ReiseReise

I really don´t think there will be that much of a difference with Blatter gone. It will look like a fresh start in the public and the sponsors´ eyes, so I guess this is what counts. Than again, I´m in a really bad mood and having one of those "I HATE THIS DAMNED GAME!" days... Relegational play offs - Bundesliga vs 2. Bundesliga Karlsruhe - Hamburg 1:2 a.e.t (1:1) - first leg 1:1 Hamburg dictated the pace for this one, but somehow couldn´t really create any big chances. Then Karlsruhe scored with 12 minutes left, and HSV came back swinging, having a - roughly - five minute spell with some good chances. Then it all died down for another five minutes, up until the ref saw a handball and gave away a good freekick. I´m not finding a clip of said situation, but here is a picture: 1. shot is coming from a very short distance 2. arm is in front of the body 3. no active hand movement towards the ball In the referee´s defense, it looked a lot more like a possible handball in real time. Diaz scored for Hamburg with a tremdendous freekick in the 90+1. minute. However, the extra time was back and forth, with Hamburg ultimately scoring to prevent penalty kicks aswell as relegation with a well worked goal by Nicolai Mueller. Relegational Playoff - 2. Bundesliga vs 3. Liga Munich 1860 - Holstein Kiel 2:1 (0:1) - first leg 0:0 Munich got a good start, but right after their first shot, they seemingly collapsed right away. Kiel took over with slow, but tenacious playing style and attacked Bayern´s city rivals of older days time and time again deep into their own half. An early goal for the Northern Germans got disallowed for offside, a call that seemed off for me and for a buddy with football refereeing experience I consulted with when I described how the goal came along. It didn´t make much of a difference, as Kiel took the 1:0 lead from a corner shortly after that. The Bavarians didnt get any chances until very late in the game. After several diving attempts, the ball somehow made the way into the box and Kiel´s defenders stopped playing, which resulted into an equalizer. Right after that, 1860 went on the attack, leading to a few chances on both sides. It took another stoppage time goal to end the lower league team´s dreams and to prevent disaster for their opposition: After a horrible clearance (into the center and right in front of the box), a shot from outside the box hit the post, and the rebound was put in for the last minute winner. It will be a long 900 km bus ride home for our team from Kiel. Thrilling relegational play offs, but with the worst possible outcomes imo. Okay, that´s it from me signing out. Going to puke now. This fucking game...

Thanks a lot, Chester. So Motherwell stays in the Premiere League and Rangers stay in the SPFL. Interesting. I was a little shocked to see Hearts of Midlothian not in the Scottish Premiership, it´s one of the teams I remember from the early 2000s to be among the top teams quite often. I propably missed out on one of the Scottish fans around here writing about them being in financial trouble and had to wikipediate the info regarding that.

I remember scoring that way against keepers in youth footie, but they were like 4 feet 7 inches or something like that. How does the Scottish relegation work? It´s multiple rounds, right? Who goes up, who stays in the division?

In a fast paced cup final, Wolfsburg beat Dortmund 3-1 to win the ugly golden trophy. All four goals were scored in the first half. Dortmund woulda/coulda/shoulda been up 2-0 very early when Reus failed to double Aubameyang´s lead (5th minute) from close range. Wolfsburg had a 20 minutes spell where they scored 3 goals out of 4 shots (the one saved shot leading to a rebounding goal) with Luiz Gustavo (22nd), de Bruyne (33rd) and Dost (38th) turning the game around, Dortmund were denied a clear penalty right before half time and the ref missed a blatant foul right at the edge of the box later on. Especially the first missed call of course could have changed the game, but ultimately they looked as if they were not going to score when they came back for the second half. The second half saw Dortmund mostly pushing, but the better chances were at Wolfsburg´s end. The BVB failed to make something out of Klopp´s tactical changes, when he tried to strengthen the right hand side bringing on Kuba and Piszcek later in the game, mostly trying to play through the middle. This was especially frustrating to watch because once they got some wing play going, they created their best chances, even before the two Polish internationals got subbed on. Ultimately Wolfsburg was the stronger team and had a better day and it´s hard to argue they deserved the win. As much as I´d like to, strongly disliking Wolfsburg etc.

Last World Cup was great and shows the competition gets a lot tighter with the time. I really expect things from France for some reason, but I´m really no expert by any means regarding female national squads in football. They just looked very good in every tournament I watchted them in so far, with the fact that only little things were missing for them to make it up until the very end of the competition. Germany gets talked up as one of the favourites over here, but our team, despite winning the EURO title in 2013, has lost much of their continentaö dominance and I have the impression the Women´s World Cup is not too far away from a point where you just can´t rely on being a heritage site anymore. Therefore I reckon both Ivory Coast and Norway will cause us quite some trouble in the group stages. Norway is a tradtionally tough opponent and always seem at their A-game against us. The African teams - and I know I´m using a stereotype here - are very often incredibly physical and this kind of counteracts the stregth of the German ladies. Anyway, here´s for a fun World Cup.

"LET´S GO FIFA! LET´S GO FIFA!" It´s so absurd how over the top the FIFA stuff is getting. To be honest, I don´t think anything would have changed with a Jordanian prince instead of Emperor Sepp. FIFA is a messed up organization. Kiel and Munich 1860 played a horrible goalless draw in front of 10 000 (sold out, Kiel only has a very small venue) franatic fans under typically bad northern german weather conditions. It showed Kiel´s major strength (good physicality, solid defending) and Munich´s major weaknesses (totally uninspired play, no real unity as a team despite all the quality). One good opportunity for the hosts, another two or three half chances and maybe one dangerous shot from long distance by the guests. Like the other relegational play off, the decider will be the return leg. It will be played next Tuesday at the Allianz Arena.

Considering there were rumours of bribery etc even for the 2006 Germany World Cup, I´m not really sure if any of the major footballing federations is worse than others in regards of corruption etc. It just seems less blatant with balony stuff like a Quatar World Cup. There have been a fair share of scandals in the past. The last two World Cups, Brazil and South Africa, already had some weird stuff surrounding them. South Africa was a very weird decision because other countries in Africa had far more enthusiasm regarding football, some of them were already prepared better than South Africa (I recall Marocco having numerous stadia up to standard as far back as the year 2000, when Germany and South Africa were running head to head). Brazil had the horrible way of handling the favelas and the protests surrounding the whole event, although there was a shutdown on all those things regarding mass media. And yeah, even as a huge football fan I feel bad to watch the big tournaments. It seems like the majority of people in stadia are officials, representatives of countries or companies or some weird combination of event fans and models to make everything look pretty. People are waving and cheering to the camera with "their" team being down and about to get eliminated and the like. This leads to me feeling bad about being annoyed by THIS as opposed to the fact that little Jimmy and his family got thrown out their home for the stadium to even be built. But in the end, I can´t stop watching, and often the tournament rewards you with great matches and big moments you will remember for years to come. Yeah, I´m that guy from Nick Hornby´s fever pitch, the guy who revers your birthday on July 13th because it was the day Goetze scored a great half volley from a booming Schuerrle run + cross with his weak left foot in the 113th minute of extra time to win Germany the World Cup. I´m not proud of it, but I will always watch the FIFA competitions, even if Blatter reveals himself as the embodiment of pure evil. The stuff happening on grass is - supposedly - a footballing competition on a very high level and as bad as the shit surrounding it, I really want to see the matches. Just like grizzlyedwin put it, moving on... Bundesliga relegation-playoff first leg saw Hamburger SV draw Karlsruher SC 1-1 at home. Karlsruhe´s Hennings - a former player for Hamburg as well as city rivals St.Pauli - scored with their very first shot in the 4th minute, leaving Hamburg in deep trouble for the majority of the match. 2. Bundesliga´s third place was able to create a good amount of further chances to double the lead, and one point striking the crossbar twice within 15 seconds. Only for the last twenty minutes of the game the only remaining founding member of the Bundesliga was able to pressure the KSC into their own half, albeit without creating much. Ultimately a lucky bounce and a good shot from Ilicevic in the 73rd minute helped the home team to prevent a worst case scenario for the return leg on Monday in southern Germania. It is still a tricky situation: The relegational playoffs follow the same rules as the UEFA competitions, if the teams draw over both legs, away goals are used as a tie-breaker. This means the HSV needs to score at least once to keep any hope to avoid relegation alive. Considering they had the worst attack (scoring 25) in the Bundesliga and Karlsruhe the joined best defense (26 conceeded) in the 2. Bundesliga. this is going to be tough. However, since they hired Bruno Labbadia as their coach, the club from Hamburg has been able to score in all but one of their last seven games, vastly improving their ratio. Karlsruhe looked solid, but not amazing, yet they have reasons to be mad at themselves for letting this game slip. If I judge purely on quality from the first leg, they should be able to get Hamburg relegated for the first time. If I judge on fortune, however, Hamburg will definetly keep their spot in the league. Today marks 2. Bundesliga playoffs, Holstein Kiel playing Munich 1860 at home. Kiel is the city I live in and they are the odds on underdog, I keep my fingers crossed for them. We are actually a handball city, but the majority of people are caught up in enthusiasm after an amazing season. A win today could be a huge step, but a huge away game in front of 60 000 awaits the team from Germany´s third heighest division, which could mean a nerv wrecking atmosphere. Well, wait, see and enjoy, I guess. Realistically the relegation is more than one could have hoped for. Stoked for this. Tomorrow marks the Juergen Klopp´s last competitive match for Dortmund, when they square off Wolfsburg in the cup final. Hoping for Dortmund to win, but I´d say Wolfsburg have to be considered favourites after their very good season. I will post a wrap up of the final on Sunday, hopefully.

ARGH stupid Europa League and their insane scheduling! I always forget it or miss that. Why do they always play that game on some random day? Why isn't it like the saturday before the champions league? Or some time on the weekend? At least that would be better promotion for both events. It´s weird because after I don´t know how many CL Saturday finals, I´m still not used to it and anticipate the game to be on a Wednesday. Seville wins a fun CL final. It was weird to hear the announcers and pundits talk about how solid Dnipro were on defense and how great Seville´s short passes were supposed to be when the Ukrainians lost the match on defense and the Spaniards were most threatening with set pieces, long balls especially. Nontheless, good match, although I could have lived without the shocking moment of Matheus collapsing. Far too often this led to tragic and horrible scenes, I hope the guy is alright.

I know it´s a real minor thing compared to that avalanche of FIFA stuff, but the EL finals first half was incredible fun, especially considering I don´t really have any major connection to any of the teams.

According to kicker.de it´s down to six. Still kind of a big deal in the sports world. I´ve probably seen too many movies, but I somehow imagine higher ups throwing people under the bus in that situation.

Schalke got off to a shaky start, but got things together. While I agree with the first part of the statement, Schalke´s season was pretty terrible and would have been the biggest disappointment if it wasn´t for Dortmund´s abysmal first campaign half. I would replace Schalke with Augsburg, who might have struggled towards the end, but were really solid overall and made in to the EL, something that even after their very good season of 2014 wasn´t really to be expected. Anyway, my attempt at a season-analysis. Champions League 1. Bayern 79 points 2. Wolfsburg 69 points 3. Gladbach 66 points 4, Leverkusen 61 points Those top four did pretty well. Every team from 2 to 4 beat the almighty Bayern, Wolfsburg and Gladbach even before Bayern secured the championship. Gladbach even managed to beat them in an away game and didn´t conceed in both games. THIS was a major problem during the last two years of Bavarian dominance: They didn´t drop any points before it was all done. They did this season, which made it a little more exciting to take a look at the top. Make no mistake about it: Bayern played a good domestic season by all means, a very unlucky semi-final in the German cup away from turning this into another great domestic season. Their CL campaign was very dominant in the first stage of the competition, and in the end the huge amount of injuries caught up to them. Bayern lost a semi-final to an outstanding Barcelona-side with pretty much everyone on board, something that would happen to probably every other team in Europe. They will still need some serious regrouping and new planning, though. The main problems lie within the roster imo and the utilization of certain players. Lahm needs a serious talk, he needs to get out of this CM spot, at least in international matches. The two young Spaniards, Thiago and Benat, need to step up. Thiago seems great at times, and the big injury hampered his developement, I reckon, but Benat needs to show that he is more than a mediocre fullback. They paid too much for him to just be that. Age is becoming a huge factor aswell. A lot of the players are in their 30ies and seem to be way more injury prone. The Kroos-Alonso-switch might have been one of Munich´s biggest mistakes over the last few years. Alonso is still better than a majority of European footballers, but I wouldn´t say he can be top class for the majority of matches in the season. Same seems to go for Schweinsteiger. The injury problems - something Bayern officials loved to point out regarding Dortmund, their biggest rivals over the last few years - were huge this season and became a major factor. The powerstruggle (or whatever it was) between Guardiola and team-physiotherapist Mueller-Wolfahrt led to the latter resigning from duty, which is a huge blow. Some of Guardiola´s tactics and especially the repeated way of handling matches after Bayern won the Bundesliga have been criticized repeatedly. Guardiola even admitted mistakes after last year´s loss to Real Madrid before, this year he can still point at the injuries for an excuse. Which, in return, would lead to some people pointing back at Pep for using players he was allegedly told not to use... Next season is pretty much make or break for Gurdiola and his legacy in Munich, where national titles aren´t regarded as highly as they should be. An example from the past is Felix Magath, who managed two doubles in a row and got canned after a disappointing first campaign half in the 2006/2007 season. This is not to say Bayern´s campaign doesn´t deserve respect or shouldn´t receive praise! Bayern have a traditionally tough time after big tournaments, with all the internationals etc, and they did great this year. But your ambitions are high when you´re from Munich and to call his time at Bayern a "Gurdiola era", he probably needs that CL win. Wolfsburg´s 69 points tie their own record from the 08/09 season where they won the championship. Gladbach never got more points since the introduction of the 3-points-a-win-rule. Leverkusen managed to go into the CL once more. Leverkusen and Wolfsburg are both teams I can´t grow a liking to, though. The Bundesliga always tries to portray the image of a domestic championship with no calamity regarding money from owners and investors, but both clubs are basically totally independent from the quality of their work and get the money anyway. Wolfsburg took five years in obscurity, sometimes even battling relegation after their championship and is still able to pay 25 million Euro for de Bruyne and 35 million Euro for Schuerrle and buy away players from other clubs like Kruse or Hunt just for the fun of it. Leverkusen is not only backed by medical juggernaut Bayer, they are also a club going out of their way to advocate stuff like Red Bull Leipzig, a concept I truly and utterly despise. Anyway, both clubs did really well this season. Wolfsburg could have been champions in a lot of seasons I recall, especially in the late 90ies and earlier 2000s, where 65+ was a pretty good shot at winning that ugly shield thingy. Leverkusen were solid and had a few really good runs strung together after a somewhat troublesome start in both campaign halfs. In the end, they repeated their 61 points from last year, which is a good result to get the CL qualifier spot. The team of the season award has to go to Borussia Moenchengladbach, though. The club put in serious work over the last few seasons and are now rewarded for it with good results and a spot at the captain´s table of the European footie cruise ship dinner that is the Champions League. Tieing and breaking many club records, 66 points mark the best result since the 3 ppw-rule was introduced. Adding in a good international performance with an unlucky elimination against the reigning and defending champions from Seville, the only negative result has to be the unexpected loss in the cup quarterfinals in Bielefeld. It could have been Gladbachs year to win the cup, after all. Still, the biggest questionsmark are what to expect from the club. It´s really hard to imagine them as a "Bayernjäger", hunter of the big FC Bayern Munich. I think, coach Favre has a really big task at hand replacing key players Max Kruse (to Wolfsburg) and Kramer (who is going back to Leverkusen after a two year loan) to direct rivals. Assuming some of the lesser performing teams (more on that down below) recover in 2015/2016, it´s going to be tough to defend the top 3 spot. For now, though, they should enjoy the spoils. Congratulations on a great season, Borussia Moenchengladbach. All four teams have a shot of doing well in Europe, albeit this might be a problem for Gladbach - maybe even factoring into their domestic performances. Especially, with them not being used to a high frequency of matches like CL will demand. UEFA EURO League 5. Augsburg 49 points 6. Schalke 48 points 7. Dortmund 46 points All of these might come as a surprise, albeit for a different reason. Maybe they shouldn´t be in hindsight, but I admit I wouldn´t have called it beforehand. Augsburg have shown the ability to to very much with very little in the past. Last year´s 8th place was met with much applause from rival-fans and neutrals alike. Many even were a little disappointed, because they thought this might have been Augsburg´s only chance at ever making Europe and lot of people though they deserved it last year. While they recorded four points less than last season, this season marks Augsburg´s best finish yet in the Bundesliga and also matches under floodlight in different stadia all over Europe. At the same moment, they can claim away victories at Signal-Iduna-Park and Allianz Arena in one season, something that can´t be claimed by many over the last few years. Schalke´s season got off to a really shaky start, then seemed to get back on track with DiMatteo, but a horrible last third with uninspiring football and fans turning their backs ultimately left a sour taste. Again, there will be questions asks to club officials and especially if the sacking of Jens Keller was really neccessary. DiMatteo´s biggest success was the 4-3 win and the great showing in Madrid, but in the end he seemed to fail in motivating the team to play a convincing final part of the season. I tend to think a few players were in a kind of post-World Cup mode which might make for an argument that the top six finish accounts for somewhat salvaged season but I´d say it´s more of a failure if anything for Schalke. The ambition was Champions League, I´m sure. Speaking of Champions League: Despite finishing one ahead of the big "Revier"-rivals Borussia Dortmund, the yellow-black neighbours might be in a better mood in the end. It will all depend on next Saturday´s cup final against Wolfsburg if this season will be remembered positively in Dortmund, but after the shocking period from summer 2014 to January 2015 where Dortmund looked like relegation was a serious issue, Dortmund turned up in the second half despite not playing at the level people were used to. 31 in the second compared to the 15 points of the first campaign half not only prevented that, the combination of 7th place with the cup final assures Dortmund will play Euro League one way or the other. Out of these teams, EURO League matches could probably be a major factor in Augsburg´s domestic performances, because of roster depth and the like. I can´t see Schalke and Dortmund having trouble in that regard. They might even have shots at performing well in said competition, but very often, the big German teams get stopped by clubs you don´t really count on, so there´s not even a guarantee as to how far they could go. I´ll keep my fingers crossed for them. Dortmund in Euroleague means at least one giant stadium filled up to the very last seat. For domestic performances in general, Augsburg might get caught up in lower mid table, maybe even battle relegation, there is a distinct possibility. In Gelsenkirchen and Dortmund we will see a very interesting silly season, I assume. New managers and lots of new faces make it almost impossible to predict how they will perform. A feeling tells me both clubs need regrouping. If they could secure EL spots in 2016, the following seasons might be a great success. Midtable and proud of it? 8. Hoffenheim 44 points 9. Frankfurt 43 points 10. Bremen 43 points 11. Mainz 40 points 12. Koeln 40 points I chose the headline for this section because I think the teams did the best with what they really could do judging player material and surroundings. I put in the questionmark however to question if they couldn´t have done better given the circumstances of how this season played out. Hoffenheim looked to be on a good way to make it to the top six at numerous points in this season. When the christmas break crept along, they were sitting in 7th place, but only two points behind 3rd place in a very close race. They never got a decent run of wins ( I think they couldn´t even win two in a row all season) and ultimately, when crunch time came along, never looked ready to come out victorious in the battle for European competition. Losing out on European football seems to have been the reason for losing Roberto Firminho, a player to watch out for in the future. Frankfurt started this season with a new manager, long-time Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf, and they performed like Werder used to do under Schaaf in the majority of his time: They scored a lot, they conceeded a lot. Like Hoffenheim, Frankfurt looks so close to the EL-spots, yet they seemed so far away. Good emphatic wins were followed by surprising but deserved losses, there was no major streak or anything, followed by the loss of outstanding goalscorer Alex Meier and the end 9th place means you´re as mid table as you ever could be. Considering Frankfurt has been battling relegation for quite a few times in recent history, it might not be all that bad. The same conclusion could be drawn for Werder Bremen, at least at the very end of the season. Taking a look at the fever curve though, Werder´s season looks far more interesting to phrase it positively. Werder started out with three draws, always coming from behind, followed by a few losses and only four points in the first nine games. After manager Robin Dutt was replaced with Youth coach Skripnik, who collected 26 points in the next 23 matches, including an incredible 6 game winning streak. The northern Germans seemed to be serious contenders for a spot in the Europa League. However, after the big run, there were losses and draws to teams close to the bottom of the table like Stuttgart, Paderborn and Hannover. Where Werder´s road leads to seems impossible to call, however. The both clubs from the carnival capitals, Mainz and Koeln, follow, tied on points. Mainz lost their coach Tuchel to a sabbatical before the season, and they got of to a really rough start with Dane Kasper Hjulmend, getting eliminated in Euroleague qualifiers and losing in the first round of the German cup. After a good campaign start in the Bundesliga, they got into a slump and started losing. A lot. The good old manager-switch helped, and soon Mainz was out of the danger zone. The once great FC Koeln has had a past of unrealistic expectations, wild transfers of crash landings, leading to one or the other stay in the 2. Bundesliga. This season was different, fans and management aiming for nothing else than preventing relegation and succeding by grinding out results, with a lot of nil-nil-draws, nine to be precise. It will be interesting to see how the club from the river Rhine will play next season. Escaped by the skin of their teeth 13. Hannover 37 points 14. Stuttgart 36 points 15. Berlin 36 points Those three teams didn´t expect to battle relegation, and a majority of neutrals, fans and pundits were surprised about one of the clubs the most. Hannover however has to be the biggest surprise of the three, after a decent first half of the season, the club from Nethersaxonia was sitting on a good 8th place and 24 points. Then came a horrific spell of 15 games without a win, alienation with the clubs Ultra-fanbase and all of the sudden, with only three games to go, Hannover were ranked 17th, which would have meant direct relegation. 8 points from the last 4 games under the new coach Michael Frontzeck lead the team to its rescue. Stuttgart might have expected better, but they were basically regarded as a troubled squad from the getgo. They got deep into trouble very early on into the season, and for a long time seemed to be lacking the turnaround moment you need. Later into the season, Stuttgart became the place of emphatic home games, and ultimately the club was able to get to safety at the very end of the season. I have no real connection to the club or the team, but they looked like they deserved to stay in the league at the very end. Berlin is one of the clubs that performed worse than they should given the surroundings, but even though they only managed to get the last spot in the safe zone, they will probably aim higher next season. I´m not sure if they can go higher, though. They could have very easily gone down this season with their losingstreaks and were lucky that the final matchday pairings and situation made it nearly impossible for them to go down. Berlin is a prime example how big cities with traditional clubs don´t neccesisarily result into a big player club, which of course leads to another example... History repeats itself... 16. Hamburger SV 35 points ... the Hamburger Sport Verein. The mighty HSV has fallen into a bottomless pit, battling against historic failure of being relegated after being part of the Bundesliga since the very first day of its existence for the third year in a row. The last and this season were the worst, with legitimate fear of going down up until pretty much the very last matchday of the league. This year, they recorded more points than the incredibly weak 27 of 2013/2014, put the season was even more chaotic. Four managers were needed, the lowest low probably being the 2 game spell under sports director Peter Knäbel, which showed lifeless performances against Leverkusen and Wolfsburg and made it seem like the club was finished once and for all. A huge amount of transfer money somewhere on the up of 30 million euro was spent aswell for - ultimately - 8 points more and the same rank which means, like 2014: relegational play offs. They are awaited of 2. Bundesliga´s third place Karlsruhe, who were only edged out by one point in the battle for promotion. Detention looks the following for the Hamburger SV: 28th May 2015, Hamburger SV - Karlsruher SC 1st June 2015, Karlsruher SC - Hamburger SV Time to say goodbye 17. SC Freiburg 34 points 18. SC Paderborn 31 points Freiburg is the team which probably earns more sympathy than any other team in Germany for going down. They are probably the team least phased by it aswell. Freiburg is one of the clubs doing the most solid work in Germany, with good finances and great concepts working well within the boundaries of the club. Ultimately, they will be a candidate for one of the top two spots in the 2. Bundesliga next season, which means direct promotion. Paderborns relegation means the end of a football fairytale. The club did a lot more than anyone expected, while in the end still doing what everyone called before the season even began: They went back down into the second division straight away. Paderborn earned a lot of respect, but I wouldn´t list them among my favourites to go back up into the Bundesliga right now. This year´s Bundesliga season is almost over, with only the the relegation play offs remaining. Those will probably be interesting, but since I mentioned the one team still applying for promotion, it´s only fair to mention the teams who already managed to make it into the league: FC Ingolstadt - won the 2. Bundesliga championship, last year´s favourite to go big in the division, but only managed a midtable position. A club with good money and investors, not that big of a fanbase as of yet SV Darmstadt 98 - only went up from the "3. Liga" (third division) the year before in a dramatic relegation play off, made the the promotion with even less money than Paderborn the year before, club with a rich history and a solid fanbase within the city This was my thoughts and short analysis of how I experienced this year´s Bundesliga season. I´m already looking forward to the next one. My club St. Pauli survived the 2. Bundesliga fight for survival barely and I hope for a better season in 2015/16, but it was really tense and to be honest, this is pretty much what footie is about. The summer will of course have considerably less football, but there are still cup finals and european cup finals to be played. Even after that, it´s not over! Now, we have silly season, U21 European championship, Women´s World Cup (I know I´m gonna watch it) and all the leagues with march-autumn-schedules! So: fear not. There´s always football around the corner.

Good analysis I´d say. Quatar is going to be the next big thing up until the World Cup, they did the same for the handball worldcup earlier this year. The Bundesligas - first aswell as second - have a crazy relegation battle each. Freiburg scored a big point in beating Bayern last week, Stuttgart topped HSV in a direct duel and Hannover won their first match since December 2014. Here´s an overview of all the teams who are still theoretically able to get relegated. 13. Hertha BSC 35 points; -15 GD Hertha plays their final game at Hoffenheim; their chance to get relegated is very much theoretical, simply because the match ups on the final day and Hamburger SV´s horrendous goal difference, 14. SC Freiburg 34 points; - 10 GD 15. Hannover 34 points; -17 GD Both teams face each other, Hannover being the home team in that game. A draw would secure Freiburg´s spot in the Bundesliga. Hannover would prevent direct relegation. One of the teams winning would put the other one in jeopardy of going down directly. 16. Stuttgart 33 pts, -19 GD 18. Paderborn 31 points; - 33 GD 16th marks the relegation play-off spot. I paired those two up because Paderborn plays Stuttgart at home in the season finale. Stuttgart needs a win to avoid relegation. Paderborn needs a win and at best a draw for Hamburg to get the play off rank. Bad GD and all. 17. Hamburger SV 32 pts, - 27 GD Playing Schalke at home, the only remaining foundation member of the Bundesliga needs a win and a lot of help to remain in the Bundesliga. A draw between Hannover and Freiburg would put both teams out of reach, a win by Stuttgart in Paderborn would do the same for the 2007 champion. All in all it looks like the final chapter for an once great club, which is kind of painful even if I support the local rivals. Aside from that, Dortmund and Bremen square off in a final for the 100 % secure remaining Europa League spot. It´s Dortmund´s first chance for said spot. Bremen would need a win and help from Wolfsburg in their cup final against the BVB. Other stuff is pretty much set. 2. Bundesliga has three points between 17th place and 12th place, with all the teams in the danger zone playing away games. 12th SV Sandhausen sits on 38 points and will play their last match in Bochum, who avoided relegation on matchday 32 and are just playing for pride now. 13th Fuerth (37 pts) - who were in Germany´s top flight division two years ago and in a promotion play off last year - had a horrible second half of the campaihn and have their crucial away game at Germany´s least likeable football franchise Red Bull Leipzig (6th). My club, St. Pauli (37 pts), has won 5 out of their last 7 games and are still right in the middle of all this because everyone below them in the table kept winning and winning aswell recently. Their last match is at 2nd-place Darmstadt (56 pts), who are battling for promotion. Munich 1860 - 36 pts, one point less than Pauli but a better GD - plays an away game in Karlsruhe (55 pts), who are Darmstadt´s rivals for 2nd (direct promotion). FSV Frankfurt (36 points) have to go to Duesseldorf (8th), Eastern German club Erzgebirge Aue (35 pts) in 17th plays at 7th-place Heidenheim, To complete the short 2. Bundesliga wrap-up, FC Ingolstadt became the 54th club to join the Bundesliga last weekend thanks to a 2:1 win over Red Bull at home. They will play their post party match in Kaiserslautern, who sit on 55 points in fourth place and are of course hoping to grab either 2nd or 3rd place on the final match day. I really hope we will help them lucking into that spot, but I fear for a lot of heartbreak. Football is horrible sometimes.

I think Juve´s true strength in this away game was that they looked seriously interested in keeping the ball away from their box even before they went down 0-1. Even in the end Real looked more desperate than threatening. This Juve-side is very very solid, but Barca is going to be a hell of a job to contain. I´d say ultimately it´s the two most convincing teams of the k.o.-stages in the final, should be a good final.

Sorry, had to go to work. Ter Stegen and the quick Barca comeback basically turned this into a nothing match after roughly 20 minutes (and 13 minutes of hope for Bayern fans). I think, the biggest thing was Mario Goetze warming up for about a half and it seems a big talking point in the tabloids. People are asking if he will stay with Bayern or if he doesn´t. Lots of talk about Bayern going for new stars etc. It was still a good performance by Bayern and Barca helped a little by not going all out. Over 180 minutes, Barcelona was just the more explosive team and always looked threatening as soon as they geared up in offense. Bayern´s players - understandably - seemed tired after a long summer with lots of them playing major parts in the German World Cup win and a dominanting the first half of the Bundesliga campaign, but were able to look better with an emphatic crowd pushing them on in their home game. I´m really interested in Juve vs Real, it could go either way though. Real could waltz over them, but it will take a really great game by Madrid I´d think. Juve seemed really really solid this year in CL and they will probably go to their limits. edit: Clumsy Chiellini challenge gives away a pen to Real, Cristiano Ronaldo converts. Juve was doing really well for the first 15, keeping the ball away from their own danger zone, but Real seemed to be making progress over the last few minutes. Now it will be a different game, probably. Edit 2: Congratulations to Juve! Wouldn´t have called this one before the CL start. Impressive campaign. Real failed to capitalize when Juve was reeling and was missing some of the luck they had last season (final especially). Real joins the club of CL winners who can´t quite repeat their great feat of previous year´s win. Since the competition has been rechristened "Champions League", no team was able to defend the championship. It was still a decent campaign from Real, but they were lacking the punch, even when they had quite a few counter attacks they couldn´t convert. .

Funny, because Neuer made all the wrong decisions before the 0:1. But, everything is still possible....yeah, right... Totally disagreeing there, unless throwing the ball to Benat is a wrong choice in general. Which I MIGHT agree on since my opinion on Benat ist not that high. That guy had ages to pass or even clear the ball, instead went for a one on two dribble. Against Barca. Who had been swarming Bayern players all night. The shot itself is from roughly twenty yard, hard and well placed and dips right in front Neuer. I doubt there is realistic claim for saying it should be a safe, although I admit it might be bias due to having trouble with those kind of shots back in my youth days as a goalie. Bundesliga relegation battle got a little more exciting. Hertha BSC Berlin, who seemed to be out of trouble, lost another one last weekend and are now only 3 points ahead of the danger zone. CL is set. EL has Augsburg (5th place, 36 pts), Schalke (6th, 45), Dortmund (7th, 43), Bremen (8th, 43) and Hoffenheim (9th, 41) in contention. Since the cup final is between Wolfsburg and Dortmund, seventh place will definetly be eligible for Euro League. The rest is all said and done. Bayern picked up their fourth Bundesliga loss this season on Saturday, all coming in the second half of the campaign. If you count the pk-loss against Dortmund as a loss (which you don´t, statiscallym but still...) and add the Barca match, this is Bayern´s fourth loss in competitive matches in a row, something that hasn´t happened in a while. Caught a little bit of Arsenal vs. Swansea. It was one of those games that shows the beauty of footie from what I saw. Arsenal at home with lots of chances, Fabianski as former Arsenal GK with a great match up and a goal that wasn´t spotted at first to totally turn the match against the balance of play into a win for the supposed underdog. Fun to watch!

Barca is of course a lock in the final with that result. The only thing keeping Bayern in this game for that long was that guy called Neuer. Should have been 2-0 at halftime already. Still, 3-0 makes Barca a finalist after their "long" hiatus from the CL final.

Three games left to go for the Bundesliga. A few weeks back I stated that the Top 2 are pretty much locked, but since then, Wolfsburg hit a slight slump while Gladbach and Leverkusen were on an amazing run. As of now, Bayern - champions since last week - sit on 76, Wolfsburg on 62 and Gladbach and Leverkusen on 60 and 58 points respectively. Gladbach v Leverkusen on the next matchday will be pretty much the decider as to who secures direct qualification, the winner putting pressure on Wolfsburg as to the prestigious "Not-Bayern-Championship", so to speak. Schalke (45) caught a break in their attempt at securing the EL-spot by winning their home game against Stuttgart, while Augsburg (43) are struggling: Bremen (42), Hoffenheim (41) and Dortmund (40) are all well within reach of sixth place.Seventh place might even be enough, since Wolfsburg and Dortmund are playing the cup final. The most thrilling battles are to be seen in the nether regions of the table: Hamburg and Paderborn both secured 2:1 away wins which were HUGE. Bottom looks the following: 14. Hamburg 31 points 15. Paderborn 31 points 16. Freiburg 30 points 17. Hannover 30 points 18. Stuttgart 27 points The schedule adds to the drama, lots of direct match-ups. Freiburg looks f´ed. Hamburg: Freiburg (Home), Stuttgart (Away), Schalke (H) Paderborn: Wolfsburg (H), Schalke (A), Stuttgart (H) Freiburg: Hamburg (A), Bayern (H), Hannover (A) Hannover: Bremen (H), Augsburg (A), Freiburg (H) Stuttgart: Mainz (H), Hamburg (H), Paderborn (A)

Dortmund in the cup final. Bayern misses FOUR out of FOUR! The first two were John-Terry-Memorial slip ups! I´m speechless, amazed and somewhat ecstatic due to the fact that it´s no national double for Bayern. EDIT: The internet is a place of wonder...here´s the penalty shootout,,,

Really hard to say. A few years ago I´d have said it was the expectations in city and club surroundings. As of now, they just seem to be reeling from the horrible season they had last year. First cup semi-final is in extra time. Bayern and Dortmund each scored one. BVB was lucky the ref missed a clear cut penalty.Both goals came pretty much out of nowhere. Dortmund was on the verge of scoring the winning goal, but Neuer made one very good and one astonishing safe. Expecting Bayern to grind out the result through two late extra time goals now.

Bayern wins the league while sitting at home having a beer on the couch. Top four are all set, with Wolfsburg pretty much set for runners-up and Gladbach and Leverkusen battling for third. Schalke, Augsburg, Hoffenheim, Dortmund and Bremen still have a reasonable claim to one of the EuroLeague spots, which is amazing considering Bremen´s and Dortmund´s first halfseason. Both teams have already earned 5 (Bremen, 22 opposed to 17) and 9 points (Dortmund, 24 as opposed to 15) more in now 13 games than they earned for whole first half of the campaign in 17 games. At the bottom of the table, Hamburger SV is the big winner of matchday 30, beating Augsburg for the first time at home by 3-2. They jumped on the relegation play off spot, tied on points with 17th Paderborn, who, like Stuttgart, gave away a two goal lead at home. Freiburg and Hannover are very much in trouble aswell, especially Hannover who haven´t won in 2015 and need to get a win asap. Tense finish.

I guess 30 million is okay for Gündogan in today´s football world, but it´s kind of weird to see that sum dished out that regularly. I really hope he will get back to his 2013 form. Maybe a transfer could help him with that. As of now, there is pretty good shot at Dortmund making the top seven. Which would be enough for a EL-spot since Wolfsburg and Bayern both are qualified for CL and they are most likely to rival Dortmund in the cup. Rules are changed now, meaning only a cup win will mean EU - competition, a final-loss would mean seventh place makes Europe. Still four and a half games to play, though... a lot of things can change.

CL semifinals: Barcelona - Bayern Juventus - Real Euro Leauge: Fiorentina - Seville Napoli - Dnipro Dnipropetrowsk ( I totally admit I c&p´ed that one) Fun finals, however the semis play out. I have to say I really wouldn´t want "El Clasico" for a final, three years in a row with national finals would be too much for my liking. But it´d still be a great game for a final, of course.

I´d say that Dante and David Luiz are good CBs, but they were always rated higher than their actual quality and have weaknesses that can be exploited with ease if they aren´t under strict damage control. David Luiz especially is very likely to throw tactics and discipline out of the window if paired against a strong opposition. If said opposition scores, he often gives up his posiion and does very stupid stuff like interpreting his role as that of an attacking midfielder instead of trying to sort stuff out, put in some solid defending and buy the coaching staff and his teammates some time to regroup and make adjustments. A lot of him looking / seeming to play shitty comes from PSG splashing out 50, 000, 000 € I´d say and a probably much cheaper guy like Boateng being way more solid and tactically sound while playing the very same position and having the same major stregths (physicality, speed, good build up passing I´d think).

Ah, shut it. You were in cahoots with them all along, admit it. It was interesting to see how visibly shaken Bayern looked after the Porto goal despite being dominant pretty much all game. It looked as if they were going to go all out at the beginning of the second, but around the 60th it looked like the autopilot was activated. Porto scored and it became a little interesting for five or so minutes, but when Bayern regained control I would have bet on them scoring a sixth goal. Great performance from Munich all around. I´m always a little critical of Thiago (I was pre-injury at least) and Goetze, who have both such great potential yet look as if they aren´t putting it together like they should with their skillskets, but they really tore Porto apart today. Mueller and Lewandowski put in quite the shift aswell. Benat, who just seemed very pedestrian and very mediocre for the majority of the CL-games, was great, too. Porto didn´t really happen and should have probably get a lot more yellows than they got, I was a little baffled by some of the ref´s calls. Although, to be fair, Badstuber´s rash challenge in the first could have been a direct red. Up until now, I have to say Barcelona have looked strongest of all teams. It seemed they dispatched of PSG quite easily and they topped a very tough group. They are the team to beat imo. Edit: I really don´t know if this as much an interesting fact as I think it is, but Bayern making the last four keeps the streak of German teams making it to the semis in the Champions League alive and at 6 in a row. It also means a team of either BPL or Bundesliga has made the Final four since the 2003/2004 season (said season included). This pales of course compared to the Spanish dominance, the last final four without a team from LaLiga/Liga BBVA happened in 1999 (Manchester, Bayer, Juventus and Dynamo Kiev being semi-finalists that year). Juventus or Monaco will be the first team not from Spain, Germany or England since the 2009/2010 (Inter Milan) season to make the semifinal.

Call me the worst DVDR-Footie-Pundit ever... the consistancy in calling shit 100 % wrong is astounding. Bayern - Porto 2:0 after 23 minutes and they are beating Porto like Don Frye beat Takayama´s face. Much like said face, this isn´t a pretty sight. EDIT: Make that 3-0 after 26. Steamroller against bobby car so far.