BT commentator with a malapropism worthy of Little Carmine.
Bundesliga 13/14
- Thread starter Balu
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
BT commentator with a malapropism worthy of Little Carmine.
Hamburg really is in danger of being relegated this year. They look just awful in every way. Nürnberg and Freiburg are unlucky not to have more points and have started the 2nd half of the season brilliantly. Frankfurt, Hoffenheim and Stuttgart should have too much qualiy to go down. Braunschweig will finish last, but Hamburg really needs to do something to avoid relegation.
Aaaah, for feck's sake.
Bayern equalise with Pizzaro. 1-1. 15 mins left.
What a fecking goal by Thiago. 2-1.
Bayern have stolen a win in the 92nd minute. Heartbreak for Stuttgart who have been much the better side.
Bayern have stolen a win in the 92nd minute. Heartbreak for Stuttgart who have been much the better side.
Thiago with a stunner in injury time to win it.
Similar to Rooney's scissor kick against City.
Similar to Rooney's scissor kick against City.
Thiago steals it with a bicycle kick.
Great thing from Thiago!
I thought they were human after all. Turns out, they're not.
fecking Bayern...
fecking Bayern...
Ffs, that Braunschweig - Dortmund game is hilarious .
1-2 at the moment, Aubameyang scored twice for Dortmund, but both teams should have scored more, way more. 2 minutes to go.
.1-2 at the moment, Aubameyang scored twice for Dortmund, but both teams should have scored more, way more. 2 minutes to go.
That Dortmund game
Can't believe it ended 2-1, Dortmund should've had about 7. In the end Braunschweig could've snatched a point, but can't say they would've deserved it... decent effort, but not much else. Lewandowski, Reus and Mkhitaryan were extraordinarily wasteful, some hilarious misses in there.
Can't believe it ended 2-1, Dortmund should've had about 7. In the end Braunschweig could've snatched a point, but can't say they would've deserved it... decent effort, but not much else. Lewandowski, Reus and Mkhitaryan were extraordinarily wasteful, some hilarious misses in there.
FT 1-2. Dortmund finally won a game in the league again. Dortmund really needs to learn how to control games, either through possession or in defense. Right now, they either smash their opponent with counterattacking football or try to survive in chaos. They never are in control of the pace of the game, highly entertaining but it'll cost them again in the future.
Ffs, that Braunschweig - Dortmund game is hilarious
1-2 at the moment, Aubameyang scored twice for Dortmund, but both teams should have scored more, way more. 2 minutes to go.
You are laughing, I can honestly don´t say how I feel right now: relieved or frustrated. The first 30 minutes were poor, really poor. We improved after scoring the first one. All three of Mkhitaryan, Reus and Lewandowski desperately need a goal for a confidence boost. Right now, we have exactly one clinical player in the squad and this guy scored both goals today. I also can´t shake off the feeling that Auba would be better off as CF than RW in the long run.
All in all the struggle continues. We have to fight for every inch right now. At least we finally won a close game again. Maybe that and Hummels´ return can become a turning point in the season.
Isn't that a good thing for next season? Along with Watzke saying the club will spend a lot in the summer? The rest of the season will certainly be a crazy ride for you guys, no doubt, but if not for even more bad luck with injuries, you should at least finish 3rd.
How has Mkhitaryan been for you? I've seen plenty of opinions on Polish forums that he's the worst player Dortmund has had in the last few years but I seriously doubt that, he's been fine when I've seen him.
Your attacking players should start to put their chances away. You didn't play particularly well in the first hour I thought, but created shedloads of opportunities to seal the game. The finishing was really, really poor as you said, but a win is a win. You will come 2nd in the end IMHO, but there is no doubt reinforcements are needed in the summer. Thought Mkhitaryan was well below par today, passing off and his finishing... dear God.
One word: inconsistent. He was extremely strong in the two most important games (last two groupstage matches) of the season and has also shown vs. Frankfurt and Schalke what he is capable of doing. The only thing that is always there is his work rate and defensive contribution. In terms of that and pressing he is a monster. He needs time to adjust and I´m sure Klopp is willing to give him that.
Closing out games was never a strength of this team. Our formula for that was usually to stay solid in the back and kill them enough on the counter to put a 2 or 3 goal lead on the board.
Currently that is not working out. We still run half a dozen impressive counters every game, but don´t benefit from them due to poor finishing.
The main problem is in the denfense, though.
We basically desperately need two things right now: confidence and time.
The former is something Klopp will be able to install sooner or later, but the latter is a luxury we currently don´t have.
Subotic is out for the season. Durm and Sarr are both exciting and very promising talents, but they normally should be growing slowly into their future roles. Schmelzer, Piszczek and Hummels all had major injuries and are far from being at 100%. They need game time to get back there. That leaves Großkreutz and Sokratis, who may very well be our best performers in the season overall. The former really got into his new role, but there is no doubt that Piszczek, one of our few genuine world class players, is an upgrade in pretty much every area. The Greek turned out to be a great transfer and could potentially pull ahead of Subotic for good.
Even now, the extremely unlucky November, when we lost Subotic, Hummels and Schmelzer at basically the same time is costing us dearly. It completely disrupted our season and now we are still fighting to get the rythm back.
That's what I meant with learning to control the game in defense. In both title winning seasons, the team could do that, imo. It wasn't only because you scored more on the counter, it was really tough to score against the team. It wasn't full throttle pressing as the only defensive concept, it was a great defense difficult to break down, didn't matter if the team was defending high up the pitch or sitting deep. There was great movement, quick doubling up on the wings, all that is gone and it was already gone last season.
I do agree that we were worse in that regard regard in the last season, but I disagree about it being gone forever. In the first phase of this season we rediscovered our stability and better movement in the defense. While we conceded 10 goals in the first 11 games (thats not even that bad of a quota), only four of them originated from open play. If anything could be criticised then it would have been marking at set pieces, but this was always a minor weakness of the team, even in the league winning seasons.
Still, for a team, who had to fit in two new players on the full back positions the defensive work was for the most part completely fine. It was not until November and the injuries, when we began to struggle there.
Why is that? The title is already gone this season. You have the rest of the season to recover your level. I doubt Dortmund will finish outside the CL places.
Imo that also had/s a lot to do with perception. Right now Dortmund seems vulnerable, so teams genuinely believe that they can force a goal, whereas in the past they had a lot more respect and a mindset that was probably more like damage control rather than 'ok guys, let's do this!!'. From what I remember Dortmund didn't control games exceptionally well back then too, it felt more like they could switch gears at will - meaning that they'd start all out attack, then pull ahead, then tune it down to like 80% at some point but effortlessly go back to 110% when the opposition (nearly) scores.
That 4-4 against Stuttgart is probably the most prominent example of that, however iirc there were a lot more game like that which they won in the end.
I´m also confident, that we will finish in the top 3 at the end of the season, but it will certainly not be a walk in the park. The last games showed clearly, that we will have to fight for every inch on the pitch right now to gain points. Leverkusen and Gladbach play really good seasons and while they don´t have the overall squad strength like us and could be quickly being screwed over by injuries, it is not something we can count on. Schalke also suffered from injuries in the first season half and even though I don´t rate their coach at all, they still could become a threat with these players returning. There is also Wolfsburg, who thankfully lost Diego to Atletico but got a neatly wrapped late christmas gift from Volkswagen in the form of Kevin De Bruyne.
There is also the matter of the remaining cup competitions. Due to the relatively easy draw with Zenit St. Petersburg, the media, neutrals and most of the fans expect us to reach the quarters in the CL. The German cup is still our best shot of getting a trophy this year. We like the rest of the league don´t have the financial means or squad to rival Bayern over the course of a whole league season, but in a single match under right circumstances we are still the best bet to take them down.
About a different topic: Dortmund just signed the Serbian CM talent Milos Jojic a few days ago for around 2 Mil. €. I read a little bit about him and appearantly he was the most impressive player of the current season in the Serbian league. I did not have the time yet to take a real look at him, though, so I have no expectations whatsoever. Has someone on here seen him play recently and can give a short rundown about his profile as player? I would really appreciate it.
Agree with that. I initially wrote something similar as the difference to the title winning seasons though.
At the moment, teams believe that they can force a goal, because Dortmund isn't setting the pace of the game, they're just reacting to the opponent.
A few early goals so far, should make for interesting games:
after 10 minutes:
Schalke - Wolfsburg 1-0
Hoffenheim - Hamburg 1-0
Augsburg - Bremen 0-1
Leverkusen - Stuttgart 0-0
Mainz - Freiburg 0-0
after 10 minutes:
Schalke - Wolfsburg 1-0
Hoffenheim - Hamburg 1-0
Augsburg - Bremen 0-1
Leverkusen - Stuttgart 0-0
Mainz - Freiburg 0-0
Stuttgart takes the lead against Leverkusen and Augsburg scores to make it 1-1 against Bremen.
Difficult to say how important Sascha Lewandowski was last season. I was more impressed with last season's tactics, thought the team looked more mature in the way they played and they got away with quite a few lucky points this season, so I wouldn't overrate their points total and position in the league table so far. Since the win in Dortmund, they really are in shockingly bad form and they need to turn it around soon. If Sami gets them on track again and leads them to a 3rd place finish, I feel more confident in praising his job than at the moment, still a long way to go. 3 losses in a row now and 1-0 down at home to Stuttgart at the moment.
Well, that was a cracking goal by Moritz Leitner vs. Leverkusen. First one of the career as well. He has really grown in the last half year, which proves that the descision by Dortmund to loan him out was the right one. Same can be said about Leo Bittencourt, who currently plays for Hanover.
That Noggie pundit on twitter saying that Draxler deal was stopped because Bayern told his people that they'd take him in the summer. Somehow I doubt considering the presence of Shaqiri, Ribery and Robben and also the reliability of that guy but still worth posting.
Kiessling scored for Leverkusen, 1-1 now.
Cheers mate.
Hoffenheim - Hamburg 3-0
Hamburg are in trouble, really. If they don't change something they will go down.
Schalke - Wolfsburg 2-1
What a shit game. Schalke win it in the end against 10 men, but they did feck all in the 70 minutes between both goals.
Leverkusen - Stuttgart 2-1
In the end a probably deserved win for Leverkusen, at least from what I've seen and read. Important win after 3 consecutive losses before and they stay 4 points ahead of Dortmund in the table.
Mainz - Freiburg 2-0
Haven't seen anything of the game so far, Mainz again playing a great season and Freiburg still struggling after loosing so many players in the summer. Freiburg most likely will fight against relegation until the end.
Augsburg - Bremen 3-1
Bremen isn't really any better than Hamburg, they were a bit more lucky with a few results and might get away with another bad season, but they really need to change something if they ever want to get back in contention for the EL/CL positions. Augsburg is playing a brilliant season so far, really impressed how they developed since they got promoted to the Bundesliga and I wouldn't be surprised if they finished midtable far away from the fight against relegation.
Hannover - Gladbach
starting in one hour.
Hamburg are in trouble, really. If they don't change something they will go down.
Schalke - Wolfsburg 2-1
What a shit game. Schalke win it in the end against 10 men, but they did feck all in the 70 minutes between both goals.
Leverkusen - Stuttgart 2-1
In the end a probably deserved win for Leverkusen, at least from what I've seen and read. Important win after 3 consecutive losses before and they stay 4 points ahead of Dortmund in the table.
Mainz - Freiburg 2-0
Haven't seen anything of the game so far, Mainz again playing a great season and Freiburg still struggling after loosing so many players in the summer. Freiburg most likely will fight against relegation until the end.
Augsburg - Bremen 3-1
Bremen isn't really any better than Hamburg, they were a bit more lucky with a few results and might get away with another bad season, but they really need to change something if they ever want to get back in contention for the EL/CL positions. Augsburg is playing a brilliant season so far, really impressed how they developed since they got promoted to the Bundesliga and I wouldn't be surprised if they finished midtable far away from the fight against relegation.
Hannover - Gladbach
starting in one hour.
It's not surprising but still incredible how shit HSV are. Big club from a big rich city and according to Deloitte they have the 4th highest revenue in Germany and the 17th highest revenue in the world, more than Roma and Atletico Madrid who compete for the title in Italy and Spain. They should at least challenge for a spot in Europe but definitely not fight relegation. They have been managed awfully for many years.
Great counter attack by Hannover for the second. Good strong header by Diouf to finish it off.
Hermann was absolute shit before he got taken off, his replacement Younis looks slightly promising
Hermann was absolute shit before he got taken off, his replacement Younis looks slightly promising
He looked brilliant today, really impressed.
I'm still surprised, incredible how the club turned into shit in the last years. 4-5 years ago they looked like they could establish themselves in the top 5, had two great runs in the UEFA Cup/Europa League and quite a few great youth players. They did everything wrong and got worse every year. Unbelievable really.
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Yeah, depends on the period you are looking at. I was not surprised that this season has been that poor. That was coming. If you look further back then it looks more surprising, that is true.
Hamburg has all the fundamentals to do very well. It's incredible that the club is not capable to establish itself at least within the Top 7 of the league. In general, it's quite interesting that among the five biggest cities in Germany, four cannot even establish a club in the top 10 of the league (and one does not even play Bundesliga).
Hamburg has all the fundamentals to do very well. It's incredible that the club is not capable to establish itself at least within the Top 7 of the league. In general, it's quite interesting that among the five biggest cities in Germany, four cannot even establish a club in the top 10 of the league (and one does not even play Bundesliga).
Frankfurt is 5th, right? The gap to Köln is pretty big for them, so I wouldn't blame them that much. They are closer to Stuttgart or Bremen in terms of potential than to the top 4 cities. Hamburg, Köln and Hertha are really embarrasing though. Hertha signed that huge deal with that american investor, which allows them to be debt-free and have a bit of money available for the summer. Maybe they can push on after this season, a win tomorrow and they might even have a shot at the Europa league.
The Hertha deal is quite interesting. I have a huge interest in finance and their investor is one of the biggest names imaginable in finance. It's quite a statement that they would invest in Hertha.
Hertha were managed poorly - especially under Dieter Hoeness - but they also suffered from the weak economy of Berlin. Berlin is a unique case really. Everywhere in the world, (most of) the biggest cities have glamour, wealth and big sports club. Berlin should be like London, Paris, Milan or Madrid, but they were unattractive due to the inner-German frontier. Now Berlin is becoming the place to be in Europe for all the "hip" people and the start-up scene. It's the center of German politics and there is a lot of media coverage. And while big business is elsewhere, the big companies will always want be present where there is a big audience and a lot of attention. Berlin is starting to catch up and Hertha might ride the wave. I guess that's why there were so attractive for the investor who valued Hertha at 200m€ which is approx. the market value of Dortmund.
Hamburg have similar potential. It's smaller and gets less coverage, but it's far richer than Berlin and have more tradition as well as a more glorious past. They should be doing better. The same is true for Cologne.
It's quite interesting, if the Hertha investment turns out to be good, some other investors might want to come in and try to unlock some of the potential in other clubs.
Hertha were managed poorly - especially under Dieter Hoeness - but they also suffered from the weak economy of Berlin. Berlin is a unique case really. Everywhere in the world, (most of) the biggest cities have glamour, wealth and big sports club. Berlin should be like London, Paris, Milan or Madrid, but they were unattractive due to the inner-German frontier. Now Berlin is becoming the place to be in Europe for all the "hip" people and the start-up scene. It's the center of German politics and there is a lot of media coverage. And while big business is elsewhere, the big companies will always want be present where there is a big audience and a lot of attention. Berlin is starting to catch up and Hertha might ride the wave. I guess that's why there were so attractive for the investor who valued Hertha at 200m€ which is approx. the market value of Dortmund.
Hamburg have similar potential. It's smaller and gets less coverage, but it's far richer than Berlin and have more tradition as well as a more glorious past. They should be doing better. The same is true for Cologne.
It's quite interesting, if the Hertha investment turns out to be good, some other investors might want to come in and try to unlock some of the potential in other clubs.
I've read, that there are some concerns about the deal, it might not be allowed within the regulations of the German Football League. They probably find a way around it though.
Afaik, Hertha isn't really loved in Berlin, that's their biggest problem. Football isn't hip enough for all the new people coming to town and most of the football fans support the other clubs, it's really a strange situation there. Never really understood it. With success, most likely, the fans will come around though. But I highly doubt that Preetz is the right manager to take the club to the top in Germany.
Netzer was the only one who really activated the full potential in Hamburg. After he left, the whole club became one big mess and they never found a way out of it. It's going on now for 25 years, really strange. A few times they looked like they might make the next step, but it never happened. It's a real shame, if you think about what could have been, had the club kicked on after their success in the 80's.
Afaik, Hertha isn't really loved in Berlin, that's their biggest problem. Football isn't hip enough for all the new people coming to town and most of the football fans support the other clubs, it's really a strange situation there. Never really understood it. With success, most likely, the fans will come around though. But I highly doubt that Preetz is the right manager to take the club to the top in Germany.
Netzer was the only one who really activated the full potential in Hamburg. After he left, the whole club became one big mess and they never found a way out of it. It's going on now for 25 years, really strange. A few times they looked like they might make the next step, but it never happened. It's a real shame, if you think about what could have been, had the club kicked on after their success in the 80's.
I work in Hamburg, and it is ridiculous how everyone is still talking about the Keegans, Netzers and Seelers. People are desperate for success. It has been a while...
I did not know that Hertha is that unloved in Berlin. But I agree, with success all the hipsters etc. will suddenly start to love Hertha.
I did not know that Hertha is that unloved in Berlin. But I agree, with success all the hipsters etc. will suddenly start to love Hertha.