Confusion is the name of the game.
By: Angela | July 24th, 2009Tim Borowski was a player from Werder Bremen. He started with Bremen in 2001 and managed 169 appearances for the club. In the summer of 2008, Borowski joined Bayern on a free transfer. When he joined Bayern, he was contracted until June 30, 2011. Now, for an undisclosed fee amount, Borowski will be heading back to Werder Bremen once more.
On Wednesday he practice with Bastian Schweinsteiger. Now he will play against him once more. I don’t understand this. Why did he leave Bremen if he was going to go back? I understand his need to want to leave Bayern as he was never more than a substitute player on the team. Isn’t there some kind of big rivalry between Bayern and Bremen? Will fans welcome him back with open arms or will he receive some boo’s?
Confusion is the name of the game in this business.
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A quote from Effenberg on Lucio which I thought many people here would find interesting:
“Effenberg also backed the sale of Brazil defender Lucio to Inter Milan.
”He bore the main responsibility for the bad defence (last season),” added Effenberg. ”As a defender, you must play in the defence and you are not allowed to race 50 yards forward to score goals.
”It was right to sell him.”
Roger, I don’t think you quite realise that Braafheid was brought in because he can play both at left back and in the centre of defence. Therefore he is a kind of replacement for the hapless Lucio! In the centre we have Micho, Van Buyten, Breno, Braafheid, and Badstuber. I think this team is shaping up to be a better balanced squad than last season. Although I agree I would like us to buy a new right back so we can fast track Lell’s exit!
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I just think need #1, goaltender was something that they did not even try to address except for a courtesy call on Neuer…
Prashant, not really going to address your remarks except to acknowledge your stupidity.
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I still think they’ll get a right back. One sneaking hunch I have, is that it might be Anyukov from Zenit. I may or may not be right on this, but I think the in-season transfer window for Russia doesn’t open until Aug 1, and that could be the hold up.
You can’t have 4 head coaches in 14 months and expect all the parts to fit together neatly. But it doesn’t mean they don’t work at all, look at a team with similar shifting at the top, Chelsea. This team played like garbage under a clueless coach for most of last season, and still managed to come in 2nd. I think they’ve done enough with transfers already to win the league. I don’t think anyone within the club is really worrying about Europe this season.
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It is typical Uli. He focuses on exact players: Neuer and Bosingwa and then when they don’t pan out he doesn’t do anything else. Frei wanted to come to Bayern, is a great keeper, and would be less expensive than Neuer, but Uli had his eyes on Neuer and refused to even consider Frei b/c he wasn’t German. I’m not as concerned with the goalie situation as the defence though. Unless something changes in next week it looks like:
Braafheid Badstuder Van Buyten Lahm
Let’s hope LvG can work some magic because that looks like one pathetic central defense.
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Luke: Could you email me please?
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I totally agree with you Luke. This transfer season has had no rhyme or reason to it so far… Really didn’t address many needs and added even further to ones we already had… Let’s hope that Uli is a mad genius instead of plain mad as it appears atm.
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@zermatt… Remember Lamm would prefer to play on the right, so a left back would work too. Pranjic plays both left midfield and left back so that could work too. Who knows, let’s see where Van Gaal puts this jumble of parts he’s been given. I am sure we’ll still field the most talented squad in the bundesliga, let’s hope it has more chemistry than last year
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Throughout this transfer season, I’ve wondered if Uli had gone back to his idea of having utility players, which is what a lot of this squad seems like.
It will be interesting to see how Nerlinger handles transfers now though.
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First off, today’s match is on ESPN 360. Hope many of you can catch it.
Roger:
That’s a good point about Pranjic as a left back that I’d forgotten about. Although, I think he was actually playing up front for a lot of last season! I could go back and look, but my memory is that the Jansen transfer and the subsequent Oddo loan deal happened a couple weeks into the season last year. So, I guess we shouldn’t panic if we have to wait a month for a right/left back as the case may be. My speculation about the Russian league doesn’t make sense in retrospect, as Zhirkov moved to Chelsea a few weeks back. But, I do think Anyukov is in the picture, regardless.Posted from
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Well, in the spirit of a regular ESPN feature, here are my 5 burning questions for Bayern Munich next year:
5)Do we have any more moves coming or is this the team we are going with? With Hoeness you never can tell.
4) Can Ribery stay healthy for a full season? I am not worried about his play, he will show up. The big problem for me is he has been rather injury prone the past few years.
3)Who is going to start in various spots for Bayern? Forward is very interesting… Toni and Gomez are very close to the same player, and I don’t think Bayern spent $43M transfer to put Gomez on the bench, and how much will Olic play? Shouldn’t they leave Thomas Mueller on the 2 team because with 4 forwards ahead of him, he really isn’t going to get much play. They really need to look at sending him out on loan so he can progress until he is really needed. On defense, there are so many holes to fill. Who is going to play where and how much? Can DeMichelis and Van Buyten coexist in the middle or will other options be used? Is their youth corp of Breno and Badstuber ready for prime time yet? How will Van Gaal keep all their midfielders happy? They have at least 6 and probably 8 midfielders that could start anywhere in Germany.
2) Can Rensing recover from his absolutely brutal first year between the pipes? If Rensing can find himself he has the talent to get to a level where we need him to be, the big question for me: Is he mentally strong enough to do the job under the biggest spotlight in the Bundesliga?
1) And for me, the most important one: Will Bayern come up with a solution to their absolutely horrid defense on counterattacks? I was watching some highlights (and lowlights) from last year. Wolfsburg for instance scored 4 of their 5 goals on counterattacks. We were very hard on Breno last year for this game but the only reason for that is he was the only one who actually stayed back to play defense! We really can’t blame Klinsnman totally for this, as they were originally exposed by Zenit in the semis of the UEFA Cup while Hitzfeld was still the coach. Bayern has a penchant for allowing defenders to join the attack with noone covering on Defense. This is a huge deal and needs to be fixed.
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Seems one question may be answered… versus AC Milan today, Lamm is at right back where he wanted to be and Braafhied is on the left…
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wow, what was wrong with butt today?? two possibly costly blunders and he should have palmed away the milan goal.
other than that, nice to see muller stating his case. where was miro?
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Well, that was a very encouraging preseason tournament game. I first want to qualify any remarks with AC Milan was horrible. If I were a fan of theirs I would be very distressed. The final was 4-1 but should have been at least 10-0.
Anyway, some observations:
1) Braafheid looks very competent on the left and could be the steal of the transfer season at 2M Euros. He’s really quick, and fairly fast providing speed down both wings of the defense, could be a perfect compliment to Lamm, and allows Lamm to play on the right.
2) Badstuber was very confident and poised playing in the center of the defense. He looked really good for a 20 year old.
3) Altintop and Sosa both played monster games.
4) I have said all along that Gomez is just a young Toni… I’d like to revise this as Gomez is much better at making his own shot than Toni is. Mario didn’t score but looked dangerous the entire game. Mueller also did very well scoring twice.
5) Butt was absolutely TERRIBLE. He was Abyssmal. There are not enough adjectives in the English language to say how bad he was. The only real shot Milan made went in and should have been an easy save. He screwed up two back passes. It was absolutely distressing watching him play. He basically screwed up each time he had a chance. He had the kind of performance that may get Hoeness working the phones to see who might be available.Posted from
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Random Thoughts on today’s match:
*Jamie: The club’s website reported Klose had the flu, and it’s bad enough that he’s questionable for the Pokalspiel. Hopefully it’s not Schweini flu!
*I was most impressed with Sosa. He’s not suddenly all- world, but when you pick Ronaldinho’s pocket, and make the play all the way up the field, that’s exciting. He’s going to make a contribution.
*Van Buyten still looks too slow to me. And this was against a very toothless Milan attack.
*Lahm looks great. His defense looked a little stronger when he moved back over to the right, but he was sharp overall.
*Gomez thought it was a national team match apparently. So many close calls. But I’ve got to rate his performance highly, he won’t miss a lot of those chances when they count.
*I’ll echo that Butt was bad, but he wasn’t as bad as the announcers made him out to be (one of them called him Jorg-Hans Butt on 2 occasions). I hope he was catching the flu or something though, it didn’t inspire confidence at all.
*Müller belongs in the squad. ‘Nuff said.
*I think Van Bommel is safely in the starting 11. Tymoschuk continues to look a little lost and not very sharp.
*Schweini’s goal was the prettiest move of the day. But, we all know he can juke and blast a shot from 15-20m. The question is whether the other phases of his game will follow.
*Hard to say how much of this was Bayern being good and Milan being awful, but I’m tempted to tip the scale a little more toward Milan being awful. Tomorrow might give us a better appraisal.
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It was a good performance, but keep in mind Milan just got back from their US tour. If anything, this game proved strength in depth, and gave the players a good confidence boost, although they’d do well not to think too much of it.
I agree about Butt, his howlers reminded me of Paul Robinson and David “Calamity” James. I think Rensing should be given a mulligan and named #1 for this season, with two defenders not allowed to cross the halfway line.
I liked Muller’s play, but it remains to be seen how he reacts to more physical defending. I think Tymoschuk was rather quiet today, most quiet of all the midfielders. Maybe he was playing to plan, but from what I’ve seen of him at Zenit, he’s got a bit of Ballack in him when it comes to moving forward from a deep position.
I think I’ll be able to say more after the Man U game.
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Excuse me, I like to get excited for any victories over AC Arseholes [ 4-1 wahoo!!!] as we haven’t had to many in recent times! How about Muller [ 2 Goals ]is he the real deal or what? I think he is progressing nicely and I wouldn’t be too quick in saying he will be the no.5 striker in the pecking order.
Remembering Van Gaal, likes to play with some youth in his side and maybe Luca Toni may struggle to see much game time this season??? Also Badstuber is progressing well, but I agree needs more game time to gain top flight experience, but that will come under Van Gaal. Great result, it’s a step in the right direction!!!
I’m more positive for the season ahead than I was this time last season!
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I agree though that tomorrow’s game will be much more telling, though man u was here in usa also. milan was purely horrible… and butt was even worse than the announcers said… I’d have called him worse if I were the commentator.
The team really does seem to be showing a lot more flair in their attack though with a lot more attention to keeping men back for a counter attack… Lucio’s damn the torpedos, full speed ahead attitude was really causing a fatal weakness. Best thing about Badstuber… He knows his job is DEFENDING! I think tomorrow since it’s their last game that doesn’t count, throw Badstuber and Breno in the middle and see what happens. Better now than in the champion’s league again.
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this game against milan has left me deeply disappointed but not for any real tangible reason… i dont like to think of bayern as a defensive team but after watching this friendly it has become clear that Bayern will be very defensive this coming season… in the first half most of bayerns players stayed behind the halfway line and bayern kept trying long balls and high crosses to Gomez who looked troubled by having to fight for position with Milan’s defenders. Muller did good to pounce on that loose ball other than that the first half mostly Pranjic, Braafheid and Van Bommel doing good defensive work. the second was a little better but Bayern maintained their defensive attitude, Milan who were clearly no where near match for were tiring from midway from the first half tried to play their Italian closing down and pressure game, that’s where the game turned because Milan quickly tired themselves out which lead to Schweinsteiger’s goal where he danced through a very tired Milan defense and by the end of the game Milan’s players were standing around and bayern scored two soft goals, the scoren line of the game does not reflect the way this game was played as Bayern were never full of flair and attack Bayern were very defensive and capitalized on a very unfit and passive Milan.
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@zermatt
i see your still trying to prove that Lucio is and was a bad defender for Bayern which is completely baseless claim, despite Effenberg’s opinion, Lucio was rated the Best defender in the bundesliga in the FTBL rankings and is now expected to be one of the cornerstones of inter milans defense and was sought out by Mourinho, the best coach of defensive football in Europe.Posted from
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With the fact AC Milan has tons of money for transfers still, and really need a striker, maybe they might want to buy Toni? Then we spend the money on a real goal tender! Brilliant! Let them take Toni back to Milan with them tomorrow.
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You’re right about one thing John, Lucio will be the cornerstone of Inter Milans leaking defense, and expect Mourinho to be bald from the experience!
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@Roger
from what i saw today against Milan from Gomez Luca Toni just might have back his starting striker job by christmas Mario gomez has problems fighting with defenders for space which extremely strange for such a big striker, i guess in the bundesliga defenders don’t fight with strikers for position but in the champions league that will be a big problem.@Zermatt
bad jokes aside… Inter Milan will concede less goals than Bayern both domestically and in the champions league next season at the end of this season i will come here and post the stats that will prove that claim.anyway, I’m kinda worried about Bayerns whole offense, with bayern focusing on keeping players behind and a general defensive style, playing long balls and high crosses to Gomez is going to become predictable and eventually teams will wise up and play closer to their own goal against Bayern negating Bayerns men behind the ball approach to creating offensive space, hopefully when Ribery comes back from injury Bayern will get a boost in creativity needed to break teams down but eventually Bayern will need to buy another playmaker to lessen the dependance on Ribery, Muller is athletic and persistent but he does not have an eye for making plays nor is his passing good enough for him to pay as play maker for extended sets of games.
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Just a couple more comments:
The AFP story on the game attributes the goalkeeping blunders to Rensing! I guess they’re so used to seeing them, they assume it must be Rensing!
Re: Gomez and the Champions League: I think 3 goals in 4 matches in his CL career speaks for itself. I’m not arguing he’s the next van Nistelrooy, but I’m confident he’ll deliver on the big stage.
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I friggin Hate ESPN!
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Whoops, that was my router crapping out just as Fletcher scored!
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