Ribery won Germany Player of the Year? Isn't he French? Or is it for players in Germany? But then how would Ballack come 2nd?

So...who to cheer for? Munster or Bochum? That's quite a dilemma!

So, La Palma, how was the game??? Hast du bier getrinken?

The game went to penalties, which Bochum won 6-5. Must've been quite the game to attend!

The game was ****ing thrilling although it was a lousy game for any neutral observer. I was cheering for Bochum of course...but damn...we were so close to a HUGE disgrace. But we won thx to our new keeper Dani Fernandes who saved two penalties. The stadium in Münster was sold out for the first time in 15 years or so and the entire ciy was excited about the match.
And yes...I had one or two beers too much...

their coach was saying that 60% of their goals involved VDV

a real shame he would have been perfect for milan, i love playmakers...

New Bundesliga season about to start,...

Gosh. It's starting in style too.

Bayern are playing Hamburg in this weekend's early game. It's Bayern 2 - 1 Hamburg at the half. Very entertaining game.

Yep, Bayern's missing out Ribery and Toni but they still play good. Main problem is they only play (attack) in cycles.

Hamburg is also doing well, in particular Trochowski who made the assist for Guerrero. But the absence of R van der Vaart is a clear minus. I wonder if HSV plans on bringing in a new playmaker. So far they had a dreadfull transfer period.

FT Bayern 2-2 Hamburg.

Hamburg got the equalizer on a penalty.

Interesting start to the season -- the Bayern fans were unamused at the result, which I think is a good one for Hamburg.

I play football every Friday night, so I will miss then unfortunately. So do Germany have anymore live games every week?

Kurt, there's always one game on Friday, most of the games on Saturday, and a couple on Sunday.

Yikes. Disaster for Dortmund. Just before the half, their keeper went for a ball and caught his knee with his own studs. Totally ripped it open - not something you want to see while eating breakfast - and now they've had to put their #2 in. They do lead Leverkusen at the half, 2-1.

Other halftime scores:

Schalke 2 - 0 Hannover
Karlsruhe 1 - 0 Bochum
Cottbus 0 - 1 Hoffenheim

Sounds pretty bad. Hope he gets well soon! Knee injuries are one of the worst.

Here are today's Bundesliga results:

Arminia Bielefeld-Werder Bremen 2-2

Bayer Leverkusen-Borussia Dortmund 2-3

Bayern Monaco-Hamburg 2-2

Energie Cottbus-Hoffenheim 0-3

Karlsruhe-Bochum 1-0

Schalke 04-Hannover 96 3-0

Wolfsburg-Koln 2-1

[quote name='Tennie' post='164038' date='Aug 16 2008, 04:41 PM'Yikes. Disaster for Dortmund. Just before the half, their keeper went for a ball and caught his knee with his own studs. Totally ripped it open - not something you want to see while eating breakfast - and now they've had to put their #2 in.
.[/quote]

That sounded...I go numb at the tought.

They only showed a brief picture of it. That brief picture was quite enough. Poor guy.

Bayern Monaco? I've never heard of them before, or was it a typo?

Nah, that's me cutting and pasting from an Italian report. Bayern Monaco = Bayern Munich

Ah right. So is Munich called Monaco in italian? What do they call Monaco then?

Monaco.

That Monaco thing still sounds weird to me although it's not new for me. There was a popular German TV show (I guess it was in the early 90ies) with the title "Monaco Franze" which took place in Munich.

So...the first week is over and provided some surprises.

1. It seems as if Hamburg is NOT helpless without VdV. trochowski played a pretty decent game as playmaker and Jonathan Pitroipa looks VERY promising as well. I like that guy. Plays like dervish.
2. Bayerns defense without Demichelis is really shaky. 5 goals in 2 matches (one of those against Rot Weiß Erfurt...a team that plays in the 3rd Bundesliga).
3. Stuttgart once again have a great team. Gomez and Marica form a great duo upfront while Jan Simak is the brillant playmaker they've been looking for since the departure of Hleb. Also Jens Lehmann is still a great goalie. His performance against Gladbach was decent.
4. Hoffenheim...although one can only dislike them even I can't deny that they have a good team, a good coach and enough money to play international football in the next 3 years.
5. Dortmund are still stupid. They might have won their first match against Leverkusen...but to trade Petric for Zidan (Hamburg)....no comment.
6. Schalke can still only score from set-pieces...just like Kuranyi.
7. Some hard work waits for Marcel Koller if we want to win our next match

For a guy that follows the German league a bit, that's quite a decent piece of analysis on all the different teams. Good show, LaPalma. I should spare more time for the Bundesliga, for one it's not a bit overrated. Like some other leagues.

Thanks for the highlights, La Palma.

The fish doll is pleased that Stuttgart did well -- their away kits are Red and Black.

So now HSV has a croatian duo in Petric and Olic. Mhm, but I'll still support Dortmund. Although, yes, they really are stupid. And this is, I belive Jürgen Klopps move - he's the one who really discovered Zidan at Mainz 04 (he was only on loan, but..)..

Bayern ended their first fixture rather well, since the didn't have Altintop, Toni, Ribery, Jansen and Demichelis. And well...Klose.. ..I'm not sure what's happening with him. He just lost it.

About that Monaco - München thing. It still isn't sure how the city got their name. Some think that it was grounded by Benedictine monks- Mönchen (german); or in latin Apud Munichen. But that seems very unlike IMO (because it seems the city name is older then the monastery). Anyway it's like this - the monk (eng.)= der Mönch (ger.)= Il monaco (it.). But the official italian name of München is Monaco ´e Baviera, in opposite to the french Monaco alla Costa Azzurra. I hope it makes more sense after the explanation..

It only took Mark van Bommel 23 minutes to get himself sent off today, indidentally while wearing the captain's armband for Bayern. I think he's got the first red card of the season in the Bundesliga.

Results:

Bremen 1 - 1 Schalke
Hamburg 2 - 1 Karlsruhe
Stuttgart 0 - 2 Leverkusen ( Gekas with the winning goal)
Berlin 1 - 1 Bielefeld
Dortmund 1 - 1 Bayern
Hoffenheim 1 - 0 M'gladbach
Hannover 0 - 0 Cottbus

Currently, Hoffenheim are in first place, being the only team with 2 wins. Bayern are tied for 10th.

Tomorrow's games are:
Bochum v Wolfsburg
Koln v Frankfurt

Not a good start for Bayern this season!

What did he do now lol?

He's always getting red... man, what's his problem? He's almost as bad as some of the Atletico Madrid players...

Van Bommel....that guy is not a football player. Two clear fouls, he was lucky not to receive a straight red card after the second one...and he still complains about the ref In his opinion he's the victim. He claims there is
Ref conspiracy against little Mark van Bommel.

Hm. Bayern have sold defender Marcell Jansen to Hamburg.

Jansen to Hamburg...wow. Shows how superfluous these rumor sites on the Internet are. No one had even the slightest clue before Hamburg announced the transfer.
After reading the latest news I'm convinced that they had the best transfer season of all Bundesliga clubs.
- They signed a very talented wing back in Marcel Jansen.
- Dennis Aogo and Jonathan Pitroipa came in cheap and might turn out to be very decent player within two years.
- They secured the serviced of Alex Silva who was also on the wish list of some bigger clubs. A quality replacement for the overrated Kompany.
- More surprising than the other transfers....they managed to get Thiago Neves. I dunno how they did it as it seems that some of the big clubs also were interested in his services. Awesome replacement for VdV.

And now guess which team has to face them in the next round of the DFB-Pokal...

^^

BOOOOCCCCCHUUUMMMMMM!!!

Viva Bochum!!!

That's the right answer.....a beer for the Cap'n. (love that smiley)

^^

I don't like to brag...but daaaammmn I'm psychic...

Oh you forgot to mention that they swaped Zidan for Petric which is a very good deal from their viewpoint. But I don't get Bayern, they're getting thin on quality fullbacks.

Oh yes...forgot that...makes their squad even more amazing. Petric is a quality striker....plus, he has that special something that makes you go like from time to time.

Good signings by Hamburg, but why they sold VdV for so little?

Because he had a buy out clause for 2009. Any club could have gotten him for 1,5 million then. So they had to sell him this summer if they wanted any reasonable amount of cash.

Werder Bremen catching up a terrible start. They are down 0-3 to Borussia Mönchengladbach 20 minutes from time.

Gladbach impressed me. They have a very agile midfield, and they play very fast counter attacks. It's not only Marko Marin worth watching - Karim Matmour especially surprised me.

EDIT: Werder manage to reduce Gladbach's lead via Pizzaro. Still, not much time left..

3-2, brilliant Diego FK. Werder pushing now for a third goal. But it wouldn't be deserved IMO...

FT Gladbach-Werder 3:2
Not a world class match but a very exciting football match in all..

Oliver Kahn played his farewell game yesterday. Bayern Munich vs. the German NT. Very emotional moment. I was never a huge fan Kahn but I'll certainly miss him. The bananas that fans throw at him, his crazy face, the crazy things he does on the pitch...all that. I grew up with this mad man and now he's gone. Goodbye Titan Kahn.

The Bundesliga isn't just the same without Olli..

True.



King Kahn will never be forgotten.

Not much, but I liked him. So long then, Kahn. Have a good life outside the pitch.

(from AP)

Halftime for the Saturday games.

Saturday, September 13
Hertha Berlin 0
VfL Wolfsburg 1 Half

Hamburg SV 1
Bayer Leverkusen 2 Half

1. FC Köln 0
Bayern Munich 0 Half

Borussia Dortmund 0
Schalke 04 2 Half

Werder Bremen 0
Energie Cottbus 0 Half

TSG Hoffenheim 0
VfB Stuttgart 0 Half

The Hamburg-Leverkusen game is a cracker. Kiessling and Barnetta are combining really well and causing a lot of trouble for the Hamburg defense. Adler is back for Leverkusen Leverkusen, unfortunately, had Manuel Friedrich sent off right at the end of the half, for accumulation of yellows. It'll be interesting to see how they do in the second half.

I'm a little surprised that Bayern haven't scored on Koln yet. Schalke are doing well against Dortmund, but given that this one is a derby of sorts, everything could change in the second half.

Um... I hear Luca Toni is starting to get back to his scoring ways... he opened the scoring against Koln... scoring in the 53rd minute...

Edit: And he scored his second in the 60th...

I think he's coming back to life...

And it's 3-0 in the derby. Schalke are really spanking Dortmund today. Also, Hamburg have equalized with an Ivica Olic goal.

EDIT: Make it 2 for Luca Toni. He can score for Bayern, just not for the Azzurri.

I think he can do well with the Azzurri once again... he just had a bit of a slump...

And remember this Bayern lacks the service of Ribery... who is out for who knows how long..

Edit: And what a change of fortune for Schalke... two players red carded... and Borussia has scored twice... this is gonna be a close one...

Buh. no cookies for ESPN's gamecasts, which have incorrect scores up. The derby's living up to expectations - can't wait to watch it on delay.

Oddo apparently came on in the second half for Bayern (if ESPN is to be believed, and right now I'm not sure I do) and immediately conceded a corner.

Hah. And the derby ends 3-3 with Dortmund converting a penalty right at the end of the game. Should definitely be a fun one to watch.