Bundesliga 13/14

What a shame that lewendowski is going to bayern next season. The dortmund to bayern trend really will set dortmund back. He's for me among the top 5 strikers around today, with a good shout at being right up there. His all round play is fantastic.
 
What's with all the Guardiola hate? I can understand people being pissed off at missing out on a top talent but why is that hate directed at Guardiola rather than Bayern?
 
What's with all the Guardiola hate? I can understand people being pissed off at missing out on a top talent but why is that hate directed at Guardiola rather than Bayern?

Hate is often irrational and cannot be explained. Plus he's a bit of a cnut anyway
 
What's with all the Guardiola hate? I can understand people being pissed off at missing out on a top talent but why is that hate directed at Guardiola rather than Bayern?


Because he's the one who asked Bayern to get him. They werent interested till then. I dont get the hate towards a manager wanting a top player at all but there you go.
 
Would be brilliant if Dortmund pip bayern to the title after the amount bayern have strengthened. Would be an incredible achievement for klopp and his side. They've already done and amazing job spending little.
 
Would be brilliant if Dortmund pip bayern to the title after the amount bayern have strengthened. Would be an incredible achievement for klopp and his side. They've already done and amazing job spending little.


As much as I'd like to see it, the league's always heavily favored towards the better squad. Bayern just sweep dortmund aside in that regard.
 
What's with all the Guardiola hate? I can understand people being pissed off at missing out on a top talent but why is that hate directed at Guardiola rather than Bayern?

Because Guardiola was the main reason Thiago chose Bayern over United? Thiago was an absolute luxury buy and simply a way for the Bayern board to fulfill Guardiola a wish. I´m absolutely certain that without Guardiola, Thiago would have never gone to Munich, alone for the fact that Bayern would have never shown interest. This transfer was very unusual for Munich´s standarts.


Looking back to the game yesterday, the loss will sting for Bayern. Not because they lost a match or a "title". Bayern vs. Dortmund has over the last years become more than a duel for title. It is a battle of pride and the rivalry is only getting more and more heated up.

This does of course not change the fact that Bayern is the heavy favourite for the title. My stance regarding the whole thing has not changed since the time the Götze transfer got announced. Dortmund has a decent shot against them in a direct duel, be it in the league, the cup or the CL, but for Bayern to not win the league, they have to trip over their own feet.

There is potential for that, though. Right now, Guardiola is more of a danger than a blessing for Bayern. The expectations are huge and the hype about his person reached disgusting levels. At this point, anything outside the league title is completely out of question. The title is always their goal, but different to the last years, missing out would not only be a dissapointment, it would be no less than a disaster and embarrassment.

It is also becoming quite obvious, that Guardiola wants to put his clear stamp on the team. His former statement of not making major changes holds basically no meaning anymore. He has a clear idea of how football needs to be played and if he needs to change an extreme successful system, he will do exactly that. This does of course not come without risks. Even with all their class, playing several players out of position to make them fit a certain new system needs time to fully set in.

He simply does not have much time, though. The eye of the media in Germany has returned to them at full force and the press will have a field day with any small mistake they will make. Does not help, that the two biggest lead player Lahm and Schweinsteiger already voice cautios critique at being played outside of position and the league has not even started.

Their start of the league will also be pretty challenging. Between the first and fifth playday, they face with Gladbach, Frankfurt and Hanover three very good counter attacking sides, which is the best style vs. Guardiola´s system in my eyes. If he can not stabilize the defense further, they could already lose points there. Dortmund on the other hand has a pretty easy start programm with the most difficult game in Frankfurt on the 4th playday.

I would not be surprised if Dortmund can actually put a little distance between them by then, which has actually no meaning at all, but would be probably enough for the media to go nuts over it. The pressure is immense.

This is probably the only hope for Dortmund to have realistic chance at endangering Bayern. Normally, they can´t reach Munich´s level of consistency, because they simply do not have the squad for that. But then again, nobody has a squad on the level of Bayern right now.
 
The funny part is I almost believed Guardiola against my better judgement when he said at the start of the season that he would only change little things.

I still think Bayern will win the league though simply because of their amazing squad depth which will help them get through the injury problems better than Dortmund and also offers more opportunities to rest their best players for the big games.
 
As much as I'd like to see it, the league's always heavily favored towards the better squad. Bayern just sweep dortmund aside in that regard.
Of course. There's too much of a gulf in quality of the two squads now. Not so much in the first team because Dortmund can match anyone in that regard but their backups are nowhere near the same quality as the first choice 11 whereas with bayern you have 2 players in each position of similar ability.

However football is still a funny game. You never know what can happen if bayern start poorly. Would be great for Dortmund if they can somehow pull it off.
 
Of course. There's too much of a gulf in quality of the two squads now. Not so much in the first team because Dortmund can match anyone in that regard but their backups are nowhere near the same quality as the first choice 11 whereas with bayern you have 2 players in each position of similar ability.

However football is still a funny game. You never know what can happen if bayern start poorly. Would be great for Dortmund if they can somehow pull it off.


Yep, i'd love to see them win the league over Bayern. Bayern's squad is scarily good though.
 
Bayern field 2 different first 11's and still remain perfectly strong.

For Dortmund to challenge the league they need to sacrifice the cup competitions IMO, but I doubt they will want too.
 
Emre Can signed a 4 year contract at Leverkusen. Bayern has a buy-back-clause. If Gustavo leaves as well, the incredible squad depth in midfield is gone and there are few options for a more defensive approach than what we saw yesterday. There are rumours that Contento is going to Bremen, if that's true as well, then Shaqiri really might get some playing time as left back and all players should get more than enough games to stay happy (unless we buy another CM and play him out of position, maybe Fabregas can play left back?).
 
Emre Can signed a 4 year contract at Leverkusen. Bayern has a buy-back-clause. If Gustavo leaves as well, the incredible squad depth in midfield is gone and there are few options for a more defensive approach than what we saw yesterday. There are rumours that Contento is going to Bremen, if that's true as well, then Shaqiri really might get some playing time as left back and all players should get more than enough games to stay happy.

It wouldn't be if Guardiola stops using Martinez as a CB
 
It wouldn't be if Guardiola stops using Martinez as a CB
I really hope he does, but somehow it doesn't feel that way. There was no need to start him twice at center back at the Audi Cup, if he doesn't want him to play in that position.
 
It makes no sense (so far anyway) just like it makes little sense to have the likes of Mascherano as a CB. Why are some coaches willing to ruin some players ?
 
I really hope he does, but somehow it doesn't feel that way. There was no need to start him twice at center back at the Audi Cup, if he doesn't want him to play in that position.

He looked vulnerable there. There are chances Pep may be bringing the same slight defensive blind-spot which he demonstrated now and then at Barca.
 
To be fair, Pep's Barca wasn't defensive vulnerable until Puyol was injured all the time. They were fine from 08/09 - 10/11. And even in Pep's last season, they never looked as clueless defensively as with Vilanova in charge. Still, there's simply no need to play Martinez there with quality centerbacks available who were comfortabe in possession against very good pressing as well.
 
I've been pronouncing it Bun-dez-liga all my life. The other week, my mate's part German girlfriend told me it's pronounced Bun-de-liga. I've been living a lie.
 
I've been pronouncing it Bun-dez-liga all my life. The other week, my mate's part German girlfriend told me it's pronounced Bun-de-liga. I've been living a lie.
:confused:
The "s" isn't silent. Bun-dez-liga is right.
 
Oh. Well now I don't know what to think.
 
I've been pronouncing it Bun-dez-liga all my life. The other week, my mate's part German girlfriend told me it's pronounced Bun-de-liga. I've been living a lie.

:lol:

She must've been laughing behind your back.
 
Even in french, an "s" in a middle of a word isn't silent.


Just a joke mate. You do swallow an awful lot of letters though, even though it usually sounds pleasant I always had a very bad time in school with french because I could never figure out when something was silent and when not, even though it's not all that difficult if I remember correctly it still was annoying.

Oh and I'm not saying German is any better, I bet it's one of the most annoying languages to learn.
 
Just a joke mate. You do swallow an awful lot of letters though, even though it usually sounds pleasant I always had a very bad time in school with french because I could never figure out when something was silent and when not, even though it's not all that difficult if I remember correctly it still was annoying.

Oh and I'm not saying German is any better, I bet it's one of the most annoying languages to learn.

I took up arabic but most of my mates were always complaining how tough the German language is. All in all, Solius was made a fool
 
Just a joke mate. You do swallow an awful lot of letters though, even though it usually sounds pleasant I always had a very bad time in school with french because I could never figure out when something was silent and when not, even though it's not all that difficult if I remember correctly it still was annoying.

Oh and I'm not saying German is any better, I bet it's one of the most annoying languages to learn.

Actually, for native English speakers it's one of the easiest.
 
Actually, for native English speakers it's one of the easiest.


Well I can't really judge that but considering that I found English to the easiest to learn language it might be true.

I guess Dutch would be the easiest to learn for Germans but I never got around to trying to learn it, I just know that I understand it very roughly when reading it and that without ever learning anything about it.