FC Bayern vs Schalke 04: The Search For a Non-Stereotypical Storyline
By: Luke |
5 Comments
This is a terrific match for a lazy writer. So many storylines fall right into your lap. For this occasion, I could: a) Talk about how how Felix Magath’s dismissal from Bayern looks like a terrible mistake in retrospect and b) make a very negative indictment of Louis van Gaal by some statistical comparison. Or c) How and why (or why not) Neuer and Rafinha will be taking up residence in Munich sooner rather than later and lead into a broader critique of transfer policy or d) how last year’s match at home against Schalke ended the Klinsmann era, and how a loss Saturday could signal the end of the Van Gaal era. I could even just take path e) continuing to complain about Tuesday’s match without really elaborating much about this match. But in the end, we’re going to try to touch on a few different points than all those.
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Tuesday: Abomination
By: Luke | 5 Comments
I don’t think the match requires a whole lot of analysis. Those of you who’d like to engage in that sort of thing are welcome to do some in the comments, but I’m going to refrain from it here. I’ve been more hesitant than most to indict this squad for its uninspired play, and this coach for his arrogant and single-minded decision making. But this performance opens the door for criticism from top to bottom. I still believe that the players are more of the problem than the coach. But this was a match where, by late in the 2nd half, I was running through the short list of old Bayern players who could take to the bench in January if necessary. It’s not an inspiring thought.
This is no time for reasoned analysis. So please dear readers, feel free to add your verbal vomit, expletives and other negative feedback, and I’ll try to restore order to the blog in a few days. After all, we still have a couple trophies to try to win.
Bayern vs Bordeaux-A very quick preview
By: Luke | 2 Comments
Sorry to say, that I simply don’t have the time to properly preview this critical Champions League match. We’ll have to dispense with the liveblog for this one as well, although I will be watching. We’ll hope to have a recap posting up not long after the match.
With both Müller and Van Buyten suspended, Braafheid an injury doubt and Robben apparently not in the starting 11 plans, the group that takes the field is quite a question mark. Clearly, Martin Demichelis will step in for Van Buyten, and my best guess would be to see Altintop in the midfield. If Braafheid can’t go, it seems that Pranjic is probably the only option they have. I’d prefer to see Toni get the start with Gomez on the bench, just because I have a little more confidence in Gomez’s ability to create in the pinch. But, it’s hard to have a whole lot of confidence in anyone’s ability without Müller on the pitch as the spark.
Another day, another roster cut
This time, it’s Andreas Görlitz, as it was announced he will be allowed to leave the club in the winter break. It was 5 years ago today that Görlitz suffered the knee injury from which he seems to have never fully recovered. It’s very easy to forget this was a guy who was actually capped twice for Germany in 2004. Bayern gave him every opportunity to try to fulfill the promise he once had as a young player, but it was a bit surprising that he was brought back from Karlsruhe after a 2 season loan spell. He started regularly there, and maybe that’s the ticket for Görlitz going forward. Perhaps it’s better not to reflect on the player he might have been, but know that he will still have many years ahead playing in a different situation
VfB Stuttgart vs FC Bayern Munich: Liveblog
By: Luke | Add Comments
Category: Team NewsThe Trial of Markus Babbel
By: Luke | 1 Comment
Once again, Bayern Munich goes into an away match against a familiar opponent that has its back against the wall. That would be VfB Stuttgart of course, and it makes for a little more of a dramatic storyline that Stuttgart’s coach is long time Bayern defender Markus Babbel. You can follow the action with our liveblog at 10:30 a.m. Eastern on Saturday. I want to say a thank you to everyone who checked in on our mid-week Pokal match liveblog. The readership was tremendous, we had about double the audience we’ve had for most of the league matches, and I’m really glad that we are bringing the excitement of Bayern Munich to more of you and a sense of community as well. Read the rest of this entry »
Adios, Jose Ernesto Sosa
By: Luke | 6 Comments
The club has confirmed that Jose Ernesto Sosa has been loaned to his old Argentine club Estudiantes de la Plata for the remainder of the season. So begins the pruning of the Bayern roster that Uli Hoeness promised just a couple days ago. With Sosa’s contract in Munich set to expire in 2011, the loan in this case is clearly a permanent move, with the details to be handled later.
For his part, Sosa greeted the news humbly. “I cannot complain. My fellow players have always treated me fairly. I just did not use my chances,” he told the club website.
Sosa came to Munich in 2007 for a fee of 6 mil. Euros. He managed just 2 goals and 1 assist in 35 Bundesliga matches over the last 2 1/4 seasons, and undoubtedly the critics will point to him as just another example of Bayern’s poor personnel decisions over the last few years.
But his place in Bayern lore will always be secure, because of one magical moment in Madrid. It was Sosa who delivered the cross to Luca Toni, who headed in Bayern’s third goal in the dying seconds of extra time to earn a 3-3 draw and passage through on the away goals rule, completing the most improbable and emotional of comebacks against Getafe in the UEFA Cup in 2008. Long live the one shining moment of Jose Ernesto Sosa.
On the couch in Frankfurt
By: Luke | 3 Comments
![freud[1]](http://bayern.theoffside.com/files/2009/10/freud1-211x300.jpg)
Bayern fans have done their fair share of head-scratching lately. We assemble a squad of forwards that is the envy of everyone, and yet we can’t score goals. We very slowly nurse players back from injury with the goal of having them ready to contribute right away following thorough rehabs, and yet they remain invisible. Inevitably, the explanations for these shortcomings turn to some mental aspect of the game, or some intangible quality like leadership.
While a 4-0 victory in a DFB-Pokal match against perennial also-ran Eintracht Frankfurt may not be an announcement that Bayern is ready to take on the world, it sure seemed like the team got rid of a lot of psychological baggage. Let’s review the charts.
Patient: M. Klose
History: Player has possible psychological aversion to scoring goals for club. Player known to display excessive unselfishness near opponent’s goal, often compounding goal scoring issue.
Result of Frankfurt therapy: Player scored 2 goals, moved into 2nd place among active players in career DFB-Pokal goals. (Who’s first? See below) Unselfishness rewarded by providing impetus for subject T. Müller’s goal when selfish play would likely not have resulted in a 3rd goal.
Prognosis: Player has left behind his goal-scoring aversion. Will now attend physical therapy to regain signature goal-scoring acrobatics.
Patient: M. van Bommel
History: Aggressive tendencies, leadership through rhetoric more than positive actions
Result of Frankfurt therapy: Player made first significant offensive contribution in quite some time with a lovely floating ball to teammate M. Klose that led to first goal.
Prognosis: Pleasant surprise offensive contributions to continue, though patient could also bite opponent’s ear off without warning. Supervision recommended.
Patient: L. Toni
History: Patient has history of hysterics and play-acting. Unable to score goals. May require leg braces (frequent falls) or vision correction as kicked balls often bounce off posts. May also have inner ear disorder, but claims symptoms are merely “how he celebrates”.
Result of Frankfurt therapy: To staff’s surprise, patient required little therapy and used his own head to solve his goal-scoring problem.
Prognosis: Patient will need frequent reinforcement from peers in order to maintain goal scoring levels. Could benefit from extended visit to warmer climate.
And there you have it, a somewhat clean bill of psychological health. I’m just glad we didn’t have to include Gomez, Rensing or Louis van Gaal in the analysis. We’ll discover who our quarterfinal opponent will be on Sunday
DFB-Pokal Goal scorers
I indicated above that Miro Klose moved into 2nd among active DFB Pokal goal scorers. Klose now has 17, and the active leader is Claudio Pizarro with 21. I was not surprised to see that Gerd Müller was all time leader with 78 (in 62 matches). What I was surprised to see was that 2nd all time is Cologne’s Hennes Löhr with a mere 39 (in 64 matches)! Yet another of Der Bomber’s unbelievable records.
A quick look backward and a quick look ahead to Pokal Wednesday
By: Luke | 6 Comments
Got caught in a time bind here, but I did want to flesh out a few thoughts related to Saturday’s match before getting into all the other news floating around. So, here are 5 quick hits from Saturday’s 2-1 victory over Frankfurt.
1) I looked at Frankfurt’s goal about 7 times on replay, and the best that I can come up with, is that it really was a freakish chance. Maybe Lahm gave up on his pursuit a little easily, maybe Van Bommel and Van Buyten were a little clumsy and slow to react, but overall, that was just a weird one.
2) I expressed a lot of frustration with Bastian Schweinsteiger in this space last week, and in the liveblog as well. I will continue to do so, until he finds some consistency in his game. His slow and sloppy play on Saturday was a major contributor to a scoreless first half. It continues to be all or nothing with Schweini, and I’m not sure what can be done to get him back to the consistent form that he has shown in the past. On the other end of the spectrum, a not quite ready for prime time Arjen Robben was ready enough. He more or less stole a goal from Gomez (ok, maybe Mario would have found a way to muff the rebound too), but his appearance changed the whole pace of the match, as we’ve come to expect.
3) As was well discussed in the liveblog, our set piece play is awful. There isn’t a lot of point in penetrating and earning frees and corners if the team doesn’t know what it wants to do with them (see Schweini and Tymo) or doesn’t execute them well (see Van Buyten, Pranjic, and to a lesser degree, Badstuber). I’m not sure what can be done to improve it, aside from Ribery scoring more amazing goals like the one in Dortmund.
4) Almost universally, those of us in the liveblog were incredibly disheartened by Louis van Gaal’s decision to sub in Demichelis for Toni. It seemed to be a “let’s not lose the 1 point” substitution. None of us realized that he was actually putting Van Buyten forward, and I watched it again to see if I had just been distracted. As it was, Daniel hardly appears on-screen in the broadcast until the 2nd goal is scored. So, this may be a case where a spectator might have had a better idea of what was going on than an international TV viewer. At any rate, LVG deserved neither praise nor scorn for the substitution. Of course, he’s a genius if it works. And he’s an idiot if it doesn’t. Not that he would ever admit the latter. So, the goal was luck, but not pure luck. Any statistical analysis bears out that Bayern had a ton of chances throughout the match, and to some degree that indicates making a lot of your own luck.
5) Strangely, it would be easy to skip over the man of the match: Thomas Müller. Of course, his skillful header set up Daniel van Buyten for the game winner, but it was his cross in to Gomez that set up the equalizer as well. When he is not the only one finishing chances, he seems to be the only one setting them up. After a rocky, foul-ridden start, he straightened out his game and was the best player on the field again for Bayern.
Pokal-Spiel live on ESPN 360
You will not be seeing a rerun! Wednesday’s German Cup match at Eintracht Frankurt will be shown live on ESPN 360, and we will be running a liveblog here at the Bayern Offside. Continental Europe is only 5 hours ahead of the Eastern time zone this week, so the match will take place at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time. There is a chance we’ll be able to pipe a feed of the match into the liveblog. So those of you without ESPN 360, please come by, and we’ll try to accommodate you! We should see the same starting 11 for Bayern.
In the news
With all the stories swirling around Schalke’s possible emergency fire sale, it was only a matter of time before the Manuel Neuer rumors started again. Günther Jauch (who made an appearance in this space as the graphic presence of the “Who Wants to be a Goal Scorer” entry), claimed he had a good source that told him that Neuer to Bayern was a done deal in the winter break. Felix Magath was quick to deny it once again. Whether Jauch, who is not exactly a Gelsenkirchen insider is on to something or not, I think the story of this transfer is not if, but when.
Reunion with Klinsmann this weekend?
With Stuttgart falling prey to Fürth in the Pokal on Tuesday, the Markus Babbel death-watch is on. Babbel still has a job as of this writing. Although Marcel Koller seems to be the most frequently-linked name to the Stuttgart job, some sources are pointing to a meeting between Klinsmann and Stuttgart President Erwin Staudt. Ok, this is probably the worst kind of rumor mongering, but maybe the only thing better than seeing the lame duck Babbel on the sideline against us on Saturday would be the confused-looking Klinsmann trying to put Alex Hleb in touch with his inner chi….or something.
Tags: 1. Bundesliga, Arjen Robben, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Daniel van Butyen, DFB Cup, DFB Pokal, Eintracht Frankfurt, FC Bayern Munich, Felix Magath, Juergen Klinsmann, Louis van Gaal, Manuel Neuer, Mario Gomez, mark van bommel, Markus Babbel, Matches, Philipp Lahm, Recaps, Team News, Thomas Mueller, Transfer Rumors
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