama in 'Entourage' playing random thugs and accident victims in made-for-cable dramas while I suppose Hoeness himself could feature as Uncle Fester in the next 'Addams Family' movie. Lil' Phil 'Home Alone' Lahm may have missed his calling as a perennial child star (or perhaps an Ewok in the Star Wars movies) while Miro Klose's phone would only ring if someone was looking to cast him as an android.

Funnily enough, the only member of the current Bayern squad with real Tinseltown quality is Luca Toni– and he's Italian.

(Hoeness also failed to mention in his derisive comments that Bayern have their own LA loan star in their ranks, the most popular US soccer player of all-time, Landon Donovan. And even he can't raise the Blockbuster rating in the Bayern camp. Food for thought, Uli?)

*Before anyone complains: Yes, I know Ribery was involved in a car crash in his childhood and no, I am not an unfeeling *******.

A Poldi for a Pante Plus Seven Big Ones

In America, they call it the hot stove league -- those mid-winter BS sessions in which baseball fans sit around cast-iron sources of warmth and let their fantasies run wild.

Well, Germany also has both hot stoves -- we need 'em, too, considering the current cold -- and no end to mid-season speculation about who's headed where. This winter's main topic has been Lukas Podolski.

With Bayern having signed Hamburg striker Ivica Olic for next season, there are rumors that Hamburg might offer cash and permission for Olic to play in Munich immediately in return for the right to snatch the faltering Prince away from Cologne.

That would kind be a shame since Poldi clearly wants to play for his hometown club. And Bayern might want to think twice about strengthening a big-money rival like Hamburg.

The problem is that although Cologne have offered 7 million euros for their prodigal son, Bayern's commercial manager Uli Hoeness flatly rejected that sum as an "insult."

Seven million probably accurately reflects Poldi's market value right now. But if he were sold for that amount, Munich's managers would have to admit they overpaid for the prodigy when they brought him in for 10 million in 2006.

But in best hot-stove fashion, I've come up with a solution -- the sort of three-way deal that happens all the time in American sports. Here's how it works.

Hertha Berlin want to be rid of striker Marco Pantelic, whose estimated value is 2-3 million and who is to coach Lucien Favre what a cobra is to a mongoose.

Berlin deal Pantelic plus 7 million to Bayern for Poldi and then put him on the next plane to Cologne in return for, say, 5 million -- plus Cologne striker Milivoje Novakovic.

WTF is Milivoje Novakovic, you ask. Well, the Slovenian has knocked in 10 goals in 16 games this year for a mediocre side. And at 1.95 meters, he would be a welcome big target for a Hertha side that's unexpectedly learned to cross the ball this year.

Cologne would miss his services, of course, but they would get their hometown hero back for less than they offered. And could Bayern save face and add a proven goalscorer for their title campaign this season and, if they so chose, beyond.

So, everyone's happy. And now that that's settled, I'm going to put another log on the fire.

The Madness of King Ramon

So, as I mused recently on these very blog pages, Bernd Schuster's time is up in Madrid. Reports doing the rounds today suggest that the German will be heading home for Christmas (as is compatriot Timo Hildebrand) after being sacked as Real coach.

The writing was on the wall for most of the last six weeks of La Liga as Real lurched around liked a wounded lion, flailing as lesser predators took bites out of it moth-eaten hide and added further injuries to the insult of its many toothless performances.

With a list of crippled players which would make up a team of international all-stars if only they could walk, Schuster's team was shorn of world class talent at a time when confidence was low and frustration high. Add the suspensions which started to pile up when Madrid's more volatile divas started getting themselves sent off, and it seemed even more unlikely that Bernd was going to be able to dig himself out of this particular hole with a makeshift team of second-stringers.

This, it should be noted, however, is Real Madrid. They don't have rubbish players on the bench – or anywhere else in the club, come to mention it. So the question must be whether or not Schuster was up to the job this season. With a rejuvenated Barcelona showing the way, the pressure must have been even more intense to get Los Blancos firing on all cylinders in a bid to defend their title. Unfortunately, Schuster has become a victim of that pressure and the superhuman demands placed on coaches at the Santiago Bernabeu to keep the team in top spot.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Real Madrid is a club well known for its insanity. While Schuster's exit may be not be the result of a complete mental meltdown (the results speak for themselves, after all), the rumored appointment of Juande Ramos as his successor comes straight from the loony bin.

This is a man who took Tottenham Hotspur, a team which should have been challenging the top four for a Champions League place, to the bottom of the English Premiership. Ramos, despite his success with Sevilla in Spain, failed spectacularly to drag his Spurs team out of the doldrums as they suffered their worst ever start to a league season. Despite buying a host of new talent during the summer, Spurs failed to record a win in their first eight matches. Ramos was sacked as manager in October after recording only six wins in all competitions since February.

If the rumors turn out to be true, Real President Ramon Calderon now believes Ramos is the man to revive Madrid. Los Blancos may not be in such a dire situation as Spurs were in the league, but they are certainly a team which needs a similar injection of confidence.

After Ramos did such a bang-up job London, the wisdom of such an appointment must surely come into question.

Let's see how this latest masterstroke by the Madrid puppet master plays out…

Germany's Fairy Tale Is Over

Germans (and others, including me) became enthralled with the national team after its fairy-tale finish at the 2006 World Cup. So much so, in fact, that people flooded movie theaters to relive the magic.

A euphoric run to the final of last summer's European Championships, cemented Germany's return to the international soccer elite and German's expectations that their team was destined to be a "team of 11 friends" unburdened by personal animosity.

But with players engaging in open revolt against coach Joachim Loew's roster decisions, it's seemed clear for quite some time now that the fairy princess who keeps the locker room peace left Die Mannschaft quite some time ago.

The amazing thing is that Bierhoff is, apparently, just realizing that it's not all peace and harmony among the players he's meant to be keeping an eye on. Saturday he told a German newspaper that there was nothing but hard work left for the national team.

"We must realize that the summer fairy tale, and the summer fairy tale 'reloaded' -- if you want to give Euro 2008 this name -- is over ... We must be down to earth again," Bierhoff told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Bierhoff also admitted that he personally made mistakes in dealing with the team's personnel issues and didn't always put his best side forward in public.

For a man who has maintained such a sharp and polished public image -- since dumping his player's jersey he's not been spotted without his ubiquitous sports jacket -- I'm amazed it's taken him so long to come to terms with the discontent that's eating away at the national team. He has, after all, been intricately involved in the disagreements since having it out with team captain Michael Ballack on the field at the 2008 EURO.

My hope is that everyone takes some antacids and the team gets aligned before South Africa 2010. I'm personally willing to part ways with Ballack and/or Bierhoff.

Hildebrand Heads Home

One song which might not be getting a lot of appreciative airtime in the Hildebrand household this yuletide is Frank Sinatra's "I'll Be Home for Christmas". The sound of Ol' Blue Eyes crooning out his festive promise is likely to force poor Timo to the nearest mirror for a reassuring ogle at himself – that is if he can hear the stereo over the sound of a bunch of burly Spanish removal men loading up his furniture.

The (allegedly) narcissistic former Stuttgart keeper and Germany's often third choice stopper has finally been put out of his misery by Spanish giants Valencia, who signed the man known as The Mirror on a free transfer after he lifted the Bundesliga title in 2007. Achieving a level of bench-warming which would make Lukas Podolski jealous, Hildebrand failed to fulfil the prophecies of the Spanish press who had him pegged as the long-term successor to the equally in-awe-of-himself Santiago Canizares.

Now, leaving the Valencia bench looking like Homer Simpson's sofa, Hildebrand has been given his cards and with a loud "adios" ringing in his ears, he now looks covetously at the Bundesliga in the hope that one of Germany's top clubs will remember that he was actually quite a good stopper before becoming a permanent fixture in the home dug-out at the Mestalla.

After a first season in Valencia which saw him play 26 games, Timo fell out of favour at the Mestalla when coach Ronald Koeman was replaced by Unai Emery at the end of the last campaign. Emery, supposedly a no-nonsense kind of guy, immediately opted to play Brazilian Renan Brato in goal at the Spanish club in place of the preening German. Cue a season of pouting and complaining which did the young Hildebrand no favors whatsoever. After a Spanish Super Cup appearance on August 24, Timo settled down with his haemorrhoid cushion to enjoy a view of Valencia's league campaign that the fans in the vertiginous stands would kill for.

So what now for the one-time great goalkeeping hope of German soccer? It must be galling for Timo to look towards his former club and once again see Jens Lehmann creaking away between the sticks in the shirt that should be his. It's just like the national team all over again. While Lehmann may not make another season at Stuttgart, it is unlikely that Hildebrand will spend the rest of the season buying hair products in the hope that he'll get the call home from new coach and former team mate Markus Babbel at the start of the next campaign. He may be very use to doing nothing for a living but chances are that Timo will want to get back to playing as soon as possible.

Hoffenheim and Cologne seem to be interested and are reportedly looking to bring the free agent in from the cold in the January transfer window. Hmm…Not particularly fashionable clubs, eh, Timo? Despite their high-flying debut season, being the Hoffenheim keeper is hardly an advantage when going for those lucrative L'Oreal contracts. And Cologne? All those clowns and beer can play havoc with your image.

It all seems so very far away from those heady days of championship success and the almost predetermined elevation to the Germany No.1 slot. The grass may not have been greener in Valencia but the sun was definitely warmer and the euros more in abundance.

Now it seems that if Timo Hildebrand is going to prove to everyone that he can still perform at the level he once could before his move to Spain, he's going to have to brave the cold once more and take whatever offer comes his way -- regardless of whether his new team's shirts match his eyes.

"Something's happening here and what it is ain't exactly clear..."

Hertha Berlin are third in the Bundesliga -- a sentence I never thought I write in December.

Hertha aren't playing that much differently than usual, but they're winning. I've seen it with my own eyes.

Two weeks ago in the fan section at the Olympic stadium: Berlin play one of the worst first halves since the demise of the 7-2-1 formation, going behind after a marshmallow-soft goal to Hamburg.

Then, before I'd even gotten the half-time beers back to my seat, Hertha score twice. They hibernate their way through the remaining 40-odd minutes but, with a little help from aluminum, rack up three points.

Last weekend in Bar 11 in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin: Hertha go up early against Cologne before conceding a stupid equalizer milliseconds before the break. The second half winds its way to a conclusion, both teams seem happy with a point.

Typical Hertha, I think...and then Marco Pantelic scores the winner with a nifty back-to-the-goal header. The Bar 11 goes wild. I am truly confused.

Can it be that this is our season? I know better to believe that. Been there too many times before. It's never our season. And yet...

...midfielders Cicero and Kacar have been excellent, and the interior defense is arguably the best in the Bundesliga. Why shouldn't they keep on winning?

Well, maybe the fact that coach Lucien Favre can't stand Pantelic, the team's best goal-getter, and wants to flog him off at the winter break. After the Cologne match Pante practically begged to be allowed to stay, but will Favre relent?

Just another soap opera to add to the emotional bewilderment of a Hertha fan who'd love to hope but who's learned -- the hard way -- to keep his enthusiasm well in check.

Coping with Loss by Winning Games

The list of the Bundesliga's top goal scorers begins with Hoffenheim's Vedad Ibisevic, a journeyman striker who's somehow – doping? dumb luck? divine intervention? – racked up 16 thus far this season.

But look just a little bit further down that list and you'll see two names whose goal tallies have been accompanied by personal tragedies. They are Wolfsburg's Grafite and Bielefeld's Artur Wichniarek.

The Brazilian is mourning the death of his father last October, while the Pole lost his mother at the beginning of the season.

Previously, I never had very many nice things to say about this pair of characters. Grafite earned himself a lengthy suspension last season for arguably the league's worst cheap shot – he tried to break the hand of a prostrate opponent.

And the memories of Wichniarek's painfully unproductive, rancorous stint at Hertha Berlin from 2003 to 2005 always make wish I had an Excalibur every time I hear the phrase King Arthur – the striker's nickname in Bielefeld.

Still, I can't help but think that these two players' current run of form is one of this season's nicer side stories.

Football players may be egomaniacal dunderheads with fantastically limited horizons in many respects, but I think most do genuinely appreciate the sacrifices their parents made.

So, if Grafite succeeds in leading the Wolves to a top five finish and Wichniarek helps Bielefeld stay in the first division, I'll find it hard to begrudge them their success.

Return of the Prodigal Sohn?

I’d been trying to contain my excitement over Landon Donovan’s potential return to Germany for a couple weeks now. But when news came this week that he’d inked a deal to stay on loan at Bayern until mid-March at least, I felt it was time to open up.

Donovan is the best all-around soccer player that my country, the United States, has ever managed to produce. You can make your arguments for Tab Ramos or Claudio Reyna -- capable players both, but not in the same game-breaking league as Donovan. You can also hold out hope, with some foundation, that Jozy Altidore or Freddy Adu will soon blossom into the kind of player that will make us forget all about Landon Donovan.

Wait, why would we want to forget all about him? Well...because he is not just the best-ever US player, he’s also the most disappointing. With every honey-scented memory of Donovan slicing through the German defense in Ulsan in 2002 (a game that makes any good American soccer fan incapable of bringing himself to like Torsten Frings), you are forced to remember his timid lay-offs to less-well-positioned teammates in front of goal as the US crashed out to Ghana in Nuremberg in 2006. Every dominant performance you remember of Donovan in San Jose, willing his team to two MLS titles, must be tempered by his frequent indifference since in Los Angeles, as well as that famous whiff against Liverpool in the Champions League for Leverkusen in 2005.

It was that game, more than any other one thing, that cemented Donovan’s reputation as a failure on the European stage and, much worse, as a quitter. Recalled (reportedly against his will) to Leverkusen after lighting up MLS, he never shined there. After just seven appearances for the pharmaceuticals, he announced he was leaving, and slunk back to the US. The US soccer community, a small-but-growing one that has all the tight-knit comforts and neuroses of many an embattled subculture, turned on him, big-time.

Columnists criticized, bulletin boarders ranted, and most memorably, a pair of Los-Angeles-based satellite radio show hosts popularized a nickname for him that had been bubbling up for a short while: Landycakes. The name was meant to embody Donovan’s every expression of surrender to the cold dark German winter, his every statement of devotion to his television actress wife over his career, his every wuss-out on the pitch.

For a time, during the run-up to the 2006 World Cup especially, to refer to Donovan as anything other than Landycakes seemed an absurd bow to formality.

In Germany, Donovan did play well in the drawn ultimate fighting/soccer match against Italy, but not really otherwise. He was headed for the well-trod oblivion of wasted potential, another player of the golden-ball-at-the-U17-World-Cup- followed-by-not-very-much school, a type of player anyone from Spain, Portugal, or half of South America will be more than a little familiar with.

So the news that Donovan is coming back to Europe with an alleged new thirst for achievement is doing my heart good. Having been in Germany for a few years now, I have missed his rejuvenation with the Galaxy, where his partnership with God’s Gift to Soccer(TM) saw him score 20 goals this past season, his best ever tally. If that’s an indication of what Donovan is now prepared to do with world-class service, then I say Bayern may well like what they get

Sure, the timid are already lining up to say that Bayern, a mega-club with mega-club pressures from the practice field to the press room to the pitch on game day, is a step too far, that it’s going to eat Donovan alive. They say he’d be better off moving into some sort of footballing starter home, something along the lines of Hanover, Valladolid or Fulham. A modest place, but built solidly enough; a place where he could get more steady playing time and stay out of the spotlight.

I’m glad he resisted that temptation and reached for the brass bier stein. This is a guy who appears to be aware of his place in American soccer history, and knows that he’d instantly put himself at the top of the heap should he break into the Bayern side. For all the United States’ success at placing players abroad in recent years, no outfield player has ever been a regular at a big, Champions League-contending club in a top-five league. (That definition allows me to discount DaMarcus Beasley’s run to the CL semis in 2005, as it was with PSV. gotcha.) Succeed at Bayern and all is forgiven.

There’s plenty to say that his ride on the Saebenerstrasse won’t be an easy one, but there may be a way in for the guy. Let me explain.

Bayern already has one unhappy striker who can’t seem to get into the side no matter what he does. But while Donovan can no longer match Podolski’s explosiveness and has never been as ruthless a finisher, his tactical understanding dwarfs that of the little Kölner. Having been pampered in Cologne and surrounded by those who could cover for his mistakes with Germany, Prince Poldi has been at sea with Bayern.

Mostly, I reckon, because his coaches are just plain fed up trying to teach the little brat to track back effectively or stick with a defensive assignment. For Donovan, that’s no problem. He’s had to be mister all-around-everything so many times in a career in the often woeful MLS, that there is no other way to play for him but two ways. What’s more, the finishing rate he achieved in 2008 suggests Donovan may even be able to light a fire under the errant Miroslav Klose’s kiester.

In the attacking midfield, where Donovan often finds himself assigned on national team duty, the situation at Bayern is more complicated. Bastian Schweinsteiger and Franck Ribery have their places on lockdown, as they should. But the other competitors, Tim Borowski, Jose Ernesto Sosa, Hamit Altintop, and Toni Kroos, are a mixed bag. Toni Kroos is by a long stretch the most talented of the bunch -- hell, aside from Ribery, probably the most talented player at Bayern. But he’s already losing patience with the team and his stage-mom dad is angling to get him a loan move. Jose Ernesto Sosa has shown flashes of brilliance, but more often has appeared indecisive and has not settled at Bayern. He’s expected to leave sooner rather than later. Hamit Altintop is a quick, mentally tough player I like very much, and one who I would see as Donovan’s biggest competition in midfield. Unfortunately he’s been rather injury prone lately, which makes it tough to hold down a place at a club like Bayern. Which brings us to Tim Borowski. Through a number of solid substitute performances, he’s deservedly played his way into the first-man-off-the-bench status. But rumors out of the Bayern camp would have it that he’s a prima donna jerk, constantly whining after more playing time and winning little love from his teammates.

This chemistry factor is, I would hope, one of Donovan’s aces in the hole. It’s tough to say what kind of impression he will make on his teammates but he already has the hierarchy of the Bayern coaching staff on his side. Both Jürgen Klinsmann and his top assistant Martin Vasquez know Donovan well from their mutual days on the SoCal soccer scene, and I can’t help but believe that won’t give him a leg up. (When I watch Vasquez standing on the sideline giving last-minute instructions to the likes of Christian Lell, as the defender prepares to enter as a sub, what can the guy really say to him, in his halting German? Or, if it’s the other way around, How much can Lell understand with his schoolboy English?)

Much as I have looked on in disappointment at Landon Donovan -- and that is MUCH -- I really think he has a great chance of hacking it at Bayern. I can’t wait to find out.

Taxi for Schuster?

Such is the nature of modern soccer in general, and Real Madrid in particular, that a coach of Bernd Schuster's standing is hanging onto his job by his fingernails.

The German, who was a successful player both at Real and city rivals Atletico, as well as with Barcelona, won the much coveted La Liga title and the Spanish Super Cup in his first season as Real boss last year.

Despite giving the demanding madridistas exactly what they want (which is the Spanish title plus the humiliation of Barcelona), Schuster has one eye on the exit and the other on the knives hovering over his back even though this season, only his second in charge of Los Blancos, is barely at the halfway point.

With six months to go, Real are only five points behind Barcelona in the race for La Liga and second in their Champions League group. A lot can happen in half a year and Schuster is more than capable of turning Madrid's stumbling form around.

But history tells us that success is everything and the only thing that matters at the Santiago Bernabeu.

Schuster need only look at his predecessor to realize that even delivering the Spanish game's greatest prize is no guarantee for staying the hands of those who wish to betray the coach.

Fabio Capello took over a team bloated from the excesses of the galactico period, cut out the fat, bought in lean and hungry players and turned Real Madrid into a force again. In the one season he had in charge (after returning to the Bernabeu after a similarly successful season-long spell in 1997), Madrid reclaimed the title for the first time since 2003 – and more pleasing still he stole it from the all-conquering Barcelona team of Frank Rijkaard.

Capello couldn't even count on the fact that he had wrestled La Liga away from Madrid's fiercest rivals after a two-year period of domestic dominance, during which Barca also became European champions, the other Holy Grail for any Los Blancos coach. The axe fell on the Italian and Schuster stepped into one of the most worn-out hot-seats in world soccer.

Now it seems Bernd's days are numbered as he has been given the Kiss of Death -- the vote of confidence from chairman Ramón Calderon and his board of directors.

Calderon said this week that "the ideal thing would be to finish the season with the same coach that begun it" -- but also hinted that his patience with Schuster would not be unlimited.

To sound of sharpening knives, Pedja Mijatovic, the club's sporting director, also announced that Schuster still enjoys his confidence, despite recent results.

"My confidence in the coach has not changed since the beginning of the season," Mijatovic told a packed press conference at the Bernabeu.

Mijatovic compared the current situation with that of two years ago, when many fans were chanting for the sacking of Capello.

"In our first season," he added, "we had to make a difficult decision with Capello, and we did not get it wrong. Now we have a lot of confidence in a coach who had a great season last year. We continue to be very content with him."

Mijatovic added that "it has been bad luck that we have not achieved the desired results in our recent matches. ... At the end of the season we shall see which decisions we have to take."

He finished his statement by admitting that Real would try to make signings in the January transfer window, in order to strengthen an injury-plagued squad.

"This situation obliges us to enter into the winter market. ... It is not about signing for signing's sake, but to bring in someone who can help until June, and into the future. We are considering several names, and we will do whatever is necessary to sign two or three players."

And so Madrid look set to resort to their two main options when success is not immediate: sack the coach and splash its millions on the transfer market. (To be fair, this is the model which every top club around the world considers to be the recipe for success).

The possible signings mentioned by the Madrid media include strikers Hernan Crespo of Inter Milan, Diego Milito of Genoa and Ricardo Oliveira of second division Zaragoza.

Mijatovic is desperate to reinforce Real's slender strike force, given that veteran Ruud Van Nistelrooy is out for the rest of the season with knee ligament problems.

Most sections of the Spanish media expected Schuster to be sacked after last Saturday's 1-0 defeat away to lowly Valladolid.

Online opinion polls in the digital versions of Marca and AS show that most fans want to see the back of Schuster, who joined from Getafe in July 2007 after Capello was sacked.

Anything less than a handsome defeat of lowly Recreativo Huelva on Saturday will surely see Schuster looking for gainful employment elsewhere.

Schuster will have to improvise a makeshift team out of an injury-plagued squad if he is to get a stay of execution as he will be without Miguel Torres, Pepe, Mahamadou Diarra, Ruben de la Red, Arjen Robben and Ruud Van Nistelrooy.

In addition, Gabriel Heinze is suspended after being sent off for dissent in last Saturday's defeat in Valladolid.

Everything considered, it appears that the crazy world of soccer – and the even crazier world of Real Madrid – will claim the job of another talented coach who can't live up to the ridiculous demands of the modern game.

Mother%&!=%ing Referees! or Who's Afraid of Jochen Drees?

The 13th round of play is upon us, and one team of professionals is under particular pressure – the Bundesliga's referees.

Last week's matches were full of controversy, with calls and non-calls being questioned in Hertha v Hoffenheim, Karlsruhe v Leverkusen, Frankfurt v Stuttgart and Hamburg v Dortmund.

The last of those clashes ended with Dortmund coach sprinting onto the pitch, haranguing referee Jochen Drees and holding up two fingers in what looked to be a V sign.

Klopp, who being German isn't necessarily aware of that gesture's significance in England, said he was mad that only two minutes of injury time had been given.

Dortmund fullback Robert Kovac also got in the action, earning a post-match red card for saying that Drees had "wet his pants." Indeed, the schoolboy-looking Drees probably briefly contemplated doing precisely that when faced with the enraged Croatian defender.

The irony was that Bundesliga refereeing has been pretty good this season. And while some decisions last week were questionable, none of them were huge clangers that led to manifestly unfair results.

Nonetheless, what would soccer be without little scandals? The sports pages this week have been full of self-righteous debates about whether today's players have enough respect for refs, or vice versa, or both, or whatever.

The respect issue crops up nearly every season, usually around the point when Bayern start getting results again and sportswriters have little to "analyze."

Referees are to football what rain is to England –- an occasionally irritating but ultimately indispensable fact of life. Officials make mistakes, players and coaches get angry, and then they kiss and make up.

End of story. Nothing to lose your cool – or wet your pants – about.

Could Bayern Become the New Germany?

The rumors flying around regarding the future management structure of Bayern Munich and what effect it may have on the current staff of the German national staff suggests that certain people consider jumping out of the frying pan into the fire to be a good career move.

News that Germany team manager Oliver Bierhoff is considering succeeding Uli Hoeness at Bayern Munich when the latter moves onto the Bavarian giants' advisory board next year also suggests that, despite his business degree from Hagen University, Bierhoff is not the smartest cookie in the jar. Either that or he is blissfully unaware what joining Bayern Munich's management can do to a man.

Just look at his former team-mate and managerial colleague Juergen Klinsmann. Klinsi left the national set-up after taking Die Mannschaft to a World Cup semi-final on home soil and, after a period filled with speculation and presumably many long, thoughtful walks on Californian beaches, eventually joined Bayern Munich as coach.

Klinsmann's Germany finished third at the 2006 World Cup. For a country used to reaching the final at least, this could have been described as a failure, one which could have ended a very short career in management before it ever really got started. And yet, the affable Klinsi was taken to the nation's heart (if, indeed, he had ever left it, considering his feats as a player). Not only had he provided the country with a team with the promise of a great future, he did so with an attractive playing style and a warm, genuine smile. The hierarchy at Bayern Munich, as was much of the country as a whole, was smitten.

Fast forward to 2008 and Klinsmann's now careworn features are more likely to be seen dominating the back pages of German newspapers under less-then-favorable headlines. Take a glance at the Bayern bench during a game and see if you can spot the sunny smile which graced the dug-outs of Germany during the summer of 2006.

More often than not, you’ll see a stressed-out, frazzled-looking Klinsmann despairing at his team's intermittent woefulness, while Hoeness the Destroyer makes a mental list of replacements behind his portly grimace.

Should Bierhoff decide to take on the well-furrowed seat next to Klinsi on the Bayern bench, he would be wise to do his homework as to what will be expected of him at Germany's most demanding club.

Hoeness, as part of the unholy trinity alongside Franz Beckenbauer and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, has been responsible for making Bayern the most successful German team of modern times. This hard-nosed trio have driven the club with a ruthlessness and professionalism that has made them and their club hated, but has stocked the trophy room with silverware and the dressing room with global talent.

If Bierhoff is to become team manager, he can forget about having an easy life. If he thinks that he will be swapping handbags-at-dawn standoffs with Michael Ballack and the diva-esque behavior of other inflated international egos for a cushy existence of watching his harmonious stars sleepwalk to title after title, someone had better dig this dreamer in the ribs.

Taking over from Hoeness as team manager doesn't mean Hoeness will disappear. It doesn’t mean the Three Horsemen of the Bavarian Apocalypse will be calling it a day. It will mean that these tough characters will become Bierhoff's bosses – and that they will demand even more from him than they do of themselves.

Sitting next to Klinsi again may stir memories of the summer fairytale of 2006 for Bierhoff and hopes of an equally rewarding relationship but the cut and thrust of a Bundesliga season is a very different proposition to masterminding an international tournament – just ask Klinsmann himself.

And if they consider making a play for current national coach Jogi Loew in a bid to get him to sign on again for another collaboration which may help create their previous magic, then all reason will have gone out the window.

Managing a league club is very different from managing a national team. Managing Bayern Munich is very different from managing any other club. Bierhoff may want to ask himself whether the grass at the AllianzArena is actually greener.

Dr. Loew Calls Frings to the Couch

After burying the hatchet with captain Michael Ballack, Germany coach Joachim Loew said Sunday that he's also ready to make peace with midfielder Torsten Frings.

Grab a box of tissues and picture this: Frings walks into the coach's office and Loew, wearing his best black turtleneck, asks the German national team stalwart to have a seat on the couch, make himself comfortable and talk about his feelings.

While I'm not sure exactly what I feel about coach Jogi's touchy-feely side -- part of me wants the drama that comes with a public player-coach throw down while my rational side knows that's exactly what the team doesn't need -- Loew's his methods, which he said he'll repeat with Frings, seem to have worked last week with Ballack.

The captain left his session of soul searching with his head hung appropriately low and saying: "I realize it was not okay to go public. I apologized to Joachim Loew. He is the coach, he makes the decisions and we have to respect them."

All Ballack had done was be a bit critical -- in an interview -- of Loew's decision to drop veteran Frings from the lineup for a pair of World Cup qualifiers.

While I think Loew didn't have a choice but to hug it out with Ballack, I don't think Frings' negotiation position is as strong and that there's a good chance this row could spell the end of Frings' national team career.

Still, if Frings can swallow enough humble pie, he may end up back on the roster for a little while at least. That a lot more than Kevin Kuranyi can say. Even after apologizing for leaving the stadium during the middle of a game, Loew said he won't consider nominating the Schalke striker to the national team.

Vultures Spotted Over Hoffenheim

Did you know that you can get from London to Hoffenheim and back for around 168 euros? That includes a flight from London to Frankfurt and then a convoluted bus and train combo to the hometown of the Bundesliga leaders. A round-trip beginning in Manchester will cost you 338 euros. A journey originating from Liverpool's John Lennon International Airport will set you back even more, totaling a tasty 501 euros due to Easyjet's nearest air destination being Berlin.

While this may be useful information for the average man in the street who may have a passing interest in jetting over to catch Hoffenheim in the flesh at the Dietmar-Hopp Stadium while their star is still in the ascendency, it will be just a bunch of useless filler for those who have more tactical reasons in mind.

For these people, navigating time-consuming travel Web sites and working out complicated itineraries are what the plebs do when they want to escape their dreary, non-diamond-encrusted lives. These people have their own transport and won't spend precious time sorting out their own travel. Oh no…they'll just Learjet off or set a luxury yacht's course for Hoffenheim with their pockets full of cash and their eyes on a cut-price soccer superstar.

Unsubstantiated rumor has it that Arsenal's Arsene Wenger has already ignored Ryanair's super cheap flights from Stansted to Frankfurt in favor of a club sanctioned sortie to the home of the German league leaders. If the highly unlikely stories are true, Wenger has trumped any luxury scouting mission by a certain Russian billionaire and his cronies and left a certain ruddy-faced Knight of the Realm on the tarmac in Manchester, not to mention grounding a strangely-bearded Spaniard in the murky grayness of Merseyside.

News travels fast in the world of soccer and managers and chairmen wanting to get the jump on rivals over a potential bargain move even faster. Hoffenheim's fairytale ascension to the summit of the Bundesliga has been reported with unconstrained glee around the world –- and rightly so. Everyone loves the fact that a little village team is heading one of Europe's top soccer leagues (while conveniently forgetting that an entrepreneur's millions are easing the passage). But while the celebrations continue, the vultures of world soccer have taken to the air unnoticed and have the smell of blood and cut-price transfer deals in their nostrils.

Victory, in whatever form, creates lustful envy. If a team is enjoying a winning streak, you can rest assured that those who see the accumulation of winners as a way of assuring their own success will want to pick the best from that bunch and install them in their own collection. It isn't always a recipe for domination but what does that matter? Players themselves can be trophies even when a combination of any number of them isn't winning any.

All of which adds credence to the rumors that the Arsenal supremo has been spotted running his eye over the understated riches at Hoffenheim's disposal. Wenger might not need a new playmaker like Carlos Eduardo or a striker such as Vedad Ibisevic but because these players are big news right now, he's probably not willing to let anyone else have them either.

How much further ahead would Manchester United be if they pinched Demba Ba from under Wenger's considerable nose? Would Liverpool make the Gunners choke on their dust if they snatched Chinedu Obasi from the Frenchman's bony clutches? Would more bragging rights in the capital go to Stamford Bridge if Abramovich were to steal Sejad Salihovic away from a potential move to North London?

With so much at stake these days, who is willing to take these kinds of chances?

Hoffenheim beware.

Great and Not-So-Great Pretenders

The first quarter of the season is over, and there are four teams ahead of Bayern -- something that last happened five years ago.

Munich have a history of making stunning and often very lucky comebacks. But every once in a while, such as in 2003-4, they don't get the job done. Bremen won the league that year, and Stuttgart accomplished the same feat in 2006-7.

So it can be done. The question is: Which, if any, of the quartet currently leading Bayern is up to the challenge?

Here are my answers.

Hoffenheim: yes. I'm not sure what makes me more nauseous -- Sarah Palin or hearing reporters talk about tiny Hoffenheim. This is a very professionally organized club, with lots of money behind it and a coach who knows what he's doing in charge.

They remind me of the 2003-4 Bremen; a high-scoring, in-your-face outfit that plays its style of soccer, whatever the situation and beats the crap out of opponents. If they can hold their nerves in close matches, they could take it to the wire.

Leverkusen: yes. For my money, this is the most well-rounded and one of the deepest squads in the league. There's hardly anyone in their starting eleven you'd particularly want to replace, and they have the league's best goalkeeper in René Adler -- who should be good for a few points on his own.

The big question mark is history. Leverkusen has never won anything worth winning since anyone can remember, and they even pulled of the amazing feat of blowing the league, the Champions League and the German Cup in one season. But that was then, and this is now, and heck, if the Red Sox can win the World Series, anything's possible.

Hamburg: doubt it. The Northern Germans got absolutely spanked by Hoffenheim this weekend, and I don't think that was an accident. Look at Hamburg's goal difference. Zero. Nada. Zilch.

That means they've been grinding out wins without really putting their stamp on matches. Now, there's nothing wrong with winning the hard way, but not all close decisions are going to turn out to your advantage. To go on a seriously deep run at the title, you have to demolish some teams. And Hamburg, I think, just don't have the arsenal to do that.

Stuttgart: seriously doubt it.

Ballack Channels Aretha

Things seem to be listing slightly aboard the good ship Jogi. The Germany coach appears to be dealing with a period of unprecedented mutiny within Die Mannschaft; something that is as rare as a Thomas Hitzlsperger goal.

The warm, sunny camaraderie of the summer of 2006 looks to have dissipated entirely along with any fuzzy feelings that former coach Juergen Klinsmann may have instilled in the team.

We saw the first taste of discontent at Euro 2008 when Michael Ballack and the oh-so-smug Oliver Bierhoff almost came to blows after the whistle blew on that fateful final day. Watching the robust Ballack and the dandy Bierhoff being pulled apart by team mates was more exciting than the previous 90 minutes of soccer. It also signaled the end of the Klinsmann era of harmony and happiness.

If that wasn't enough, the feud between the general manager and the captain bubbled on until very recently when they agreed to bury the hatchet (not, as some assumed, in one head or the other).

Next up to rock the boat was Kevin Kuranyi who spat the dummy over being left out of the team against Russia earlier this month. KK showed his displeasure and the childish nature of the overblown soccer ego by storming out of the stadium in a huff.

This was followed by a statement from Torsten Frings which implied that he was willing to turn his back on his country after what appeared to be a number of snubs by coach Loew.

Which brings us to the latest reports of friction from the Germany camp. Michael Ballack again finds himself on the wrong side of the management by siding with Frings and demanding that senior international players of his and his midfield partner's ilk deserve more r-e-s-p-e-c-t (just a little bit).

On the one hand, if someone has served their country for many years with loyalty and passion then, yes, of course they deserve to be told whether they feature in the current coach's future plans.

But on the other, shouldn't the experience and knowledge of age tell these players that they are dealing with a coach who knows full well that by the time the 2010 World Cup comes round, some of his older legs will have very little running left in them?

Maybe instead of negating the whole concept of respect by airring these grievances in the press, Frings and Co. should take their issues up directly with the boss.

Respect is a two-way street. If you want respect, you go to your boss and you tell him your situation and then listen to his side of things. Respect means you accept the decisions of those paid to make them and stay and watch your team, not flounce out of the stadium like the worst kind of pampered diva.

While the soap opera the Germany team is currently becoming makes them a little more interesting -- at last -- it is also sad to watch. To see the German players behave like spoilt brats just confirms that no-one is immune to the curse of the inflated ego. I for one never thought Germany would turn out to be just like all the rest.

The Dark Side of Die Mannschaft

Looks like Kevin Kuranyi is gone for good, and rumors of Torsten Frings packing his things are also growing. But who will be next? Soccer experts try to look into their crystal balls to read Jogi Loew's mind, but they'd have a much easier time if they looked at the breakfast table instead.

Players on the German national team are suffering from the Nutella Curse. One German paper even called the chocolate-hazelnut cream spread "The dark power of German soccer."

So what makes a creamy Nutella so dangerous? Seems that the players who appear in its TV ads keep disappearing from the national team.

Here are a few examples:

Benny Lauth: one of the first victims. He's moved from the national team to long bus trips in the second division with 1860 München. As a one-time candidate for the national ski team, maybe he's wishing he made a different choice?

Andreas Hinkel: on the team, injured, off the team but, apparently still in the back of the coach's mind. But that sounds like more of a placating measure than an actual hope to be called up.

Tim Borowski: one-time great hope of the national team and successor to captain Michael Ballack, Tim hasn't put a foot on the pitch since the European Championships.

Marcell Jansen: Without much of a chance of taking the field in Bayern, Marcell left for Hamburg and earned a spot on the national team but injured his thigh in a training session before the team's game against Russia and is likely out for at least another four weeks.

Arne Friedrich: Watch yourself Arne! You're the only one still playing well. Maybe it's time to reconsider your advertising appearances?

For its part, Nutella told German media it would continue broadcasting its current set of ads with Kuranyi and other under/non-performing national team players. Kuranyi's caricature still features prominently on Nutella’s Web site.

At least if Germany's once-legends-to-be end up on riding the bench (or worse) for the long haul, they'll be able to find consolation in a delicious chocolate spread.

From Powerhouse to Mouse in Eight Short Rounds

No one would have predicted that eight weeks into the season the two top title candidates, Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen, would be mucking about in the bottom half of the table. But there they are, sandwiched between the likes of Cologne and Karlsruhe.

To appreciate how worried the bosses are at Bayern, just look at the players coach Juergen Klinsmann picked for last weekend's away match against Karlsruhe: a back four, two defensive midfielders, and -- nominally at least -- only four offensively oriented players.

This is the same Klinsmann, who, when he took over the German national team ahead of the 2006 World Cup, never tired of preaching his philosophy of modern attacking football.

Yet he nominates a squad that screams "damage control" against one of the smallest clubs in the Bundesliga. Klinsi seems to have realized that the team he manages may be star-studded, but the collective adds up to less than the sum of its parts.

Bayern barely eked a 1-nil win -- and commercial manager took out his frustration on a reporter who had the temerity to ask, after the match, whether the victory was fortunate. The irony was that the journalist worked for Bayern Munich's own TV station.

Werder Bremen have no problems with being too defensively orientated. In fact they seem to have forgotten about defense entirely, having conceded a league worst 19 goals this season -- or almost two-and-a-half per game.

Now under coach Thomas Schaaf, Bremen have always been a squad that would rather win 3-2 than 1-nil. But their inability to keep the ball away from their own net in the final minutes has left them hemorrhaging points, as was the case on Saturday when they allowed Dortmund a last second equalizer.

In fact, Werder can thank their lucky stars that they eked our a 5-4 win over second-placed Hoffenheim earlier in the year, having allowed the upstarts to come back from a 4-1 deficit and having themselves gone a man down.

It's not a good sign when three-goal leads aren't safe. In the past, Bremen could afford to be generous at the back late in matches. This year they can't, as their 2-3-2 record attests. In fact the only team they've beat convincingly thus far...

...is Klinsi's toothless Bayern.

Meyer Takes Over at Moenchengladbach, Again

After Nuremberg tossed him out in what could have been their hour of greatest need shortly before being relegated to the second division last season, Borrusia Moenchengladbach convinced Hans Meyer to take over until 2010.

Meyer will replace Dutchman Jos Luhukay. Luhukay had the team roster ripped from his hands earlier this month after the club grabbed just three points from their opening six matches. Stand-in coach Christian Ziege, who led the team to a point Friday against Bochum, said he wanted to leave the pitch and go back to his office job as the club's sporting director.

Players seem, obviously, to be looking forward to having Meyer at the helm. He's got a proven record for turning around teams loitering dangerously near the relegation zone.

"From what I've heard he's a real agitator," defender Alexander Voigt told German soccer magazine Kicker. "It's definitely going to be an experience."

Meyer left a happy retirement to take the reigns at Nuremberg while the team was at the bottom of the league in November 2005 and turned the team around to an eighth-place finish and raised the German Cup the in 2007 with a 3-2 win over Stuttgart.

Then a short bad stretch hit him in Nuremberg. Meyer was let go and the team was relegated to the second division.

At his first job since leaving the Bavarian team, Meyer, who coached the club from September 1999 to March 2003, took a positive view of the situation when issuing his expectations of the team.

"Seven or eight teams aren't better than us," he told Kicker. "The on-the-pitch substance is there."

Episode II: Making a Choice...Or Not

The Bundesliga 18 teams' fan liaisons have had nearly two months (much longer than I originally anticipated) to fill me in on why I should support their team. Sadly, the results weren't quite as passionate as I'd been hoping for.

Testimonials came in from (in order received): Bielefeld, Wolfsburg, Hanover, Berlin and Schalke.

Despite out-of-office replies from Bochum and Stuttgart (who sent a pair of automatic responses), I'm putting them on the list with Leverkusen, Bayern Munich, Dortmund, Moenchengladbach, Eintracht Frankfurt, Energie Cottbus, Hamburg, Hoffenheim, Karlsruhe, Cologne and Werder Bremen as unworthy of my fandom for failing to reply to a desperate would-be fan's call for help.

Hanover takes the Press Release Award for copy-and-paste response from their Web site describing the team's long history, successes since 1938, arena size and a somewhat pleading request that I join in supporting their team.

The fan’s Diplomacy Award goes to Wolfsburg.

There are no advantages or disadvantages to any particular Bundesliga team. Fandom is a matter of the heart and normally results from a visit to the Bundesliga stadium. That's why I don't want to convince you that VfL Wolfsburg is the one and only true Bundesliga team. No team in the Bundesliga -- or even in the entire world -- can lay claim to that title.

Well, if that's your answer, then fine. I'll head somewhere else.

Even in the face of that carefully worded response from Wolfsburg, it's Bielefeld who win the title for most friendly and passionate example of (realistic) low expectations.

"THAT'S a good test," Christian Venghaus wrote:

Lots of people dedicate themselves to successful things -- and it's the same in soccer. Here at Arminia we're modest and know where our boundaries are.
That we will NEVER be German champions shouldn't been seen as a negative -- it shows a high degree of self-appraisal and creates a bond among fans.
...
Arminia moves you! One trip to the Alm in the SchücoArena and you'll be infected!

Christian may not set the fandom bar very high, but he'll never be accused of being a fair-weather fan. Bielefeld fans also get plus points for showing that win, lose or tie, they'd be fun to go out and have a beer with after the game. Partially negating these positives is a niggling apprehension about exactly what I might be infected by in Arminia's stadium.

Like Christian, Hertha Berlin's fan liaison, Hans-Georg Felder, extended a personal invitation to show me around the grounds on my next trip to the German capital.

Schalke's message, from the Boston-based international fan liaison Michael Bastian, took the most offensive position. Michael argued that the Royal Blues have the "most committed fan base in all of Germany." He may get some grief from other teams about that statement, but no one will disagree with the following, "We have been through a lot of ups and downs, but our support and commitment to the club is never lacking."

Honestly, I can't say the five responses I got really convinced me to lend my undying support to any of the teams.

So I'm not going to. At least not right now.

I'll be using this season to watch the teams more closely -- with a particular eye at the top of the table on Schalke and, hopefully not too low in the rankings on Bielefeld. And with a little luck I'll be able to take the fan liaisons up on their offers to check out their stadiums and cities.

Stay tuned for more the in-depth reports and, as always, leave a comment to let me know which team you think deserves special attention. Voting will also remain open until I make a final decision.

Enke’s Injury Means the future is NOW for Germany

On the surface, the news on Thursday that Germany’s current number 1, Robert Enke, had broken his hand ahead of this weekend’s match against Russia was a shock. But it may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Leverkusen’s René Adler will likely replace Enke between the posts, and don’t be surprised if the change becomes permanent. Many people have been touting the talented 23-year-old as Germany’s keeper of the future, and his record in the Bundesliga is excellent.

Adler is the sort of offensive-minded keeper every coach likes, someone who not only stops shots, but understands how to kick-start the counter-attack with long balls.

Plus, whatever Enke’s merits, he’s no Ollie Kahn or Jens Lehmann in terms of on-the-pitch personality. Adler, whose acrobatic style has pundits often playing on the fact that his last name means “eagle,” is better suited to inspiring his teammates.

So I doubt Jogi Loew is really all that concerned about the lack of Enke.

For bigger soccer countries, qualifications are as much about finding the best squad for the tournament itself as racking up enough points to come first or second in your group.

Adler, I predict, is one youngster who’ll be promoted in South Africa in 2010. Another pipsqueak to keep an eye on is Bremen's Mesut Oezil.

Just a few days shy of his 20th birthday, the midfielder is enjoying a breakthrough season for Werder Bremen. He’s scored three goals thus far, all of them the sort of mid-range blasts that would help energize an area of the German team currently in need of a bit more bite.

Oezil is eligible to play for both Germany and Turkey. So it was good news that the midfielder has resisted calls for Ankara and is suited up for the German Under-21s this weekend.

If he maintains his form, count on Loew inviting Oezil to play with the big boys, thus securing his services for Germany for years to come. History shows that older teams rarely thrive in major competitions, and if Germany are to do some damage in South Africa, they’ll need young talents like Adler and Oezil.

Bayern Look for Fame Beyond Bundesliga

After finishing a review of the scathing remarks the rest of the German press had for Juergen Klinsmann after his first 100 days at the head of Bayern Munich, here's my appraisal.

There are a few reasons to expect neither Klinsi nor Bayern's management to adhere to the soccer's traditional logic of kill the coach as soon as the team falters.

The main reason is one of priorities. Even if the current situation speaks against it, Bayern has the talent to beat the rest of the Bundesliga. Short of outplaying teams on the pitch, Munich has also established a tradition of ensuring their reputation as Bavarian giants by buying up league players performing better than their own. Lukas Podolski a few seasons ago and Miroslav Klose now are just two of the more recent examples.

But, ultimately, the Bundesliga is not the place where Bayern, or Klinsmann, really wants to make a mark. The team sees Europe as the stage where it wants to be in the spotlight, and that's where Klinsmann, along with the rest of his 11-man coaching team and team management have set their priority.

And there's enough work for them to do.

Bayern want to put an end to their long European hiatus and get back into the European elite after an embarrassing end at the hands of Zenit St. Petersburg in the UEFA Cup and an ongoing Champions League drought. Historians need to go back to 2001 to remember the last time Bayern reached the semi-finals.

That's one reason why after securing enough points to stay first in their Champions League group, Bayern could return to Germany -- little more than a province on the European soccer map -- and let Klinsmann experiment with lineups (he hasn't started the same 11 players in any of Bayern's matches) and ways coax talent out of his players before facing their upcoming European competition.

Bayern's management knew the team would be in for a rocky transition with Klinsmann coming and team leader Oliver "King" Kahn moving on to TV consulting job. But they decided to take a chance at European glory rather than simply continuing to dominate in Germany. It's not as if Klinsmann arrived in Munich with a long, star-studded resume, but in his biggest coaching endeavor he proved he can get players to perform.

He impressed the world by successfully turning around the German national team and leading it to third place in the 2006 World Cup where he had the freedom to experiment with a variety of lineups during qualification since Germany was automatically given a tournament berth. But he's never coached a club team and never been subject to the demands of amassing league points with solid showing week in and week out will continue to be his biggest challenge.

Hopes that can deliver some European silverware over the long term, and put in an impressive performance now, and the expectation that his experiments with yield the right team chemistry by the end of the season to deliver the Bundesliga title to Munich again, are driving Bayern to stand behind Klinsmann after a less-than-spectacular first 100 days with the team.

Then again, you also need to stand behind a man to knife him in the back. We'll have to see how this one ends.

Hamburg Lead the Way

Croatian strikers Ivica Olic and Mladen Petric struck as visiting SV Hamburg defeated Energie Cottbus 2-1 to open up a three-point lead at the top of the German Bundesliga on Sunday.

Petric headed a last-minute winner for Hamburg to give Martin Jol's side - who went into the weekend programme a point ahead - a fifth league victory and 16 points after seven games.

Olic mopped up from close-range following a shot from Jose Paolo Guerrero which keeper Gerhard Tremmel could only parry to put Hamburg ahead in the 54th minute at Cottbus.

A draw was on the cards after Branko Jelic levelled 20 minutes later, but Croatia team-mate Petric headed home in the 90th minute from a Piotr Trochowski corner to give Hamburg a first-ever win at the eastern Germans.

"We were clearly better and normally you should win a game like that by two or three goals. At the end it was clearly deserved, but difficult," Jol said.

Petric, who scored both goals in a 2-0 UEFA Cup win at Romanian side Unirea Urziceni on Thursday, has now six goals in his last four appearances for Hamburg after joining pre-season from Dortmund.

"I am just glad it's going so well at the moment, I am not thinking about the reasons why," he said.

Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund both lost ground after being held to home draws.

Schalke snatched an injury-time equalizer to rescue a 2-2 draw at home to Wolfsburg, while Borussia Dortmund missed a chance to go top after being held 1-1 by visiting Hanover.

Wolfsburg had a man sent off at Schalke who salvaged a point with a goal from Kevin Kuranyi three minutes into stoppage time.

Kuranyi had put the home side ahead in the 20th minute but Edin Dzeko levelled six minutes after the break and Brazilian striker Caiuby notched a second just after the hour.

Wolfsburg defender Ricardo Costa was sent off for bringing down Heiko Westermann in the area, only for Diego Benaglio to stretch to his right to save the 72nd-minute penalty from Rafinha.

It looked like a second successive defeat for Schalke until Kuranyi's late leveller from close range, with the striker taking an attempted shot from keeper Manuel Neuer who had moved into the opposing box for a corner.

Borussia Dortmund were held to a 1-1 draw by Hanover and had good reason to complain after a goal was not given although the ball had crossed the line.

Nelson Valdez took a pass from Jakub Blaszczykowski and with a clever feint gave himself room to fire Dortmund ahead in the 10th minute.

The home side thought they had a second eight minutes later when a Robert Kovac header was half parried by Robert Enke in goal before the keeper clawed the ball away.

Television pictures showed the ball had clearly crossed the line before the keeper cleared, but referee Wolfgang Stark waved Dortmund protests away.

Hanover then punished the home side when Mikael Forssell took a cross from Steven Cherundolo and belted the ball into the roof of the net with a side-on volley.

Hoffenheim and Stuttgart, who both won on Saturday, are now second and third on 13 points, while Bayer Leverkusen, Schalke and Dortmund are a further point behind.

Stuttgart were 4-1 winners over Werder Bremen, while Hoffenheim overcame Eintracht Frankfurt 2-1 in games on Saturday.

Champions Bayern Munich were held 3-3 at home to leave Juergen Klinsmann's side in midtable, five points behind leaders Hamburg.

Bottom side Borussia Moenchengladbach meanwhile Sunday dismissed coach Jos Luhukay after Saturday's 2-1 home defeat to Cologne, their sixth defeat in seven league games.

Into the Lyon's Den

Bayern Munich coach Juergen Klinsmann is preparing for Tuesday's Champions League clash against Olympique Lyon with the pressure already mounting on the former German national team boss.

The German champions are off to their worst start to a Bundesliga season in 31 years, winning just two of their opening six games as Klinsmann's side followed up a 5-2 home hammering by Werder Bremen with a shock 1-0 loss at Hanover at the weekend.

Bayern opened this season's Champions League campaign with a win over Steau Bucharest but the club's stuttering start to the Bundesliga means victory over Olympique Lyon is a must.

"The game against Lyon comes at just the right time. The more difficult the opponent, the better," said Klinsmann Monday. "We have made a perfect start to the Champions League and want to continue on this route. We will play for a victory."

Klinsmann has come under fire for resting regulars Ze Roberto, Lucio and Bastian Schweinsteiger at the weekend and the trio are virtually certain to return against Lyon while

French international Franck Ribery is expected to start his first game of the season.

"If we play like we did against Hanover then we haven't a hope against Lyon," said the midfielder. "I'm feeling good, though," said the 25-year-old. "I'll play from the start on Tuesday."

Ribery admitted he is impatient to face compatriots Lyon in the Champions League when all French eyes will be on him.

"Finally, the Champions League game is here," an excited Ribery told Die Welt on Sunday ahead of the Group F clash at Munich's Allianz Arena.

The 25-year-old only returned from injury a week ago after three months out with torn ankle ligaments playing for France in Euro 2008 and missed Bayern's opening Champions League win at Steaua Bucharest earlier this month.

"It is a very special match for me, as it is against Lyon, and I am very impatient for the match to start. I am quite conscious that this Tuesday all of my country will have their eyes turned towards me."

Ribery made his first appearance of the season for Bayern in the 5-2 defeat to Werder Bremen last weekend when he came off the bench for the last 25 minutes.

He also played the second-half at Hanover on Saturday when Bayern were beaten 1-0 - their second consecutive league defeat - to go ninth in the Bundesliga on Saturday night.

And the French star admitted his side were "perhaps missing something" after their less then impressive start to the season as coach Juergen Klinsmann rotated his squad to rest players ahead of the Lyon visit.

"In terms of quality, our team can rival the big clubs of Europe like Chelsea or Barcelona," said Ribery. "But perhaps our manpower is not sufficiently packed to succeed head to head with the large teams. On that point, perhaps we are missing something."

But the Frenchman says he remains positive about Bayern's chances of turning their season around.

Ribery said: "One should expect these difficulties, because there are many new innovations at the club.

"We need time to apply the philosophy of Juergen Klinsmann. When that happens, we will be better, and we will try to again be the champions of Germany," said Ribery, adding that his goal is to help Bayern reach the Champions League quarter-finals or beyond.

Ribery's coach will be glad to hear at least one of his players has faith in him after a torrid start to his Bundesliga managerial career. He has, however, received a more settling blessing.

"I find the criticism of Juergen Klinsmann's rotation tactics unjustified," said Franz Beckenbauer. "I hope that the stuttering start comes to an end (on Tuesday). Bayern can't lose many more."

Klinsmann, who took over from Ottmar Hitzfeld in the summer, admitted that his team "lacked creativity" against Hanover while defender Philipp Lahm called on his teammates to up their game against Lyon.

"We have the chance to lay down a marker," said Lahm ahead of the match against the French league leaders, who are relishing the task of taking on a Bayern side teetering on the brink of turmoil.

"We're ready for Bayern," said Brazilian Fred while France striker Karima Benzema also oozed confidence. Our target is to get at least a point and even better all three," he said.

Bayern Lose Again; Hamburg Top

Ten-man VfL Wolfsburg missed their chance to go third in the Bundesliga with a 2-1 defeat at Karlsruhe on Sunday after defending champions Bayern Munich suffered their second consecutive league defeat.

Having smashed minnows Oberneuland 7-0 in the German Cup in midweek, Wolfsburg were brought crashing down to earth when Karlsruhe midfielder Massimilian Porcello curled in a free-kick on 51 minutes to take a 1-0 lead.

Wolfsburg's problems were compounded when their Brazilian striker Grafite was shown a second yellow card on 71 minutes when he barged Karlsruhe goalkeeper Markus Miller off the ball.

The home side then went 2-0 up on 75 minutes when striker Sebastian Freis netted before Wolfsburg's Portuguese defender Ricardo Costa scored a consolation goal with a header on 79 minutes.

A win would have put Wolfsburg third in the table behind leaders Hamburg and second-placed Bayer Leverkusen, but defeat leaves them eighth.

A late equaliser by Eintracht Frankfurt meant they finished the weekend second from bottom of the table after holding Arminia Bielefeld 1-1 at home.

And there were worried looks at Bayern Munich after the defending champions slumped to their second consecutive league defeat when they went down 1-0 at Hanover on Saturday which left them ninth in the table.

Having been hammered 5-2 at home by Werder Bremen the week before, Jurgen Klinsmann's side were again poor as Hanover midfielder Szabolcs Huszti drove his free-kick into Bayern's net on 23 minutes.

"I've noticed how many teams are ahead of us, and it annoys me," said Bayern manager Uli Hoeness ahead of his side's Champions League clash with Lyon on Tuesday.

"We should put a lot of effort into making sure it doesn't stay that way for very long. We were much too careless.

"We were totally in control for the first 20 minutes, but we let them seize the initiative with a stupid goal from a free-kick. Thankfully we have our next game on Tuesday against Lyon.

"We can use it to test ourselves at the European level and hopefully find our rhythm, so we play better in the league than we have done recently."

A first-half header by Croatian striker Mladen Petric was enough to give Hamburg a 1-0 win over Borussia Moenchengladbach to put them top of the table.

There was some crazy football for ten-man Werder Bremen as midfielder Mesut Oezil hit the winner for the home side in a 5-4 victory over Hoffenheim which put his side third in the table ahead of Wednesday's Champions League clash at Inter Milan.

Bayer Leverkusen are second in the table thanks to their 3-2 win at struggling VfL Bochum.

The home-side were 3-0 down but with ten minutes left they scored twice in as many minutes to ensure a dramatic finish.

Borussia Dortmund are up to fifth thanks to an impressive 3-0 win at home to VfB Stuttgart to seal their first win in five games.

Energie Cottbus picked up their first win of the season with a 1-0 victory over Hertha Berlin to lift themselves off the bottom of the table.

On Friday, Schalke 04 yielded the top spot with a shock 1-0 defeat at Cologne.

This was the first time Cologne have beaten Schalke at home in 13 years and a header from Youssef Mohamad just before half-time was enough to give the home side the three points while Schalke dropped to fourth in the league.

Superstars Struggle, Lesser Heads Roll

Werder Bremen struggled to a 2-1 victory over third-division side Erzgebirge Aue Tuesday in the German Cup while Cologne and Eintracht Frankfurt lost to teams from lower leagues.

With the memory of Saturday's stunning 5-2 win at champions Bayern Munich still fresh in their minds, Bremen went into their second- round clash full of confidence but found themselves a goal down after just seven minutes when Fabian Mueller put the home side ahead with a shot from outside the area.

"Claudio Pizarro equalized for Thomas Schaaf's side on 26 minutes with Markus Rosenberg netting what turned out to be the winner for Bremen nine minutes after the break.
We knew that it isn't possible to always play as well as we did in Munich," said Bremen captain Frank Baumann. "Progressing to the next round is what's important."

League leaders Schalke 04 progressed to the last 16 in an all-Bundesliga clash against Hanover 96, thanks to second-half goals from defender Heiko Westermann. Hanover had 13 players unavailable due to injury and illness but had their rescheduling request turned down by the German Football Federation (DFB).

"I'm happy with the result because we are through," said Schalke coach Fred Rutten of the 2-0 win.

Energie Cottbus moved into the next round as three penalties helped them to a 3-0 win over fellow Bundesliga side Borussia Moenchengladbach. Dimitar Rangelov netted the first from the spot on 42 minutes while two further penalties from Albanian Ervin Skela in the second half secured the win.

Bundesliga side Cologne crashed 3-1 at second-division club Mainz 05. Aristide Bance put the home side in front with a header on 61 minutes, and Miroslav Karhan made it 2-0 from the penalty spot seven minutes later.

Youssef Mohamad pulled one back for Cologne on 73 minutes, but substitute Milorad Pekovic made it 3-1 for Mainz 11 minutes from time.

Frankfurt went down 2-1 after extra time to second-division Hansa Rostock. Striker Martin Fenin put the Bundesliga side in front just before the break, but Enrico Kern equalized for Rostock on 53 minutes.

Rostock goalkeeper Joerg Hahnel then saved a penalty from Caio before Kern netted the winner in the first half of extra time.

Bayer Leverkusen made the last 16 for the first time in five years thanks to a 2-0 defeat of Augsburg. Stefan Kiessling opened the scoring with a long-range volley on 36 minutes while Arturo Vidal netted Leverkusen's second goal 11 minutes from time.

MSV Duisburg lost 5-4 to Munich 1860 on penalties after the tie finished scoreless at the end of extra time.

Nine further German Cup ties take place Wednesday including holders Bayern Munich, who play Nuremberg.

The Kinder, Gentler…Ollie Kahn

I followed Bayern Munich's 5-2 humiliation by Werder Bremen last weekend with strangely mixed feelings.

On the one hand, like most fans here, I relished the spectacle of the arrogant Bavarian giants getting their clocks cleaned at home. On the other, I have young Bayern keeper Michael Rensing in my fantasy football team, and his bad day at the office brought back unpleasant memories from the late '70s of the Bristol Blue Devils being thrashed by the Damariscotta Lions 8-nil –- with yours truly in goal.

My teammates were quick to identify me as the reason for that debacle, just as many Bayern fans are now blaming Rensing. In fact, in a poll, a majority of Munich supporters were already calling for goal-keeping legend Ollie Kahn to come back from retirement.

So I was also impressed with Kahn's reaction in a newspaper interview on Tuesday. Kahn, who has every reason to hate Juergen Klinsmann for demoting him within the German national team ahead of the 2006 World Cup, told everybody to chill out and reminisced humorously about some of the drubbings he took early on in his career.

Anyone who follows German soccer has memories of the combustible Kahn chewing the ears off teammates and opponents –- once almost literally. But Kahn has been nothing but gracious to his successor in the national team, Jens Lehmann, and now to his young heir between the posts at Bayern.

And he's also right in a footballing sense. If there's anyone at Bayern who's failed to live up to King Kahn's standard, it's midfielder Mark van Bommel, who's proving to be a woeful replacement as team captain.

Rensing will be all right, if people leave him alone. And Kahn deserves credit for being much more of a class act than most of us Bayern haters ever thought possible.

In a recent interview with DW, Bayern assistant coach Martin Vasquez stressed Klinsmann's emphasis on getting players to develop as people. Kahn, it turns out didn't need Klinsi's mentoring.

Footnote: In the wake of the Blue Devils' slaughter by the Lions, I was transferred to central midfield and instructed to concentrate on my true strength: reckless two-footed challenges. The Devils won the return match 2-nil, after their opponents were forced to play with nine men due to injuries.

First Impressions Last...Unfortunately

The quality of an international tournament is, of course, determined by the games played during its duration and those magical moments which stick in the memory for all time. That's why Euro 2008 will be remembered for Spain's resurgeance and the 2006 World Cup for Germany's fairytale summer.

Euro 2008 was so good that no-one even bothered to waste any energy learning the names of the rather lame mascots (they were called Trix and Flix if you still have a passing interest). But what would have happened if the tournament had been rubbish? Would these two pseudo-Manga superhero types have been installed in the collective conciousness; the foam-rubbered epitome of Euro tat?

Whatever people say, mascots are like the first impressions made on a date. You have all this excitement building up as you approach the restaurant...It could be monumental event, a true celebration and in the end, you may even get to lift the cup (metaphorically). How disappointed, then, would you be to find yourself sharing a romantic candle-lit dinner with Goleo? (I would be very chuffed actually because I was about the only person on the planet who thought Goleo was awesome...)

Anyway, my point being: the mascot is everyone's first taste of the tournament to come which means if you roll out some duff, moth-eaten old leopard as your shining beacon then most people are going to think your competition is going to be a cheap dud too.

Which is why the recently revealed South Africa mascot fills me with trepidation. Not only has the country been dogged with rumours over its perceived lameness in organizing the 2010 World Cup (to the point that FIFA was actually rumoured to be considering a move to Australia, USA, Germany...anywhere else but SA), but now they welcome the soccer world with this bargain bin, jaundiced, rastafarian tabby cat.

Now, we'll all be hoping that Zakumi will be eclipsed by the soccer which will be on show in the summer of 2010 and that he goes the way of the embarrassing Paule (the short-lived German team mascot) by fading into the ignominious realm reserved for sadly cast-aside mascots. But until that happens, we'll have to deal with the fact that this is the face of the 2010 World Cup.

Read it and weep.

Hoffenheim Finds Certain Charm in Second Spot

Heavily favored Bundesliga teams suffered a weekend of setbacks and embarrassments with Bayern, Dortmund and Hanover all being outplayed by teams most German soccer fans would expect to end up sacrificing three points.

In their match on Sunday, Borussia Dortmund topped the embarrassment of Bayern's 5-2 fall to Bremen with a 4-1 loss to promoted Hoffenheim. The win put Hoffenheim into second place just one point behind Schalke's 11 and ahead of Stuttgart and Hamburg and just one point behind Schalke.

Hoffenheim took control early in the match with a goal from Vedad Ibisevic after five minutes. Home team fans celebrated Sejad Salihovic's goal to put Hoffenheim up by two on 25 minutes. In the second half, Ibisevic and teammate Carlos Eduardo made it 4-0 before Dortmund's Felipe Santana poked home a consolation goal in injury time.

Hoffenheim coach Ralf Rangnick said he was not deceived by the good start into the club's first season in the German top flight.

"All that counts is the final standings," said Rangnick. "But looking at them now does have a certain charm when you see what teams are behind us.

"The boys are smart enough to know we must always play like this if we are to remain successful, so there is no danger of over confidence," he said.

Three days after falling 2-0 to Udine at the UEFA Cup then being embarrassed by Hoffenheim, Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp seemed to have a firm grip on the reality of his team's recent performances.

"It's obviously not enough," he said. "We played a game that you'd have to lose. And we lost."

Like Dortmund, Hamburg also suffered their first defeat of the season.

Wolfsburg tore apart Hamburg's defensive weaknesses, putting in three goals on the mere five chances they had in the match.

Hamburg had rebounded from 2-0 deficits in three of the first four season games, but Wolfsburg denied them another miracle.

"We can't come back in every game," said Hamburg forward Paulo Guerrero. "We made the same mistakes as in the past games. Now we have to regroup."

Painful Lessons

Most teams have a theme song they blast out in the dressing room before they take the field in a bid to get the blood pumping. Former England defender Stuart Pierce used to subject his fellow Nottingham Forest colleagues to "Anarchy in the UK" by the Sex Pistols at ear-splitting volume before they took to the field of play. (Given that team included the young lunatic-to-be Roy Keane and old "Psycho" Pierce himself – the man who once tried to 'run off' a broken leg – maybe something less confrontational may have been more productive).

Bayern Munich are more likely to adopt the Monty Python classic "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" after Saturday's debacle. However, the likes of Luca Toni and Franck Ribery may not see the motivational qualities of such a song, played at them as it would be with the additional sunny, post-California smile of their ever optimistic coach.

"It's obviously painful. We're down at the moment, but we'll get back up again," said Juergen Klinsmann after his defending champions were ripped apart by a Werder Bremen side brimming with all the invention and belief the Munich team seemed to be lacking. "I believe you learn a great deal from days like today."

Hmmm…Maybe lessons such as "the defense is extremely suspect" or "never let your stalwart goalkeeper retire until you have an equal to replace him" or even "working as a soccer consultant with LA Galaxy beats getting your ass whipped on a chilly Bavarian afternoon".

One wonders how long the hard-bitten and notoriously cut-throat Bayern board will entertain Klinsmann's La-La-Land guru approach, with his Buddhas, meditation gardens and hokey psychological team talks.

True, this appears to be a one-off calamity; a defeat that a team of Bayern's standard should see as an abomination. But losing to one of your closest rivals is one thing, getting thrashed at home by them is another…and in such a fashion which suggests that, despite the abundance of riches at his disposal, Klinsmann has yet to construct a team from his list of stars.

Let's just look at those potential lessons that Bayern could learn from this humiliation.

Firstly, Bayern's defense were overwhelmed on Saturday. Klinsmann's chosen 5-3-2 formation gave Phillip Lahm and Christian Lell the license to bomb up the wings and join the attack when Bayern were on the offensive but on Saturday, both seemed off the pace and left Demichelis, Van Buyten and Lucio exposed at the back.

Bremen also bypassed Marc van Bommel and Ze Roberto -- the protectors of the defense -- with ease, leaving them stranded up field with their rapid attacks when Bayern lost possession. With Demichelis effectively left as the only center-back and Van Buyten and Lucio pulled into wide positions by the width of Bremen's attacks and the AWOL nature of their wing-backs, it was no surprise that Werder, with their tails up, skipped through the defensive holes.

Secondly, it became very clear as the game wore on that Michael Rensing is no Oliver Kahn. One must ask, though, if even the Titan would have been able to cope with the onslaught of Bremen's offensive play, given the fact that the defenders looked to be suffering from Oktoberfest-related amnesia when it came to the game plan.

Even so, the young keeper was at fault for at least two of the goals; handing Nando an easy tap in for the 2-0 and then dropping Diego's cross for Rosenberg to make it five with the easiest of chances. Maybe, Klinsi's first act as coach should have been to convince Kahn to stay on for one more campaign.

Which leads us to our third lesson; the one regarding the coach himself. The sheer cavalier approach with which Werder Bremen started the game was audacious and one that any coach could have been surprised by. Who would have expected a team which had yet to show much of their renowned attacking style to come to the Allianz Arena and play with such abandon? Well, some one who gets paid a large salary at Germany's top club for one.

Klinsmann's team and formation smacked of arrogance –- or worse, naivety. Maybe Klinsi's Bayern tenure will finally add some much-needed credence to those long-standing rumors that Jogi Loew was the tactical brains behind their Germany set-up. Motivation and a sunny disposition can only get a team so far.

Klinsmann may have the tools to get his players in a more centered, balanced frame of mind but he now has to find a way to get them working as a team and singing from the same song sheet.

Altogether now…

"Life's a piece of sh*t…When you look at it…Life's a laugh and death's a joke it's true…You'll see it's all a show…Keep 'em laughing as you go…Just remember that the last laugh is on you…And...

Always look on the bright side of life…"

Big Defeat, Big News...Big Problems?

Bayern Munich were humiliated 5-2 on Saturday by Werder Bremen as the Bundesliga champions suffered one of their worst home defeats.

Markus Rosenberg struck twice, with Naldo, teenage sensation Mesut Ozil and Claudio Pizarro also on target for Bremen en route to a 5-0 lead against a disastrous Munich back row. Former Bremen player Tim Borowski then got the consolation goals.

Munich lost their first competitive game under new coach Juergen Klinsmann as captain Mark van Bommel lamented that "things like that can not happen" and Borowski spoke of a "lethargic" performance.

"We are all very proud and happy to have won. We were more aggressive and made the most of our chances," said Ozil.

Judging by the season so far, the unbeaten champions Munich were favored over the runner-ups Bremen, especially looking at the midweek Champions League results with Munich winning 1-0 at Steaua Bucharest while Bremen were held 0-0 by Famagusta.

But Bremen dominated from the outset against a nervous Munich defense and were awarded for their courage with a big win.

Rosenberg broke the deadlock after half an hour, taking up a defense-splitting pass from Ozil and slotting a low shot past Michael Rensing.

Bremen doubled the lead on the stroke of halftime when Naldo tapped home after Ozil's free-kick and Ozil ended any Munich comeback hopes when he fired high into the net nine minutes into the second half.

Pizarro and Rosenberg again, after Rensing missed a free-kick, made it 5-0 as memories returned of Munich's biggest Bundesliga home loss, 7-0 against Schalke in October 1976.

Borowski spared Munich from total disaster with his late goals, but admitted swiftly afterwards: "This was a disastrous showing; we must apologize to the fans."

Schalke 04 defeated 10-man Eintracht Frankfurt 1-0 to move back to the top of the standings at least until Sunday.

Schalke were in full command against lowly Frankfurt but did not break the deadlock until Chris was sent off in the 34th for elbowing Heiko Westermann. Newly-hired Jefferson Farfan got the winner seven minutes later but Schalke failed to impress.

Schalke have 11 points, SV Hamburg take 10 into Sunday's match at VfL Wolfsburg, Bayer Leverkusen have nine points, with Bremen, Munich, Hertha Berlin and Borussia Dortmund on eight points each.

Elsewhere, Hertha Berlin won 1-0 at Borussia Moenchengladbach from Gojko Kacar's first half strike, with the home side's Oliver Neuville denied by the post twice. Arminia Bielefeld defeated Cologne 2-0.

Energie Cottbus got the first goal of the season, from Dennis Sorensen, but were held 1-1 by VfL Bochum to remain at the bottom of the table.

A hat-trick from Patrick Helmes helped Leverkusen to a 4-0 win over Hanover 96 on Friday, while the other Sunday games are VfB Stuttgart vs SC Karlsruhe and Hoffenheim vs Dortmund.

Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?

"BAYERN BACK AT THE BIG TABLE" screamed one of the more excitable but, after further investigation, misleading headlines after Munich's 1-0 Champions League win against Steaua Bucherest last night.

The bold type had it right. Bayern were back at the big table but what the heavy typesetting failed to add was that the manners of the team once they were seated were more reminiscient of lucky guests who'd been waiting for a cancellation all night only to find themselves amid a conversation which, at times, sailed over their heads.

The German champions duly turned up in collar and tie and certainly looked the part for periods of their first Champions League feast of the season. It seemed to be going swimmingly when Daniel van Buyton steered in a near post header from Bastian Schweinsteiger's free kick on 15 minutes. It was the scoring equivalent of the pair looking at each other in slight panic before picking up the right starter fork through sheer good fortune. It all seemed perfectly natural to everyone watching but it belied a set of jangling nerves under the crisp, white shirts.

Throughout the following courses, Bayern appeared to be trying too hard and as a result a few peas rolled off the fork. Steaua's Florin Lovin and Antonio Semedo exposed the Bayern defense on a number of occasions, while Munich keeper Michael Rensing got his cutlery all wrong once or twice and was thankful that when the Romanians had the ball in the net, the referee had seen a previous infringement and disallowed the goal.

Saying all that, however, Bayern seemed quite happy by the time the ice-cream came round. After doing away with the middle period's complicated silverware and unidentifiable cuisine (during which Steaua looked far more adept), the Bavarians got stuck in with that big reliable spoon they like to call Luca Toni. The Italian could have helped himself to a good two scoops in the final half hour and with the espresso steaming nicely in the background, super-sub Lukas Podolski and Schweinsteiger could have topped the final course with a dab of cream.

And so, when the bill came round, it was Steaua who paid, leaving Juergen Klinsmann satisfied but hardly full. Such is the case with some European cuisine. It can look nice on the plate but there's often never enough of it to truly sate the hunger. So it was with Bayern's display. No one would have begrudged their fans a sneaky kebab on the way home.

With a hearty helping of good Italian fare awaiting them in the shape of Fiorentina and some fancy food from the kitchen of French champions Lyon ready to be served, Bayern are going to need a few more lessons in etiquette before they have a permanent reservation at Chez Champions League.

Sing up for the Tongue Twisters

I'm sure many commentators were hoping that Werder Bremen did the expected and put Champions League debutantes Anorthosis Famagusta in their place with a resounding victory at the Weserstadion last night. Not because they had anything against the Cypriot champions but because if Bremen had thrashed the minnows as everyone thought they would, the result and the match in general would soon be forgotten and they could go back to talking about teams with easier names to pronounce.

Instead, along with fellow linguisitical confounders CFR Cluj-Napoca, Anorthosis Famagusta is one of the names on numerous mangled lips this morning after holding Thomas Schaaf's aspirants to a 0-0 draw in their own backyard.

While Anorthosis didn't quite reach the dizzy heights of Romanian champions Cluj, who beat AS Roma 2-1 in the imposing Olympic Stadium in their first ever European match, it was a great performance from a team also making their first bow in the competition.

Anorthosis became the first team from Cyprus to reach the competition's group stage after beating Greece's Olympiakos and showed that, despite lacking a cutting edge or much of a midfield, they could batten down the hatches and ride out the attacking storm meted on them by the likes of Diego, Claudio Pizarro and Thorsten Frings.

The Cypriots also managed to extend Bremen's dismal record in opening games. Since their return to the Champions League in 2004, the Green-Whites have never managed a win in their opening game of the competition.

And if they were relying on three points to give them breathing space ahead of more difficult Group B games against Inter Milan and Greek side Panathinaikos, they soon found out that Anorthosis would be hard nuts to crack.

With Germany midfielders Clemens Fritz and Frings playing alongside Brazilian playmaker Diego, Bremen were at full-strength, but lacked much in the way of finishing as they failed to convert a string of chances.

Pizarro was Bremen's most industrious player and had their best effort with a header straight at Famagusta goalkeeper Arjan Beqaj on 24 minutes.

On a night of few chances for the guests, Anorthosis were at their most dangerous five minutes from time when Greek defender Traianos Dellas hammered in his shot from 25 meters out, but Bremen goalkeeper Tim Weise dealt with it.

Coach Schaaf was understandably frustrated after the game. "It's notable that we had five or six big chances, but didn't take them," he said. "Against such an opponent, I would expect us to do better and play with more energy. You have to take chances like these in Europe, but we didn't."

So, instead of commenting in brief on a routine win for Bremen, German pundits will now stumble over the name of the Cypriot champions for the next few days as the investigations into Werder's shortcomings continue.

After three…1…2…3…"One Anorthosis Famagusta…there's only one Anorthosis Famagusta…"

The Mutual Appreciation Society

Soccer fans are, in general, a fickle breed. One minute they can be singing the name of their favorite player as if they were praising the Almighty, the next they can be spewing venom at the same guy for an act of treachery. The most punishable of acts is, of course, deserting the cause to join another team. No other situation can turn a fan's love so quickly to hate.

It was pleasantly surprising then to see the Cologne fans so warmly re-embrace their most prodigal of sons this weekend even though he turned up in the colors of the most despised team in Germany, a club which revels in success and the arrogance which goes with it, and scored a late, late goal that should have added insult to injury.

Instead of shouting "Judas" and waving one-digit gestures in the direction of Lukas Podolski, the FC Köln fans sang his name as if he was still decked out in the red of the home side and not in the black of the visitors, Bayern Munich.

It was an act of appreciation and deep affection which Podolski honored with his reaction to his last gasp goal, the strike that made the 3-0 win even more convincing. A young man often ridiculed for his perceived lack of IQ, Poldi has shown on occasion that he's not stupid when it comes to people's feelings and not afraid to temper his own when diplomacy is needed.

Rather than punching the air in celebration (an act that many would not deny him considering the continued humiliation he endures on the Bayern bench), the Prince buried his face in the turf of his former club - who he describes as his "first love" - and did not even allow himself a smile having made no secret of his desire to return to Cologne. And when he touched his hand to his chest, he did so not to blatantly pat the badge of his new club but to hold his heart as he received the praise both of the home and traveling fans.

Polish-born Podolski said: "It was just like when I scored two goals for Germany against Poland at Euro 2008, the celebration was as a mark of respect. As an opposition player to be welcomed here in the way I was by the Cologne fans - that is probably unique in the world."

He is probably spot-on with that observation. Bayern, due to their historical dominance of the Bundesliga and success in cup competitions, snap up the top players in the league like their wives would snatch at half-price Louis Vuitton luggage. This fosters a barely concealed animosity in the supporters of all the other clubs and often the players they buy are then seen as glory hunters and traitors by the fans they leave behind.

Not so the faithful of Cologne. They remember that Podolski gave everything while a teenage amateur at the club before eventually graduating to the senior squad where he scored 46 goals in 81 Bundesliga games. They remember that he stayed with them when the team was relegated in 2004 and scored the goals that got them back into the top flight the following season. They continue to hear his heartfelt words about their club and dream that one day the Prince will return to be king.

Whether Podolski will one day return to Cologne, no-one but the player himself really knows. But one thing is for certain, he will continue to get a heroes welcome even when he arrives for one Saturday every season in the shirt of the opposition.

O What Fools These Mortals Be

Schalke's 3-3 draw with hated local rivals Borussia Dortmund this weekend was a Shakespearean affair in just about all the senses of that adjective.

There was certainly history. The Blues may hold the slight all-time head-to-head advantage over Borussia, but as any Dortmund fan will tell you, the men in yellow have won a league title in the past half-century, whereas Schalke haven't.

The faithful were in raptures when Schalke went up 3-nil. Top of table, hammering their foes on Dortmund's grounds -- what could possibly go wrong?

Enter tragedy. First striker Kevin Kuranyi played the fool, missing a simple header that would have put the game beyond reach. Then Christian Pander and Fabian Ernst decided to take some practice shots using opponents' ankles, earning red cards within the space of a couple of minutes.

Dortmund had pulled one back, and the match then turned into comedy. Striker Alexander Frei was so far offside before scoring Dortmund's second, many were surprised he didn't have a beer, purchased from a vendor in the stands, in his hand.

And short of chopping off his left arm, there wasn't much defender Mladen Krstajic could have done to avoid the hand-ball that led to the equalizer.

All the foibles made for a very entertaining match, of course, except for Schalke fans. They were left crying "Out, out, vile jelly" while clawing their eyes. And, no doubt, baying for the referee's blood.

The Conversation Continues

Having just finished the putting touches on another edition of the Sports Report, I would love it, just love it, if you would click on over and subscribe to the show as a podcast. I am a funny and charming host and it is filled with sports which you and I both like... I just know it.

With the 'liga back in action, this week there's a long talk with Paul Chapman about Hamburg's mad quest to come from behind and win (or at least draw) as often as possible, how badly Schalke got jobbed in Dortmund, and what is keeping Wolfsburg from being anything more than just another team that can't do any better than draw with Hertha.

For you, the discerning, blog-reading, connoisseur types however, there is an additional eight minutes of 'tape,' wherein Paul and I pal around, throw a further layer of confusion over the question of which national team Neven Subotic will play for (better be mine, goddamit!), discuss how nice it is to see a real live Schlaudraff in the wild, and hear just how high the stand was at the old stadium in Gladbach. Check it.

Bayern Keep Pace as Hamburg go Top

Hanover ended a three-game goal drought with an emphatic 5-1 victory over promoted Borussia Moenchengladbach to move off the bottom of the German Bundesliga on Sunday.

Striker Jan Schlaudraff and midfielder Szabolcs Huszti scored two goals each as Hanover collected their first league win of the season after just one point and no goals from their three previous games.

Bochum also picked up a first league victory with a 2-0 defeat of visiting Arminia Bielefeld thanks to first-half goals from Marcin Mieciel and Marc Pfertzel.

The result leaves Bielefeld second last with two points, one ahead of bottom-club Energie Cottbus.

Huszti saw a 28th-minute penalty saved by Christopher Heimeroth, but the Hungarian made amends by scoring four minutes later to end Hanover's goal famine.

Schlaudraff, discarded by Bayern Munich, bagged his first goal for his new club two minutes before half-time with a neat lob from the edge of the area, and Huszti made it three two minutes after the break.

"We played well going forward. We came back well after missing the penalty and the dam broke with the first goal," said Schlaudraff, whose playing career began at Moenchengladbach.

Rob Friend pulled one back for the visitors in the 54th minute, but there was no stopping Schlaudraff on a solo run past three defenders before scoring the goal of the match in the 67th.

A fifth came from the penalty spot four minutes from time when Mikael Forssell, another former Moenchengladbach player, this time stepped up to score after an apparent foul on Huszti.

The Finland striker, who joined on a free transfer from Birmingham City in the close season, had been the provider for two goals before also notching his first for the club.

Hanover coach Dieter Hecking said: "The team played with great concentration and so even after the penalty miss I wasn't at all nervous."

On Saturday, Italian World Cup winner Luca Toni's second-half double in Cologne fired defending champions Bayern Munich up to second in the Bundesliga as Hamburg took over the lead.

Bayern's Toni headed home from Bastian Schweinsteiger's free-kick in the 53rd minute then hit a superb strike on the hour before substitute Lukas Podolski scored an injury-time goal to seal a 3-0 win at Cologne.

The win shot Bayern up from seventh to second in the table as they warmed-up for their opening Champions League clash on Wednesday night against Steaua Bucharest in Romania with their second consecutive league win.

But coach Juergen Klinsmann admitted his side had been nervous.

"I told the players at half time they had to remain calm," said the ex-Germany coach. "For us, it was important we got a victory, because of Wednesday night's Champions League game. I was very pleased with Lukas Podolski's goal; he is on the right path."

The goal against his old club had added importance for 23-year-old Podolski who has scored 30 goals for Germany, but cannot command a place in Bayern's first team having spent most of last year on the bench.

But the match was over shadowed by news a 47-year-old football fan had died during the game in the west stand at Cologne's Rhein Energie Stadion. The cause of death is not known.

Having started the day in second position, Hamburg came from 2-0 down against ten-man Bayer Leverkusen to seal a dramatic 3-2 win which put them top.

We made too many errors at the start, which must not happen again," said Hamburg coach Martin Jol. "But I am pleased with the fight back, the goal we scored before half-time was very important."

Hamburg trailed 2-0 early on thanks to goals by Bayer's Tranquillo Barnetta and Patrick Helmes.

But a goal from Hamburg's Peru striker Jose Paolo Guerrero on 36 minutes put the home team back in the game before former Germany defender Manuel Friedrich was sent off for a second yellow card three minutes later.

Hamburg were level on 51 minutes when Croatia striker Ivica Olic equalized before Swiss striker Mladen Petric hit the all-important winner on 72 minutes.

Nine-man Schalke 04 lost their heads and their place at the top of the table as they slid down to third after drawing 3-3 with neighbors Borussia Dortmund.

The Royal Blues had two players sent off as Dortmund fought back from 2-0 down at half-time.

Schalke had got off to a flying start when Peru striker Jefferson Farfan converted a penalty on 20 minutes to make a mark on his debut.

Brazilian midfielder Rafinha doubled the advantage on 39 minutes when he slotted home a pass from Germany defender Heiko Westermann.

But Dortmund rallied when defender Neven Subotic headed home Alexander Frei's corner kick on 67 minutes and Swiss striker Frei rifled home a shot three minutes later to make it 3-2 with 20 minutes left.

Schalke lost their composure as Germany defender Christian Pander was shown a second yellow card on 73 minutes for a bad tackle.

And he was joined four minutes later by fellow defender Fabian Ernst for a reckless tackle and with just a minute left Frei converted a penalty which sealed the dramatic result and put Dortmund fourth in the table.

Werder Bremen picked up their first win of the season with three late goals to seal a 3-0 win at home to Energie Cottbus.

VfL Wolfsburg scored goals in the first and last minutes to seal a 2-2 draw in the German capital at Hertha Berlin. Also on Saturday, VfB Stuttgart were held to a 0-0 draw at Hoffenheim.

Madge of the Day

It's not unusual for knackered old has-beens to spoil a decent game of soccer. Anyone unlucky to have caught Carsten Jancker lumber through his final days at SV Mattersburg will attest to that. But never has a dried-up, former superstar managed to get a match cancelled, however lame their performance. Madonna, however, has suddenly become the exception to this rule.

After prancing across the hallowed turf of Frankfurt's Commerz-Bank Arena for a good couple of hours on Thursday night, Madge managed to get the next day's game between the home side and SC Karlsruhe postponed. After it was claimed that Madonna's latest show on the inappropriately titled Sticky and Sweet Tour would not interfere with the Bundesliga schedule, the Friday night game was eventually cancelled, presumably due to the amount of time it took to clear up all the empty bottles of kabballah water that she and her entourage had left lying around.

It seems ironic that after adopting all the traits of an English country dame (e.g. shooting innocent animals, wearing tweed and emasculating a weak-minded male), Madonna failed to pick up on her adopted homeland's obsession with the beautiful game. (For those who may argue that this would be below Lady Madge, she could always support those faux-aristocrats at Chelsea where her irritating mockney accent would fit right in).

You see, this isn't the first time that Her Madgesty has scuppered a good old, working class kick-around. Those of you who have been following Ballspiel may remember that Jefferson had to endure the rather less-salubrious confines of the Jahnsportparkstadion in the former East Berlin after Madonna booked the Olympic Stadium for the same night of Hertha's UEFA Cup clash with NK Interblock Ljubljana. Okay, so it wasn't the Champions League final or even the DFB Cup decider but it still meant that the home side were bussed across town to play in a stadium which would make the Dog & Duck's Sunday XI complain about the toilets.

It's not only the singer's total disregard for soccer, and the Bundesliga in particular, which riles me here but the fact that these postponements and relocations are just another shining example of money riding roughshod over the game. The league schedule and the traditions of the clubs involved come way down the list of priorities when money-machines roll into town and demand a certain venue on a certain day under pain of an expensively-assembled lawsuit.

While the mega-diva surely had the majority of the say as to when and where she played, Madge is not solely to blame here. In both cases, Madonna's prioritization is another sign that football is at the mercy of managers and marketing teams which have come into the game solely to make money. The venues they manage are vessels for any cash-cow that comes to graze on the pitch; they suck the life and soul out of a stadium by ignoring its main purpose – that of being a team's home and a cathedral of worship for its fans – in favour of whatever event brings in the most revenue.

Stay tuned for Manchester United playing Arsenal at Macclesfield Town's stadium-stroke-greyhound track while Old Trafford plays host to the Theatre of Dreams Car Boot Sale.

Sheikh Your Money Maker

I'm back in Germany after a week of fun and, err, rain in Ireland, and I'm looking forward to the resumption of the Bundesliga. Here's one big reason.

Ireland being a country that specializes in weird pursuits like hurling, both on the pitch and in alleyways behind pubs after too many Guinness, the Irish tend to get their football from the English Premiership. And, of course, the sports airwaves were dominated by the news that a group of oil-rich sheikhs from Abu Dhabi had purchased Manchester's other club, Man City.

In typical oil sheikh fashion, City's new bosses announced that they were going after everyone from Cristiano Ronaldo to Cesc Fabregas to Ruud van Nistelrooy -- and that money was no object. Lo and behold, just before the transfer deadline, they landed Robinho for a record sum in England.

This sort of take-over could never happen in Germany, where any one person or corporate entity is prohibited by law from holding more than 49 percent of a club. Clubs here remain clubs, not expensive hobbies and vanity projects for billionaires.

And while I surely wouldn't mind seeing Robinho in Hertha Berlin blue and white, I wouldn't want him for the price of foreign take-overs.

Tickets at the City of Manchester Stadium are already three times more expensive than for most Hertha matches, and despite the wealth of the team's new owners, City fans can bet that they'll being digging a lot deeper into their pockets to help finance marquee signings.

What's more should Hertha play like a bunch of sick nuns, I can, at least theoretically, go to the annual members' meeting and vent my anger at manager Dieter Hoeness. What can City fans do, if things go bust -- lob rotten eggs at their new benefactors' private jet?

Money should be an object. Otherwise how can mere mortals identify with a club or the people who run it?

Ten Players Missing, Presumed German

In the comedy series "Little Britain", Andy Pipkin, the pretend-disabled scrounger, states that he wants to go to Finland despite the fact that he previously said that the country had "a maudlin quality to it, rendering it unsuitable as a holiday destination." After convincing his hapless carer Lou to book them on a flight to Helsinki, Andy decides on take-off that he actually wanted to go to Florida all the time. Germany coach Joachim Loew must know the feeling...

Whether the perenially miserable-looking Miroslav Klose would have reacted in such a way as he did tonight had he been required to play a match in Tampa, we may never know. But the "maudlin" environs of Helsinki's Olympic Stadium certainly brought the best out of the Bayern striker. After seemingly forgetting his scoring boots on his last few outings with the national team, Miro hit a hat-trick. Unfortunately, Finland scored three goals as well, rendering moot the only positive point of a lackluster German performance.

Germany had to come from behind three times to draw with Finland and it if it hadn't been for the perversely-inspired Klose, it could have been a damaging and comprehensive defeat by the Finns. When Germany play their brand of free-flowing, rapid counter-attacking soccer, Klose can't buy a goal. When they fluff their lines, shank their passes and blow their chances, Miro finds some kind of inspiration in the dross.

"It was a great game of football...," Coach Jogi said after presumably watching England thrash Croatia 4-1 on his iPhone ( - sorry, couldn't resist putting that in). Seriously though, which game was he watching??

More worrying than the actual final result was the way in which Finland made Germany look ordinary for long periods of the game. And, to be honest, Finland were awful. Their approach play had that "headless chicken" quality to it and any coherant run at goal soon deteriorated into the haphazard style of a newborn foal having a bowling ball rolled between its legs.

Luckily, Germany didn't have much of a clue either. The ball richocheted between the teams like it was in a pinball machine and half the time, the Germans were not only chasing shadows but tackling them as well.

This game was billed as Germany's first real test after the disappointment of losing the Euro 2008 final. Those who wrote this, myself included, were so wrapped up in the prospect of Germany facing a team made up of actual professionals that they forgot that we were talking about Finland. In what world should Germany playing Finland be a real test for the three-times World Champions?? This one, apparently...

When Germany go to Finland and have to be bailed out by an out-of-form striker who drags them back from humiliation not once but three times, questions like this must be asked.

Listen Up

With no Bundesliga on this week, the Sports Report was reduced to picking over the corpses of international matches featuring a minimum of one crap side.

In the program, my Q&A with Paul Chapman ran at a brisk four minutes. We chatted, however, well past the 14 minute mark and if the time-and-space-constraint-free world of the blog format isn't where to put the raw file, I don't know where is.

Big ups to Paul who said his voice was thrashed but didn't sound like it at all...

David vs. Goliath: But Who's Who?

Germany thankfully showed what a European soccer superpower should do when faced with a team of lowly sacrificial lambs by beating Liechtenstein 6-0 in their first World Cup qualifier.

While Jogi Loew's team were putting their part-time opposition to the sword in Vaduz, England were labouring to an embarrassing 2-0 win against Andorra in Barcelona. In fact, such was the ineptitude and nervousness of England’s display, it was impossible to remember a time when the Three Lions were referred to as a European soccer superpower without tongues being planted firmly in cheeks. Clash of the Small-Fry would have been more fitting a title for this match-up than David versus Goliath.

It is one of the more perverse aspects of international soccer that teams from little provinces and tiny nation states the size of Düsseldorf are wheeled out for cannon fodder in the Euro and World Cup qualification stages. Makeweights such as the Faroe Islands and San Marino bravely take to the field with giant-killing aspirations on their minds but mostly end up in a futile battle to keep the score below that of a cricket whitewash. On the odd occasion (*England circa 1993 comes to mind), these minnows throw a spanner in the works – usually one from the toolbox the striker uses in his day job – and enter the history books as an accomplice in the shaming of a mightier nation.

Let's be fair – they deserve their shot. As members of the UEFA and FIFA families, these countries have every right to be where they are. They live in hope of one day making the finals of a major championship while knowing in their provincial heart-of-hearts that they probably never will. And yet they still try. They may know that reality has them pegged as the eternal whipping boys but, man, how sweet it is to screw up the chances of some team of over-inflated, pampered prancers on the way. Telling your mates that you ended a top five nations’ hopes of World Cup qualification at the weekend is surely the ultimate in water-cooler conversation come Monday morning.

While Liechtenstein and Andorra failed to take a scalp – or any points – in their opening qualification games, the Andorrans at least will take pleasure and pride from holding an expensive array of Premiership superstars at bay for 49 minutes.

Germany's opponents will know that they came up against a far better side and given the opportunity may have fared as well as Andorra against the English. The (bad) luck of the draw, however, pitched them up against the wounded European Championship runners-up; a team just aching to get on the road to the next finals where glory could possibly await and where painful memories could possibly be erased.

Loew played Lukas Podolski as a striker after playing him at left midfield during Euro 2008 and the switch paid dividends in the 21st minute. Podolski scored from close range after latching onto a pass from Piotr Trochowski. Poldi and Trochowski combined again for the Bayern striker to make it two in the 48th; opening up the floodgates despite Liechtenstein's dogged resilience. Simon Rolfes scored his first international goal on 65 minutes, with another a minute later from Bastian Schweinsteiger. Thomas Hitzlsperger scored with a deflected free kick ten minutes after that and Heiko Westermann rounded things off with his first goal for Germany with four minutes to play.

The combination of Podolski and Miroslav Klose, the successful striking duo from Germany’s 2006 World Cup campaign, and their impact was in stark contrast with England's attempts at prising open Andorra with a ramshackle bunch of misfits.

Shorn of a number of injured, out-of-form and out-of-favour stars, Fabio Capello put his goalscoring faith in Jermaine Defoe and the non-firing Wayne Rooney. England's and Capello's blushes were ultimately saved by two strikes from substitute Joe Cole, a midfielder playing up-front who is making a habit of saving his coach’s butt with important goals.

Even at this early stage, Germany should be a shoo-in for World Cup qualification given the consistency and confidence in the current side. England, however, are still eleven question marks in white shirts (or red, depending on the opponents). If the Three Lions fail for the second time in a row to qualify for a major tournament, who's to say a visit to Wembley may hold as little fear as a trip to Vaduz for the big teams in the future?

(*England had to beat San Marino in Bologna by seven clear goals, and needed Holland to lose against Poland to qualify for the 1994 World Cup in the USA. The humiliation began when San Marino opened the scoring in the ninth second as part-timer Davide Gualtieri latched onto a weak Stuart Pearce back pass and beat Peter Shilton in the England goal. Although the score ended up 7-1 to England, Holland beat Poland in any case.)

Germany Says Goodbye to King Kahn

In a slow match that looked exactly like the charity event it was, Germany's national team and Bayern Munich bid farewell to German soccer legend Oliver "King" Kahn on Tuesday night in Munich.

With Bayern trailing in the Bundesliga and Germany facing a pair of World Cup qualifiers next week, it was clear Oliver Kahn's goal for the night would be different from that of the other 21 players on the pitch. For the now-retired Oli Kahn the game would be one last chance to chomp away open-mouthed at a piece of gum while barking orders to his defense and then raise his hands to a prolonged standing ovation and shouts of "Olli Kahn! Ollie Kahn!" from a sold-out Allianz Arena.

For everyone else on the pitch the idea was to walk off the field after 90 minutes without getting hurt or without embarrassing themselves.

Referee Markus Merk dutifully stopped the match in the 75th minute to let the Allianz Arena, and via TV extension all of German soccer, bid farewell to Kahn with Paul Potts singing "Time to Say Goodbye" from the center circle filling the stadium during Kahn's farewell lap to collect Bayern scarves thrown to him from adoring and teary eyed fans.

The well-deserved goodbye to a German soccer institution, who will continue to have his say in the sport as a commentator, turned opulent as the ever-present film crew followed Kahn, with a FC Bayern Munich flag draped around his shoulders, to the locker room to show TV viewers how he drinks his energy drink, and unties his cleats with live commentary on national television.

After he left the field German public broadcaster ZDF didn't even bother to turn the game clock back on. No one at home -- or in the stadium -- really cared how much time was left in the match. Except for Olli's successor at Bayern, Michael Rensing, who tapped his wrist, apparently thinking someone cares about what he thinks.

A respectable 1-1 draw let everyone go home feeling like a winner while fans got to take a look at Germany's soccer stars -- the ones who may still shine as well as the ones that have already faded.

Bayern Back on Form

Bayern Munich coach Juergen Klinsmann can invest in a few new Buddha statues for the team's locker room after hammering Hertha Berlin 4-1 for the Bavarians' first win of the season. After two lackluster draws, the victory puts Bayern within two points of league leaders Schalke 04.

Luca Toni scored for the first time this season early in the match, and defender Philipp Lahm curled home a pretty shot for Bayern's second goal. Bastian Schweinsteiger and Miroslav Klose both tallied from the penalty spot on fouls from Berlin's Swiss defender Steve von
Bergen to wrap up scoring Munich.

And it was about time for German international Klose. His drought has had German soccer experts wondering if the winner of the 2006 World Cup's Golden Boot had lost his touch. The last time he gave the air a post-goal punch was in March.

"Schweini was down to take the penalties and scored the first one with assurance, so I threw him the ball," Klose said. "He then gave it back to me which was a great gesture. I have been working really hard on my fitness these last few weeks so this (goal) was enormously important."

But even Sunday's goal celebration was cut short when Klinsi replaced Klose with Lukas Podolski -- who began yet another match warming the bench for Bayern.

Klinsmann said that after a difficult pre-season preparation the team "is slowly starting to roll."

Marko Pantelic scored Berlin's late consolation goal but still had to watch his team slip from third to 10th in the league table as Bayern climbed to seventh after three matches.

In Sunday's other match, Stuttgart beat Hanover 2-0 with first-half goals from Mario Gomez and Pavel Pardo from the penalty spot. The defeat leaves Hanover propping up the table, while Stuttgart are fifth on six points.

Schalke 04, with seven points, took over the league's top spot on goal difference by defeating VfL Bochum 1-0 on Saturday.

Heiko Westermann sealed the win with a superb header that would ultimately knock promoted Hoffenheim out of first place. The promoted side was brought back down to Bundesliga reality with a 5-2 loss to Bayer Leverkusen.

Hamburg, who came from behind to win 4-2 at Arminia Bielefeld, and Dortmund, who edged out Energie Cottbuss 1-0, are level on points with the Royal Blues.

Champions League contenders Werder Bremen were humbled 3-2 by promoted Borussia Moenchengladbach while Wolfsburg drew 2-2 with Eintracht Frankfurt.

Cologne defender Umit Ozat had fans worried after he collapsed on the field for no apparent reason in Karlsruhe on Friday night. Carried off the field by and treated by both teams' doctors, the 31-year-old was given a clean bill of health and released from the hospital on Sunday. In tribute to him, Cologne went on to win the match 2-0.

Enter the Sports Report

Greetings from radioland. I plan to spend more time here in the coming months and am well pleased to see the blog off to such a good start. I bring as tribute some audio material -- stuff culled from the sports report show I just hosted. This will become a tradition, I think...

Back to Berlin Basics

Amidst all the brow-furrowing over Schalke's massacre in Madrid on Wednesday, it largely went unnoticed that German sides Hertha Berlin and Stuttgart were having some international success on Thursday.

Both clubs dispatched obscure Eastern European opponents to win the Intertoto Cup, alias the UEFA Cup qualifications, or, as they known in German soccer fan slang, the doner-kebab competition.

These low-level tournaments are reminiscent of a ride along the transit highway from West Germany to Berlin back before the fall of the Iron Curtain. The stadiums seem much more dimly lit than usual, the stands are largely deserted, and there are few visible signs of anyone making any money.

Hertha's match -- against a Slovenian side called NK Interblock Ljubljana -- was in fact played out in a Communist relic of an arena. Madonna had already booked Berlin's Olympic Stadium, forcing a move into the city center and back through time that probably took a few soccer star egos down a peg or two.

Of course, I had to attend. How could I, a fan willing to brave hour-long train rides to watch the mediocrity usually on display in the Olympic Stadium, refuse to do the same, when it was only three tram stops away and available for half-price?

I got what I paid for. I had hardly settled into my Soviet-era, puke-orange plastic seat, when midfielder Patrick Ebert curled in a free kick from 30 meters to put Hertha up 3-nil on aggregate. It was effectively game, set and match -- after 90 seconds.

The remaining 90-plus minutes were such that the home fans began imploring their team to run up the score or concede a goal or do pretty much anything other than what they were doing, which was sweet **** all.

"Hey, you millionaires, how about working for your money like I do?" bellowed one frustrated spectator, before adding: "Okay, I’m on welfare, but it’s pretty much the same thing."

The players on the pitch were unimpressed, continuing to concentrate on avoiding injury and marveling at their opponents' incompetence. So a few supporters took things into their own hands by getting into a fight.

That was fun to watch.

Let the Autopsy Begin

Oh dear…

The debate on whether German soccer is good enough to challenge for the major European honors will no doubt start again in earnest today as Schalke 04 arrive back in Germany after being humiliated 4-0 in Madrid.

Schalke, the German team which got the furthest in the competition last season by reaching the quarter-finals, were taken apart by Atletico in the Estadio Calderon on Wednesday night, bringing new coach Fred Rutten's Champions League adventure to a very premature close.

Schalke's defeat and elimination will cost the club around 15 million euros ($22 million) in extra finance

The other teams from the Bundesliga – Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen – face a potentially difficult group stage despite qualifying directly thanks to their superior league positions last season.

Both teams, neither of which have set the competition alight in recent years, are in Pot Two for the draw which means that they will be drawn with one of the top seeds in the group stage. But looking at the clubs which make up the whole draw, none of them look like they will be a pushover for Bremen or Bayern, even the East European minnows.

Schalke, of course, will not have these potentially difficult trips to the likes of Anorthosis Famagusta or Bate Borisov to contend with. They will have to be satisfied with revelling in the delusion that they can now fully focus on winning the Bundesliga without having to think "where the hell does CFR Cluj come from?" (Romania, if you’re wondering…and they were last season's league and cup double winners – so let's have some respect).

No, Schalke gave up that right to consider themselves part of Europe's "elite" (which these days is a dubious title to hang on a competition which now features the third-placed teams from a myriad of leagues)by capitulating when the game in Madrid was there to be won.

Atletico powered their way past the Royal Blues to win the tie a 4-1 aggregate. They lost 1-0 two weeks ago in Gelsenkirchen.

Atletico have not reached the Champions League since 1997 and the capacity crowd celebrated wildly – and rightly so. It was a wonderful performance which left Schalke chasing shadows.

"This was a really important night for us," said Argentine midfielder Maxi Rodriguez. "The fans were wonderful, and they deserve this after all they have suffered in the past few years."

Teenage idol Sergio Aguero pushed Atletico ahead in the 19th minute, deflecting in a cross-shot from Luis Perea after Schalke's Marcelo Bordon had cleared a Diego Forlan shot off the line.

Seven minutes into the second half Forlan made it 2-0 for Atletico with a low left-foot drive.

In the 63rd minute Germany striker Kevin Kuranyi failed to convert a centre from Heiko Westermann. From then on Schalke visibly lost confidence in their ability to save the tie.

Seven minutes from time former Liverpool star and current Atletico supersub Luis Garcia made it 3-0, latching onto a pass from Aguero. Three minutes later - with the fans already celebrating - Christian Pander pulled down Simao Sabrosa for a penalty - and was sent off with a second yellow card.

Maxi Rodriguez calmly put away the spot-kick - signaling it was time for the fiesta in Madrid to begin.

It also signaled the beginning of yet another autopsy on the already desecrated corpse of Germany’s European hopes.

The Bundesliga Casting Show

We've just finished week two of the Bundesliga season and even after reviewing two week's worth of matches and reintroducing myself to the sides, I'm left wondering what team to support. I've ruled out my adopted hometown because they're playing in the Bundesliga's second division -- and probably will be for some time. No city in the entire state I live in has a team playing in the first division, so I don't feel any local alliances.

As a player (half of a short lifetime ago) known for possessing more potential than actual skill, I have a hankering to support the Bundesliga's perennial bridesmaids and eight-time league runners-up, Schalke 04. Still, part of me isn't willing to make a life-defining decision like choosing what team to support on a whim, and I've decided I need some expert advice.

I wanted answers from fan club heads at each of the teams on why their side is the best the Bundesliga has to offer. At least that's what I wanted until I spent hours picking through Arminia Bielefeld's list of nearly 100 fan clubs. A quick look at Bayern Munich's supposed 2,000 choices convinced me half a dozen seasons could start and end before I even knew who to address my questions to.

Since the sheer number of fan clubs made it impossible for me to tell die-hard supporters from fair-weather fans, I asked the team's "fan liaison" to vie for my support. Each received the same message explaining my position as an American looking to gain a German's appreciation for soccer and asked them to tell me what makes their team particularly worthy of fanaticism.

You can also play a role in deciding what jersey I add to my wardrobe by voting in an online survey.

Stick around to see the responses and who gets my devotion.

Don't Hassle the Hoff-enheim

The story of the Bundesliga's second week must be the fact that a village team now heads the top league in Germany.

Hoffenheim defeated fellow promoted side Borussia Moenchengladbach 1-0 to go top of the table as the only team with maximum points after two matches. This could change if Wolfsburg beat Bochum by a large margin in one of the Sunday games but as David Bowie once said, "Hoffenheim can be heroes…just for one day" (or something like that).

It is more likely that this little team will continue to be heroes even if their early form peters out and they end up returning to a lower tier after this season. Having climbed up four divisions to reach the Bundesliga for the first time in their history and then sitting on the summit with two wins in their first two games in their debut season means that these players are already legends, whatever happens next.

Vedad Ibisevic may not be the easiest name to say but his is the moniker stumbling from the mouths of commentators and fans alike after his third in two games gave the minnows a deserved winner and put him joint top of the scoring charts.

While the people who wrote them off even before a ball was kicked may not be forced to eat massive amounts of humble pie while the officially named TSG 1899 Hoffenheim toast an improbable championship title in May, the team's initial showing means a little more respect is certainly due.

Today's young side which is admired for its attractive and aggressive style has certainly been injected with a large amount of Bundesliga knowledge by their coach, the former Stuttgart, Hanover and Schalke 04 trainer Ralf Rangnick.

Helped by the millions of German businessman Dietmar Hopp, who made a fortune developing computer software and headed the giant SAP group, Rangnick has bought in 21-year-old Brazilian Wellington Luis de Souza and midfielder Andreas Beck, also 21 and a former Stuttgart youth player. Hoffenheim's youthful and international squad also boasts 23-year-old striker Demba Ba from Senegal. They're hardly a bunch of shopkeepers and Sunday league pub players.

Not everyone in Germany is pleased to see Hoffenheim's rapid rise to the upper echelons, and the club finds itself to often be the brunt of abuse from rival fans who feel the club is merely a rich man's toy.

"Hoffenheim is not a project but more of a model," Rangnick said. "We are putting a lot of emphasize on youth. Today (against Moenchengladbach) we had an average age of 22.5. Our under-17 team has become German champions. Our motto is that we are not buying any players over the age of 25."

It's this youthful desire which has set a blaze of ambition burning in the belly of this club.

How Juergen Klinsmann must be hoping to get the same battling spirit and belief from his dazzling array of lavishly-paid superstars.

The Bayern Munich coach can still claim that he has yet to lose a Bundesliga match since taking over at the Allianz Arena but the Bavarian giants have still to record their first league win under their new coach after laboring to another score draw on Saturday.

The champions have yet to find their stride under Klinsi in this embryonic campaign and the loss of captain Mark van Bommel, sent off as Bayern had to come from behind to earn a 1-1 draw at Borussia Dortmund, could be a sign that a little frustration is already creeping into the psyche of the perennial winners.

This result against Juergen Klopp's BVB follows a 2-2 draw at home to SV Hamburg in the opening game of the season.

Even the return of Luca Toni and Turkey midfielder Hamit Altintop couldn't inspire the champions to an early flyer. In fact, it was BVB – who had dispensed with Bayer Leverkusen in a 3-2 win on the first day – who went ahead in the ninth minute when Polish midfielder Jakub Blaszczykowski gave Michael Rensing in the Bayern goal no chance with a shot into the top corner from the edge of the area.

Van Bommel was dismissed in the 23rd minute after being booked twice inside two minutes. The first yellow card came for a lunging tackle on Sebastian Kehl, and the second for a forearm check to the back of the head of Tamas Hajnal in another challenge.

Bayern were able to rescue a point when new signing Tim Borowski netted from close range in the 75th minute following a corner headed down by Lucio for his first goal since joining from Werder Bremen.

"We wanted to win, but we got the point playing with 10 men for over an hour and really deserved it," Klinsmann said. "We will take the point and get the three next Sunday (at home to Hertha Berlin)," he said.

Klinsmann said he could not see clearly the incidents that led to the dismissal of van Bommel and did not want to comment.

"I don't want to watch the action replay 10 times. It has happened and the team nevertheless reacted wonderfully," he said. "In the break we said we wanted to put them under pressure, and what the boys showed in the second 45 minutes was great."

Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer said the yellow cards to van Bommel were justified, saying the Dutch midfielder, who was dismissed twice last season, "lacks a bit of self-control."

"He has to control himself because he is not only harming himself but also the team," the Kaiser said.

Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp said his side gave too many balls away in midfield, allowing Bayern back into the game. "In the end the team lacked bit of confidence in itself," he said

Schalke 04 scored a late equalizer at Werder Bremen for a 1-1 draw between the two teams expected to provide the strongest title challenge to Bayern.

Heiko Westermann got the equalizer for the Royal Blues with minutes left after German international Torsten Frings had given Werder a 64th minute lead.

Bremen's new signing Claudio Pizarro started for the first time since rejoining the club from Chelsea, but it was Germany midfielder Frings who was on target with a 63rd minute goal following a low cross into the box from Mesut Ozil.

It looked enough for victory but defender Westermann grabbed a lifeline for Schalke with five minutes remaining when he mopped up after keeper Tim Wiese could only parry a Benedikt Hoewedes header.

Elsewhere, Hamburg continued their unbeaten start by snatching a last-minute 2-1 victory over Karlsruhe.

The home side went ahead through an own goal by Karlsruhe's Tim Sebastian who screwed the ball into his own net in the 32nd minute to give Hamburg the lead.

Karlsruhe were on equal terms in the 67th through Sebastian Freis but HSV’s Dutch defender Joris Mathijsen hit a close-range winner in the 90th.

Goals in each half from new signing Patrick Helmes and Theofanis Gekas gave Bayer Leverkusen a first league win under new coach Bruno Labbadia at VfB Stuttgart.

Poland striker Artur Wichniarek scored his third of the season as Arminia Bielefeld came from behind to a Marko Pantelic goal to draw 1-1 at Hertha Berlin.

As well as Wolfsburg versus Bochum, Cologne and Frankfurt meet in Sunday's other match.

Moritz to be a Tractor Boy?

It looks as though Mortitz Volz's time in the Premiership is coming to a close.

According to the BBC, Fulham have accepted a bid from Championship side Ipswich Town for the German full-back.

Our favorite former Germany Under-21 international appears to be on his way into the second tier after five years, 127 appearances and two goals with the Cottagers.

The writing was on the wall for Volzy after he played only 12 games for Fulham last season and was not in the squad for the opening-day defeat at Hull.

Ipswich manager Jim Magilton told his club's website: "We have made an offer to Fulham for Moritz Volz and it has been accepted."

As someone who was born and bred in the rival Norfolk city of Norwich, I should be a little disgusted that Volzy is going to be a Tractor Boy. But considering I support Liverpool and Norwich are rubbish, I actually don't really care too much.

It's a shame that Volzy won't be a top flight player anymore but at least the country air in Suffolk may make his bike ride to work more pleasant. He'll also be a lot closer to the sea if he wants to don his Baywatch outfit and strut the eastern shores in search of busty blondes to save. Unfortunately, there's more chance that he'll be saving small children from stalking sewage if he goes to some beaches in the region.

Anyway - good luck Volzy. We'll keep an eye on your Championship exploits.

Sizing Things Up

Stuttgart, bidding to dislodge last season's Bundesliga winners Bayern Munich, got their campaign off to a solid start Sunday in winning 3-1 away at promoted Borussia Moenchengladbach.

With Bayern held to a 2-2 home draw the previous day by old rivals Hamburg the stage was set for Armin Veh's side to take advantage and his side impressed in securing full points with goals from Thomas Hitzlsperger, Ciprian Marica and Mario Gomez, all before half-time.

A Rob Friend consolation on the hour mark was of little cheer to Borussia fans, their club having struggled in recent years to revisit the halcyon days of the 1970s.

Veh was delighted by the start to the campaign. "We saw really good football out there today, not least as Gladbach also played in an attacking vein (although) at 3-0 it was essentially all over," the Stuttgart coach concluded.

In the other Sunday encounter, Eintracht Frankfurt slid to a 2-0 home loss to Hertha Berlin, who bagged the points with Brazilian Raffael and Patrick Ebert 61 on target either side of the break.

On Saturday, Schalke 04 and Borussia Dortmund began the season with victories under new coaches.

Dortmund under Juergen Klopp earned a 3-2 win at Bayer Leverkusen with Nelson Valdez (4th), Florian Kringe (36th) and Neven Subotic (49th) on his debut on target.

New signing Patrick Helmes (21st) and Stefan Kiessling (83rd) scored for Leverkusen in a disappointing start for new coach Bruno Labbadia.

Schalke's new Dutch coach Fred Rutten saw his team get off to a flying start with two quick goals in a 3-0 victory over Hanover in Gelsenkirchen.

It puts Schalke joint level on top of the table with newly-promoted minnows Hoffenheim, who were 3-0 winners at Energie Cottbus, after the first Saturday of the league season.

Schalke were without injured new signings striker Jefferson Farfan and midfielder Orlando Engelaar, but dominated from the start against Hanover.

Defender Marcelo Bordon headed Schalke in front from a corner in the second minute and Kevin Kuranyi netted the second six minutes later after Bordon had again won the ball in the air from a corner.

Kuranyi completed the drubbing by heading a third from a free-kick in the 64th minute to boost his chances of being picked by watching Germany coach Joachim Loew for Wednesday's friendly at home to Belgium.

"I am pleased with my team that we are so good in form. We played well and got the ball forward quickly," Kuranyi said. "I hope we can continue this way. But we have just won the first game. It's a big step and an important one, but we mustn’t forget it's a long season and we can't underestimate any team."

Newly-promoted Hoffenheim hit three goals to record a first Bundesliga win in the club's history.

The village club, who have risen from the lower leagues with the help of multi-millionaire investor Dietmar Hopp, scored a first-ever Bundesliga goal through Vedad Ibisevic in the 17th minute at Energie Cottbus (see above). Senegalese striker Semba Ba, who had helped set up the goal, struck a second 10 minutes into the second half and the rout was completed by an Ibisevic header in the 76th.

Meanwhile last season's runners up Werder Bremen had to settle for a 2-2 draw at Arminia Bielefeld.

Sweden striker Markus Rosenberg twice put Bremen ahead with goals in the 60th and 80th minutes against Bielefeld but the home side hit back each time through Poland striker Artur Wichniarek in the 74th and 81st.

Wolfsburg came from behind to beat newly-promoted Cologne 2-1. Milivoje Novakovic, last season's second-division top scorer, headed Cologne ahead in the 20th minute at Wolfsburg, but Felix Magath's side leveled three minutes after the break through Christian Gentner and struck a 78th-minute winner through new signing Zvjezdan Misimovic.

Karlsruhe began with a 1-0 victory over Bochum, with Christian Eichner settling the affair in the 30th minute.

The 2008/2009 Bundesliga season got underway Friday evening when SV Hamburg came from two goals down to hold title holders Bayern Munich to a 2-2 draw and spoil Juergen Klinsmann's league debut with the Bavarians.

Klinsmann conceded Hamburg were full value for the draw against a Bayern side still missing several leading players including the injured France midfielder Franck Ribery and striker Luca Toni.

"We are still in the early phase and at the moment we are not in a position to put an opponent under pressure," Klinsmann said. "Our combination play isn't together yet but this will come automatically with improved fitness in the coming weeks. We have to improve from week to week."

Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer told Premiere television Saturday that the club had to be satisfied with the single point in view of the long list of injuries.

"A lot has been changed at the club for the good of the players and for the staff but we know it's of no use if the results don't come," he said. "However I think it was a good start because HSV (Hamburg) were lively, moved well and caused us a lot of problems, so a draw was a fair outcome.

"The only negative thing was that we gave away a 2-0 lead."

Hamburg coach Martin Jol was pleased with the performance and received a further boost Saturday when it was confirmed that Borussia Dortmund's want-away striker Mladen Petric is to join the club.

Hamburg have agreed to pay a reported 4.5 million euros ($6.6 million) plus the Egyptian striker Mohamed Zidan for the Croatia international who will now pair up with fellow Croatia striker Ivica Olic.

Mixed Bag for Germans in Blighty

Germany’s Michael Ballack set up the first goal as Luiz Felipe Scolari's tenure as manager of Chelsea got off to the perfect start as his side sent out a message to the rest of the league Sunday with a highly impressive 4-0 victory over Portsmouth.

It wasn't just that Chelsea won that was so striking: it was the style of the victory.

This was an open, expressive Chelsea, with Mikel Jon Obi in a holding role, Ballack, Lampard and Deco arrayed in front of them and Joe Cole operating just off striker Nicolas Anelka.

It was Joe Cole, rumored to be on his way out of the club, who scored the first goal of the Scolari regime, arcing his run cleverly to stay onside as he ran onto Ballack's precise stabbed through-ball.

The second came on 26 minutes as full-back Jose Bosingwa sent in a deep cross, and with Portsmouth outnumbered at the back post and James horribly out of position, Deco returned the ball to the middle where Anelka nodded the ball over the line.

Lampard, who signed a new five-year contract last week, added a third in first-half injury-time, converting from the penalty spot after Sylvain Distin was perhaps harshly determined to have handled Joe Cole's cross.

A swerving 25-yarder from Deco embarrassed James in the final minute to make it 4-0.

However, the game ended on a slightly sour note for Ballack as the Chelsea midfielder had to be substituted after taking a knock on his left foot. Following the injury, Ballack contacted Germany coach Joachim Loew to say he would not be fit to play in Wednesday's friendly match against Belgium in Nuremburg.

On an even more bitter note, Fulham got off to the worst possible start when they newly-promoted Hull City came from behind to win a 2-1 in their first match in the top flight.

Moritz Volz, however, could not be blamed as he was not even included in the squad.

Hull were behind within eight minutes against Fulham, but goals from Geovanni and substitute Caleb Folan gave them the win on their Premier League debut, much to manager Phil Brown's delight.

"The spirit of the football club was there for everybody to see," Brown said. "The fitness levels in the second half were incredible, as was the passion and the drive. The character was tremendous."

The performance from Fulham was not.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?

The Bundesliga's main schedule gets underway today after Bayern Munich and Hamburg hammered out a 2-2 draw in the Allianz Arena last night in the opening salvo of the season.

Most Germans with an interest in soccer will either be readying themselves for journeys to the four corners of the land in support of their team or will have their eyes peeled for the results on TV screens and live tickers all over the nation.

A few, however, will have other things on their minds.

As well as hoping that this season will be more successful than last, Germany captain Michael Ballack may also be wondering where he is going to fit into new Chelsea coach Luiz Felipe Scolari's plans for the London club's opening Premiership game against Portsmouth today -- and the rest of the season.

Ballack proved his worth in the second half of last season as Chelsea pushed Manchester United hard to the last day in the title race, lost out in the Carling Cup Final and again came off second best to United in the final of the Champions League. The former Leverkusen and Bayern midfielder grew in stature and recaptured some of the form which persuaded club owner Roman Abromavich to pay him in excess of 150,000 euros a week as the season entered the latter stages. Unfortunately, and maybe a little unsurprisingly considering his blighted record, Ballack and Chelsea ended the campaign empty handed.

The failure to win any silverware cost then coach Avram Grant his job. Again the deep pockets of Chelsea's patron and resident oligarch were ploughed with success in mind and Scolari soon rolled up with an armored car in tow to carry him and his wages back to his new Home Counties mansion where he would plan Chelsea's next attempt at world (soccer and commercial) domination.

For Ballack, this may have set the cogs turning. How would he fit into the masterplan of a Brazilian coach with a remit from his billionaire employer to sign anyone he can get in a bid to snatch a clean sweep of trophies for the Stamford Bridge outfit?

Doubts may have surfaced when Scolari made the Portuguese magician Deco his first signing. The little Brazilian-born midfielder was always Scolari's luxury item in his Portugal team; ever present like the Rolex on his coach's arm, dazzling and reliable in equal measure. Surely this son of Scolari would not be warming the bench?

Ballack's concerns over the burgeoning Chelsea midfield were eased when Claude Makelele took his ageing legs back across the channel to play out his days in the role he made (and named) his own with Paris St. Germain. They would have dissipated further had Frank Lampard heralded the call of his father-figure Jose Mourinho to join him at Inter Milan. But even a surrogate family reunion can't compete with a new five-year deal in the same wage bracket as Ballack. Lampard stays and will collect around 150,000 euros a week for the privilege.

With Lamps, Deco, Michael Essien (if Scolari doesn't waste his talents in a central defensive position this season), Jon Obi Mikel, Joe Cole, Flourent Malouda and Sean Wright-Phillips all fighting for midfield places, Ballack has the competition which every footballer claims makes them a better player.

But where does Ballack fit in? Or does he fit at all?

Essien, as he has proved in the past, is the ideal candidate to take over from Makelele as the shield for the defense while Mikel can also play that holding role in a five-man midfield. Given Ballack's propensity for aggressive forward play from the center, he may only have to worry about Scolari teaming Lampard with Deco in the middle of the field. With Deco conducting and Lampard operating behind a single striker (either Drogba, when fit, or Anelka), Ballack could be surplus to requirements at times in a five-man midfield. He won't trouble Cole, Malouda or Wright-Phillips in the battle for the wings so the Germany captain may have to get used to squad rotation.

Should Abromavich sanction a world record transfer fee for AC Milan's Kaka – a young charge under Scolari when he was Brazil coach – then things could get increasingly more congested in Chelsea's midfield. This ridiculously ostentatious piece of fantasy football business is unlikely to be concluded until next season, giving Ballack a little more time to assess his future.

Ballack has said that he wants to end his career at Chelsea. He may well achieve that – and on 150,000 euros a week he would be a fool not to stick it out. But however cynical we may all become about the state of soccer in terms of money and greed, despite what many think, players really only want to play. If they’re not playing, they’re not happy. If Ballack becomes a fifth – or sixth – wheel at Chelsea, who would bet against him finishing his career elsewhere in a team where he can play out his days with regular first team opportunities.

DW-WORLD.DE's favorite Hasselhoff-loving, German player abroad also enters the Premiership fray once more this Saturday as Fulham take on newly promoted Hull City.

However, if you take a glance over Volzy's often hilarious web site, you'll see he has a lot fewer worries than Herr Ballack despite being in a team which flirts with relegation on a yearly basis. The self-deprecating defender appears more concerned with mastering his new cook book than getting three points for Fulham.

Volzy is a breath of fresh air in the often putrid atmosphere of modern soccer which is why we will continue to champion him and support him throughout this season, so keep your eyes open for our regularly updated "Volzy Watch" on Ballspiel.

As for Saturday, Volzy will no doubt roll up at the stadium on his folding bike, give praise to the Hoff and begin another campaign of trying to keep the unfortunately nick-named Cottagers in the top flight. All power to yer boots, Mozzer!

California Dreaming?

Jürgen Klinsmann will wake up in the morning to a warm Danish and frothy cappucino to find out it was all a nightmare. He'll swing himself out of his king-size bed, stretch in his cotton PJs before enjoying a leisurely frühstuck. He'll then grab the leash and go wandering along the golden sands with a happy retriever bounding in the surf and a light heart beating in his tanned, relaxed chest.

Only in your dreams, Klinsi.

The Bayern Munich coach has already had a number of rude awakenings since taking over at the German champions. A friendly thrashing at the hands of Borussia Dortmund was seen as an ironing-out of a few teething problems, with a team made up of mostly second-string players. The lucky escape in the German Cup against lowly Erfurt was a little more worrying. And while the opening day result -- a 2-2 home draw against Hamburg -- is hardly cause for drastic action or wild predictions of disaster, the fact that Klinsi's champions threw away a two-goal lead will lead to a bloody autopsy at the very least.

When Bastian Schweinsteiger and Lukas Podolski put Bayern two up with 12 minutes gone, it looked as though the magic Klinsmann had worked with these two young stars at national level was going to replicate itself in the league. But as the game wore on, Bayern ran out of ideas, and then ran out of steam. Shorn of the attacking threat of the injured Luca Toni (this based on his devastating league form and not his no-show at Euro 2008), Klinsmann went with Poldi and Klose up front, again hoping to tap into that sunny summer of 2006. With the lively Schweini roaming at will, it was just like old times.

However, Martin Jol's team had other ideas.

Hamburg were facing the campaign opener without their own talisman but in the knowledge that they would not be expecting Rafa van der Vaart to return any time soon. The new Real Madrid star may have glanced at the rough and tumble going on at the Allianz Arena and afforded himself a wry smile, looking forward as he may well be to having acres of space to stroke the ball about in the white of the Spanish champions.

Despite RVDV's absence, Hamburg still managed to dig deep to find the reserves that the Dutch star nearly always had to conjure up for them alone in times of need. Their bravery paid off. Ex-Bayern flop Paolo Guerrero put the finish to a nice team move on 25 minutes to worry the home side before Piotr Trochowski made sure Klinsmann will be tossing and turning in his home from Californian home this evening.

One game doesn't end a title challenge, especially when it's the opening game but Klinsmann's honeymoon period looks set to end faster than a Boris Becker engagement. Juergen will have to start thrashing some lowly teams pretty sharpish if the marriage made in heaven is not going to turn out to be a loveless union.

All You Need is Cash

Apologies for starting this year's Bundesliga blog off with an entry based on ugly rumours (by which I mean allegations and not ex-British PM Tony Blair's ill-fated Stones-esque college band).

Since Euro 2008 ended, I've been feeding my soccer hunger by trawling my favourite sites for any morsel of information that can keep me sated. Most of the time, this means teasing myself with half-truths and hearsay from the transfer gossip pages. After praising (enter the name of chosen deity here) for the end of the endless self-perpetuated fluff about Cristiano Ronaldo's on-off-on-finally-off move to Real Madrid, I stumbled in shock at the new flight of fantasy that had bubbled to the surface of the rumour mire:

"AC Milan's Brazil star Kaka is set to join Chelsea before the end of August in a world-record 99 million-euro deal" (source: various newspapers, quoted by BBC Sport).

Now, Kaka is more than a little bit good, I'm sure most of you will agree. The AC Milan and Brazil midfielder has put in some quite luminous performances for the rossoneri and the Selecao since making his senior debut for Sao Paulo in 2001. He has since helped Milan win a cabinet full of silverware and was a bit-part player in Brazil's 2002 World Cup win before starring in their 2005 Confederations Cup success. He won the European and World Player of the Year gongs in 2007, along with a glut of other individual prizes in a year where he dominated games and headlines alike.

But let's put this in perspective and bring in Bayern Munich at this point – as this is a Bundesliga blog. Kaka is one man, albeit a very talented one. Bayern spent a rumoured 70 million euros on PLAYERS (plural) during the close season at the end of the 2006/2007 campaign. In that splurge, the Bavarian giants signed one of the world's most exciting young midfield talents in Franck Ribery, a prolific international striker and World Cup Golden Boot winner in Miroslav Klose, and a sought-after Italian hit-man by the name of Luca Toni.

Throw in the likes of Turkish international Hamit Altintop, Brazilian midfielder Ze Roberto, Germany stars of the future Marcell Jansen and Jan Schlaudraff, plus Argentinean midfielder Jose Ernesto Sosa and Bayern could be satisfied that good business had been done.

However, after buying that lot, with the money Chelsea are rumoured to be ready to stump up for Kaka, you would still have change to pick up Real Madrid's Robinho for a tasty 25 million euros if you were feeling extravagant. Wave 99 million euros at the likes of VfL Bochum or FC Köln and their coaches would probably bin their current squads and buy new, and probably even better, ones.

This is, as I pointed out at the start, just an ugly rumour at the moment. Ugly, because it suggests that the already cash-obsessed world of soccer could be ready to slip over the precipice of insanity on which it has been tottering for the last ten years. Ugly, because it suggests that if one club can harness that amount of money, few if any stand a chance of competing. Ugly, because if one player can cost the amount it took to turn a good but underperforming team into star-studded German champions then the gates to the world of soccer will soon resemble to many the gates of Hades.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Matt Hermann

In the short two years he's been in Germany, Matt Hermann has become a Bundesliga junkie, and he’s happy to have found a job where he can get paid to watch it. On those "working" weekends you'll hear him hosting Deutsche Welle Radio's Sports Report; other weekends you’ll find him drinking at various taverns in Cologne or Bonn, because he's too cheap to spring for satellite TV at home. As far as where his loyalties lie, Matt follows the fortunes of his old loves, the Uniteds of D.C. and Manchester, but the German club he stays up at night worrying about these days is Hertha BSC.

Jefferson Chase

Jefferson Chase is an American journalist whose first encounter with "saw-ker" came in grade school, where he played sweeper and perfected the art of kicking smaller boys in the shins. Years later, while teaching German at an English university, he decided to support Arsenal because they had a firearm in their logo. The Arse went on to win the double, clinching the league title at Old Trafford -- and a love affair was born. In 1999, Chase moved permanently to Berlin, where he developed a similar, if infinitely less rewarding relationship with city's only first-division club, Hertha. His hobbies include spending sunny afternoons in dimly lit barrooms screaming at television screens.

Sean Sinico

A native of the United States, Sean has relished in the ever-present glow of first-rate soccer since moving to Europe nearly six years ago. A national team devotee, he is still working to develop fervor for the Bundesliga that approaches that of a German male's. As a traditional supporter of the underdogs, Sean has spent the past two seasons trying to think of reasons not to like Bayern Munich and is running out of reasons -- suggestions are welcome. (This is the only time Sean will talk about himself in the third person.)

Nick Amies

Nick has been covering the Bundesliga and international soccer tournaments for DW-WORLD.DE since 2001 and despite being a Premiership snob he has cultivated an appreciation of the German game over the years. Having briefly flirted with Borussia Dortmund and FC Köln on whose terraces he also expanded his repertoire of Germanic expletives, Nick is now a Bundesliga neutral while maintaining a life-long (although ex-pat) commitment to his beloved Liverpool FC. He sometimes wonders, however, if he would be better off following Schalke 04.