What was that penalty from Grifo, a panenka so "cheeky" Hradecky almost managed to get to it after diving to the side..
German Football 21/22 | Gladbach sign Farke
- Thread starter do.ob
- Start date
-
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.
Not Hradecky's best season.
What's your point?
What was the revenue of the clubs in your CL group again?
What's your point?
Freiburg as 3rd into the winter break... - I would like that!
Browsing Leverkusen's forum: (most) people are calling for Seoane's head already. A bit harsh for a 4th place finish, especially given Hradecky's part in some results?!
So annoying that there are hardly any fans allowed at the moment. New stadium and third place would make for a great atmosphere. Couldn't attend a single game yet this season.
But what a season this is so far from the boys.
Absolutely would love to visit there. It's terrible seeing this stadium empty when the Boys in red are having an absolute Hammer of a season.So annoying that there are hardly any fans allowed at the moment. New stadium and third place would make for a great atmosphere. Couldn't attend a single game yet this season.
But what a season this is so far from the boys.
It's a bit early, but their 4th place doesn't tell the whole story I think? They rarely have convincing games and there is little visible evolution. Compare that to Frankfurt (6th place) who are in a similar spot in the table: They knew they would have some trouble at the beginning, new players needed to get used to club and league, and then they started winning and rising in the table. After this development they are happy with Glasner.
Seoane had a great start to the season, but now they are becoming worse and most worryingly they start throwing games away were they are clearly in the lead. That is partially due to Seoane's changes (not today, but against Frankfurt and Hoffenheim this was a factor). The trend is your friend, and that isn't good for Leverkusen.
Anthony Modeste 
He's a legend even if he doesn't have the ability of those better than him. How he keeps going it, I don't know...what a player!Anthony Modeste
EDIT: Added in the missing word in bold
Last edited:
It's just crazy that most expected him to be totally past it, a waste of squad space and money and would maybe never play again for Köln. Now he has scored 11 goals.... Totally unreal, comparing that to United's squad it would be like if Juan Mata was top scorer this season.
That forum is probably the worst football forum on the planet.
4th place is nice but doesn´t really mean anything when you look at how close the league is points-wise. I just hope, we´re at full strength again after the winter break and get on a good run of form again.
I wouldn't exactly give him a medal at the moment, but 4th-6th place is about what you'd expect from Leverkusen, their EL campaign has been very good thus far and their cup exit was more about wasting chances and Hradecky doing his thing than coaching. So in terms of results they are doing okay.
And as far as the weaknesses in their play go I would have expected people to try to argue something like: "we scored 40 goals and to drop all those leads you had to build them up in the first place, so - glass half full - let's hope he can stabilize the defense a bit and then top four will be safe".
Personally I'm not really impressed, but on the other hand there's also only so much you can expect to happen with that squad. The same way I wouldn't blame Rose for the extend of Dortmund's defensive issues this season.
Worst forum, most fun forum.. potato.. patato..
Always with the excuses...
I was just interested in comparing the first half of this season to the first half of last season, to see how much team performances changed and if they fit the narratives discussed here (Table sorted by change in points)
Just again proves the miracle Bo Svensson worked in Mainz (already in the second half of last season, when he rescued them from being relegated with a CL-worthy run). Now they are roughly keeping that level, so Svensson seems to really prove himself a quality manager in his first full season in Germany. Just improved everything around the team.
Obviously I will praise Steffen Baumgart's work in Köln again, massive improvement to their attacking output resulted in a lot more points - defense is just not his priority, and that guarantees entertaining games. He surely will want to concede less, but I think he will focus on becoming more effective in build up and making less mistakes there, instead of becoming more of a defensive team.
A bit under the radar here is what's happening at Hoffenheim I think. Sebastian Hoeneß really seems to finally get his team to click, after he wasn't the most liked manager in Hoffenheim so far, but now he has improved them a lot in total, let's see where their path leads - they were forgotten in midtable mediocrity since Nagelsmann left, they would like to return to Europe (especially their owner seems to be unsatisfied with those last years).
Freiburg, Dortmund and Bayern are no big surprises here I think. Freiburg was simply able to evolve and improve their squad, they lost nobody so seeing a positive development for them was expected I think. Same can be said about Dortmund and Bayern who both struggled a bit last season. Sad thing for the league is obviously that they are both improving at the same rate, Dortmund does not get closer this way.
Hertha surprised me a bit - the whole season we were talking about disastrous transfers, results, a lack of style of play, massive crisis in every regard... Yet after they exchanged the manager the managed to already improve compared to last season. Might see another great rescue run from Tayfun Korkut, but doubt whether he will be their long term solution (as that never really worked out for him, no idea why).
Frankfurt, Bielefeld, Augsburg and Union Berlin saw virtually no change to last season. Only Berlin scored significantly less goals, maybe a side effect of them having to play in the ECL, maybe a bit too tired to score many goals? Anyway I think those clubs can be satisfied with that. Augsburg and Bielefeld are obviously involved in the relegation battle again, but they survived it last season, they might well survive it again (especially Augsburg will I think).
And now the disappointments so far, led by... Leverkusen, we just discussed them on here. More goals scored, but also a lot more goals conceded. They don't control their games as well, and they were as unhappy last season that they fired their coach shortly before the end. Now they have the highly rated Gerardo Seoane and thinks are even worse. No wonder their fans are already discussing him, these numbers give them some more reasons to do so.
Stuttgart are a simple case I think, they were just massively impacted by injuries and illnesses, especially of their most important attacking players. This table proves that nicely, but when those players return they should be able to improve again.
Wolfsburg and Gladbach just prove to be far worse, nothing new for us here.
The numbers for the newcomers Bochum and Fürth are compared to their second division season, so no wonder they are worse. But the difference between the two teams is massive. Bochum are a strong addition, while Fürth are just horrible.
Team | Goals (1H21/22 - 1H20/21) | Goals conceded (1H21/22 - 1H20/21) | Points (1H21/22 - 1H20/21) |
Mainz | 10 | -19 | 17 |
Köln | 12 | -1 | 10 |
Hoffenheim | 10 | -4 | 9 |
Freiburg | -3 | -12 | 5 |
Dortmund | 8 | 4 | 5 |
Bayern | 7 | -9 | 4 |
Hertha BSC | -3 | 7 | 4 |
Frankfurt | -3 | -2 | 0 |
Bielefeld | 1 | -2 | -1 |
Augsburg | 0 | 0 | -1 |
Union Berlin | -9 | 0 | -1 |
Leverkusen | 8 | 11 | -4 |
Stuttgart | -10 | 4 | -5 |
Gladbach | -9 | 6 | -9 |
Wolfsburg | -9 | 10 | -9 |
Leipzig | 1 | 8 | -13 |
Bochum (N) | -16 | 9 | -13 |
Fürth (N) | -20 | 26 | -24 |
Obviously I will praise Steffen Baumgart's work in Köln again, massive improvement to their attacking output resulted in a lot more points - defense is just not his priority, and that guarantees entertaining games. He surely will want to concede less, but I think he will focus on becoming more effective in build up and making less mistakes there, instead of becoming more of a defensive team.
A bit under the radar here is what's happening at Hoffenheim I think. Sebastian Hoeneß really seems to finally get his team to click, after he wasn't the most liked manager in Hoffenheim so far, but now he has improved them a lot in total, let's see where their path leads - they were forgotten in midtable mediocrity since Nagelsmann left, they would like to return to Europe (especially their owner seems to be unsatisfied with those last years).
Freiburg, Dortmund and Bayern are no big surprises here I think. Freiburg was simply able to evolve and improve their squad, they lost nobody so seeing a positive development for them was expected I think. Same can be said about Dortmund and Bayern who both struggled a bit last season. Sad thing for the league is obviously that they are both improving at the same rate, Dortmund does not get closer this way.
Hertha surprised me a bit - the whole season we were talking about disastrous transfers, results, a lack of style of play, massive crisis in every regard... Yet after they exchanged the manager the managed to already improve compared to last season. Might see another great rescue run from Tayfun Korkut, but doubt whether he will be their long term solution (as that never really worked out for him, no idea why).
Frankfurt, Bielefeld, Augsburg and Union Berlin saw virtually no change to last season. Only Berlin scored significantly less goals, maybe a side effect of them having to play in the ECL, maybe a bit too tired to score many goals? Anyway I think those clubs can be satisfied with that. Augsburg and Bielefeld are obviously involved in the relegation battle again, but they survived it last season, they might well survive it again (especially Augsburg will I think).
And now the disappointments so far, led by... Leverkusen, we just discussed them on here. More goals scored, but also a lot more goals conceded. They don't control their games as well, and they were as unhappy last season that they fired their coach shortly before the end. Now they have the highly rated Gerardo Seoane and thinks are even worse. No wonder their fans are already discussing him, these numbers give them some more reasons to do so.
Stuttgart are a simple case I think, they were just massively impacted by injuries and illnesses, especially of their most important attacking players. This table proves that nicely, but when those players return they should be able to improve again.
Wolfsburg and Gladbach just prove to be far worse, nothing new for us here.
The numbers for the newcomers Bochum and Fürth are compared to their second division season, so no wonder they are worse. But the difference between the two teams is massive. Bochum are a strong addition, while Fürth are just horrible.
@stefan92
I think that table is a bit hit and miss:
For Mainz your point of reference is the Baierlorzer half, which doesn't reflect the club's actual potential at all. Svensson of course did an amazing job last season, but if you just look at the games he coached their ppg has dropped by 0.24. He's doing well, but necessarily anything crazy.
To a lesser degree the same could be said about Leverkusen, who got to play Bayern right before Christmas last year, so their pre-Bayern-game-run was quite long. Especially the 17 goals conceded you're holding against Seoane don't reflect the defensive strength under Bosz, who finished the previous two seasons with 52 and 44 goals conceded and had his team concede 22 goals in the second half (including the games Wolf coached).
On the other hand it's interesting to see how much Hoffenheim, Freiburg and Cologne have improved without really making big signings. Or that Union's attack has produced a lot less, despite Awoniyi having a good season.
I wouldn't necessarily make Hertha any compliments yet and certainly not Korkut. He's had four games: a 2-2 against Stuttgart, a 2-0 against Bielefeld, a 0-4 against Mainz and the 3:2 against Dortmund. It looks a lot better than it really is at the moment, because they got to play Dortmund last and received a kindly three point donation. Without it they'd be sitting on 15th place and they still have the 2nd worst Defense and GD in the league.
I think that table is a bit hit and miss:
For Mainz your point of reference is the Baierlorzer half, which doesn't reflect the club's actual potential at all. Svensson of course did an amazing job last season, but if you just look at the games he coached their ppg has dropped by 0.24. He's doing well, but necessarily anything crazy.
To a lesser degree the same could be said about Leverkusen, who got to play Bayern right before Christmas last year, so their pre-Bayern-game-run was quite long. Especially the 17 goals conceded you're holding against Seoane don't reflect the defensive strength under Bosz, who finished the previous two seasons with 52 and 44 goals conceded and had his team concede 22 goals in the second half (including the games Wolf coached).
On the other hand it's interesting to see how much Hoffenheim, Freiburg and Cologne have improved without really making big signings. Or that Union's attack has produced a lot less, despite Awoniyi having a good season.
I wouldn't necessarily make Hertha any compliments yet and certainly not Korkut. He's had four games: a 2-2 against Stuttgart, a 2-0 against Bielefeld, a 0-4 against Mainz and the 3:2 against Dortmund. It looks a lot better than it really is at the moment, because they got to play Dortmund last and received a kindly three point donation. Without it they'd be sitting on 15th place and they still have the 2nd worst Defense and GD in the league.
I would do so. The win against Dortmund was of course aided by Dortmund themselves, but still I think it is fair to acknowledge that Korkut already had a big impact on the way Hertha is playing. You can recognise it as being football, which wasn't always the case under Dardai.
Korkut is one of the better managers in Germany in regard to his ability to implement a possession-based style, I think so since he coached Hannover. The frustrating thing about him (and the reason why he didn't get many jobs I think) is that his teams often lack the edge to actually get results, but the way they play often looks nice and you can already see first steps in that direction. Korkut won four of the seven points he got after they went down one or even two goals. It was almost unthinkable for Dardai's team to come back once they went behind, so there is a clear difference for me, and that got them points. I am quite sure that Dortmund - as bad as they were - would have won against Hertha if Dardai still managed them.
No sane person is discussing Seoane. We know we´re in a transitional season where we have to replace the leaders of the team in the last few years and we know that is natural to have ups and downs with such a young squad, especially at the back. Tah is our most expierenced defender with 25, the others around him are 19 to 22 and mostly play their first season in the league (Hincapie, Kossounou, Bakker, Frimpong). Still we´re in fourth place and so far managed the Hinrunde better than other teams with new coaches like Leipzig, Wolfsburg or Gladbach which are comparable to our situation.
If 4th place at the end of the season will also be classied as a "disappointment", I´ll gladly take that.
To be honest my perception of Korkut from his Stuttgart days was that he set the team up to be somewhat defensively solid and then prayed for the best upfront. So I'll take a more curious look at Hertha's efforts in possession when I next have to suffer through one of their games. He indeed seems to have brought a bit of fresh air with him for now, but this often doesn't last and his fixture list has been quite generous thus far. I think we'll get a better idea where things are headed after the break, when he's had some time to try to implement some of his ideas and opponents get a better idea of what the side is about and how to counter it.
Something I saw about Seoane are Leverkusen's results against the top 8 and how many goals they conceded.
1. Bayern - loss - 5 goals
2. Dortmund - loss - 4 goals
3. Freiburg - loss - 2 goals
4. Leverkusen - -
5. Hoffenheim - draw - 2 goals
6. Frankfurt - loss - 5 goals
7. Union - draw - 1 goal
8. Cologne - draw - 2 goals
W0-D3-L4 GD:12-21
That's somewhat surprising, isn't it? Usually you would expect a counter attacking side to do relatively well against top teams that offer them space and then drop a lot of points when they struggle to break down weak teams. But here it's the opposite, their stats against the bottom 10 teams are:
W8-D1-L1 GD: 28-7
Korkut's Hannover struggled a bit at having a definite way how to get the ball into the goal, it looked nice (and not just defensively solid) along the field until close to the box. So I fully agree on the "prayed for the best upfront".
Leverkusen's results are not that surprising when you look at how much worse their defence got. They have enough creativity up front to score against anyone, not only relying on counter attacks, but they just concede too many goals. They can outscore weaker teams, but against the stronger teams in the league it's not enough.
Sure, when you look at the stats against top 8 it's easy to just say "well, their defense is abyssmal..", but 7 goals conceded against the bottom 10 is actually the polar opposite: it's the same as Freiburg and just one more than Bayern and getting 25/30 points from those games is level with Bayern as well.
In the end a lot of it is probably down to the relatively low sample size when comparing 7 games with 10 games, but on the surface it looks curious that they are literally (!) level with Fürth on points when it comes to games against top teams and level with Bayern when it comes to games against the bottom.
I'd say our defense actually became better than last season. Frimpong is probably our brightest talent aside from Wirtz, Bakker and Hincapie are both better than Wendell and I never rated Sven Bender at all, so for me Kossounou is an upgrade as well.
In terms of defending, the team became significantly worse but I'd say this had more tondo with the system and us having almost no control of games anymore. So far that's what disappoints me tge most.
Sven Bender never was particularly talented on the ball and not an imposing athlete for a CB either, but there is a lot of value in having a reliable grown up at he back, where mistakes under pressure can throw away an entire game in a single moment.
Well, Bender was very good at that, too. IMO he was the exact opposite of what you're describing here. He often left his position for far too risky pressures and lacked the pace to compensate for it. Moreover he had a habit of absolutely over-commiting into tackles. Can't count how many times he risked his own heapth in situations in which it wasn't worth it. Fans love that but it's not exactly clever, especially if those tackles expose the defense even when he doesn't tear his ligaments. Was no fan of his by any means.
With Ginter announcing that he'll leave Gladbach for free next summer, what are the chances of several other players announcing something similar? Who'd be the next-likeliest player to announce that they're leaving? I guess Neuhaus might want to leave given the links from last summer.
Zakaria is the other obvious one whose contract runs out this summer. Then you have Hofmann who could be a target for other clubs and I'd guess players like Plea and Thuram would be interested in a move if Gladbach fails to qualify for Europe (CL) and only have contract until 2023.
Not to be a doomsayer but the Gladbach squad could really be picked apart this summer if there isn't a minor miracle happening after the winter break and Eberl made a somewhat risky decission not to sell players that had interest from other clubs and now they might all run down their contract while Gladbach still struggles on the pitch.
Freiburg's coach Christian Streich is coach at Freiburg now for a full decade:
Freiburg's coach Christian Streich is coach at Freiburg now for a full decade:
It is kind of amazing that Freiburg once again managed to find someone similar to Volker Finke who managed Freiburg for 16 years. Wouldn't be a surprise by now if Streich breaks that record.
Streich is already about to break Finke's records for points and wins in the Bundesliga in a few games.
Finke coached 340 Bundesliga games (Freiburg spend 6 years under him in the second league) - 104W 83D 153L - 395 points
Streich spend just one season in the second league, so he already is on 304 games: 100W 90D 114L - 390 points
So just two more wins to break the points record, further three wins to have the most wins as Freiburg coach in the Bundesliga. Should be well possible during this season.
But I guess it is the whole environment at Freiburg that makes a coaching personality like Streich possible. They know what they are - an underdog who with their budget could play in league 1 or 2 - so even when they went down to the 2nd league in 2015/16 it was not an argument to get rid of the coach.
I think their small stadium might also have helped in that regard, at Mainz for example a new and bigger stadium has brought people, who voice their displeasure or leave their seats empty entirely when things don't go so well. Hertha is another example, who always play in an half-empty stadium. It just creates a bad vibe and I wouldn't be surprised if it affects the players a bit as well.
Interesting theory. I guess we will know soon if it's true, as Freiburg just opened their new bigger stadium (capacity of the Europa-Park-Stadion: 34,700, Dreisamstadion: 24,000)
Neuer, Coman, Tolisso and Omar Richards tested positive. It might be more in the coming days as I do not know if it were tests the club had scheduled (the players were abroad or still in holiday). The first training is postphoned from tomorrow to Monday - after (another) PCR testing.
I'm not saying it will happen at Freiburg as well, it's just a feeling I have sometimes when watching Mainz or always when watching Hertha.
Feels like it's always been Leipzig and Bayern, who have been hit by Covid this season, but maybe that's just because their cases get the most media exposure. In any case it seems a bit ironic that things were fairly under control before Christmas, but after a two week break, that some people in England have demanded, the infections are as rampant as ever. I guess locking down players over the holidays wasn't a realistic option.
Yes, unfortunately not surprising in the least. Their vacation destinations were mentioned and when literally traveling the world you are bound to get it somewhere if you didn’t get your booster shot 2 weeks earlier
I doubt that their vacation destinations were so different from the ones others went to - and they for sure can afford private airplanes and exclusive resorts. Question might be if all teams test in the same way (with PCR tests) Bayern does as the German FA right now as the latest hygienic concept of the German DFL does not require tests of vaccinated or recovered players. We might know more in some weeks...
Now Davies tested positive, too. The game on Friday is seriously in doubt - Nagelsmann had 10 players in training today as Süle and Goretzka have injury problems - Davies was part of it!. The U23 is still in holidays and the U19 today just started with performance tests.
(The team right now is 100% vaccinated and who could boostered!)
Players available:
Ulreich, Pavard, Kimmich, Sabitzer, Roca, Musiala, Gnabry, Lewandowski, Müller, Tillman
+ the U23 goalkeeper and the U19 goalkeeper
Right now they do not even have a full team to start!
(The team right now is 100% vaccinated and who could boostered!)
Players available:
Ulreich, Pavard, Kimmich, Sabitzer, Roca, Musiala, Gnabry, Lewandowski, Müller, Tillman
+ the U23 goalkeeper and the U19 goalkeeper
Right now they do not even have a full team to start!
Ulreich
Gnabry - Pavard - Kimmich - Sabitzer
Roca - Musiala
Müller - Lewandowski - Tillman
Let‘s go!!
Was surprised today to read that injured and suspended players count as "available" in the covid rule of having to have less than 16 eligible players available in order for a match to be cancelled.
Strikes me as somewhat douchy.
Strikes me as somewhat douchy.