Clearly, I don’t want to write a match review. I’d simply make two points about the match itself. It was a relative slight improvement at least over the Bordeaux match, and also you could pretty much see the Hoffenheim or Bremen match as pretty reasonable facsimiles of the performance.

All the frenzy and attention has mostly been given to Philipp Lahm (see Jan’s superb initial summary here), but I want to start out by talking about Luca Toni. It’s quite surprising to me that most commentators are willing to gloss over this quitter’s command performance. In fact, I am even inclined to say that in American sports, Toni’s actions would be seen as more detrimental to the team than Lahm’s. Once again, the Schalke match was the catalyst for a superstar quitting on the team. Last season against Schalke, when Ribery earned a red card, I was sure his career at Bayern was over. I was convinced the board would stick with Klinsmann, simply because they had invested so much in him, and it was clear that Ribery gave up on the team on that occasion. Stranger things have happened but Luca Toni gave up on this team on Saturday, and no matter who is sitting on the bench in January, Toni needs to be handed his walking papers during the break. Even if Bayern are required to subsidize his entire salary, it would be better for him to watch his World Cup dreams die in his homeland than have him moping around the Sabener Strasse another 7 months. It might have been a lot different with Toni. As comedic in his pratfalls as thrilling in his goal scoring prowess (once), he might have carved out a unique, enduring image in an already large pantheon of Bayern characters. But it seems to all have come to an end with a whimper, and years from now we’re likely to remember Toni sort of like this:

“Remember Luca Toni, that one year?”
“Yeah”
“What happened to him?”
“Well, he kinda got old, I guess, just fizzled out”

At least Toni is lucky enough that we probably won’t remember he just packed up his bags in the middle of a match.

Philipp Lahm is right. But Philipp Lahm is wrong.
The small man with the now-big voice is drawing praise from all quarters for his intellectual challenge to the Bayern board on a host of fronts. But I think there are two points being overlooked here. First, Lahm’s critique doesn’t immediately validate every piece of criticism that comes from every know-it-all writer or fan. Second, the board is absolutely correct in deeming Lahm’s actions an “absolute taboo” and substantially fining him. You have to question what Lahm was hoping to accomplish by taking his admittedly nuanced and generally accurate views to the court of public opinion. Did he just wish to fan the flames a bit more so that an inferno takes hold at the annual meeting in a couple weeks? Does he think his opinion matters enough to alter the viewpoints of a very stubborn though very successful leadership? Was he simply tired, as a native Munchener, of being confronted by the man on the street with “Hey, what the hell is up with the team, Philipp?” and in a moment of frustration decided to let his mouth run? On Monday, Lahm met with the board, and the club issued a classically understated “everyone has kissed and made up” statement. But this one’s going to reverberate for a while. For me, it brought up a few opinions:

1) It’s easy to forget how injured this team has been. When Louis van Gaal is criticized for his constant lineup changes, it is rarely realized how many of these he has been forced into. With the exception of Gomez, all of the strikers have been injured (I also happen to believe Klose was injured much more severely early on than has been made known publicly). You’ve had serious injuries with Robben, Ribery and Van Bommel. Demichelis and Braafheid, while probably less critical, are also injuries that have weakened depth. The team has probably been lucky to dodge a couple bullets with Daniel van Buyten’s injuries occurring at just the right time. Bottom line: If we’d have played the entire season with the lineup available against Wolfsburg or Dortmund, even at a median level of form, we’re probably neck and neck with Leverkusen.

2) It is only natural that there is a sense of a “team philosophy” vacuum in the current moment. The leadership is somewhat in transition, with Nerlinger still finding his role within the club. The club simply can’t recover from hiring Klinsmann and gearing its policies towards his nebulous philosophy quickly enough to give LVG all the raw material he needs immediately. The timeline of decisions and purchase agreements supports this. I believe the only real unmitigated transfer disaster thus far has been Pranjic, although I do believe Pranjic was brought in more a) as a hedge just in case Ribery was sold and b) to serve in more of a Brazzo/jack-of-all-trades role. It seems commentators harp on the Gomez transfer. Why buy him when you have Toni? Well of course, Gomez was bought to replace Toni. That the club might enjoy a season of having extraordinary depth at the position doesn’t seem ridiculous to me.

3)It is all good and fine to criticize the management for not appreciating the precept that a team is not just a sum of its parts, and also for not addressing critical needs. We sat here all summer in awe that they didn’t acquire a keeper and a right back. But what was missing from Lahm’s comments, and what is of vital importance is that at some level these players need to take responsibility. Because despite whatever mismatched parts may have to link up on the pitch in any given week, this team is still far too talented and creative to turn in this string of results. I would like to have heard a lot more about what Philipp Lahm can do better than what everyone else can do.

Much of what I’ve argued above is the reason why I will continue to stand behind Louis van Gaal. Of course, I won’t shed a tear if we’re 10 points back at the break and the board decides to can him as well. But, the problem is on the field, not on the bench. And I’m afraid Lahm’s criticisms, while quite valid, are endemic to this moment in time at the club, as a result of the coaching changes. It’s just too simple to say “Hey, Hoeness and Rummenigge don’t know what they are doing”. If that were the case, no one would have selected Bayern as their preseason favorite, but virtually everyone did. But what Lahm might have been trying to say in his way, and what I might be trying to say in mine, is that there have been mistakes made, mistakes of a sort that have to run their course and aren’t fixable immediately.

Mobben?
Although there isn’t an exact statistical “aha!”, there is a very close correlation between the distribution of Thomas Müller’s assists and goals and Arjen Robben’s presence on the field. Through all the hype and all the focus on on our misfiring forwards, have we perhaps overlooked the possibility that this pair last seen as before and after pictures for hair restoration, may be able to rough up the competition without their 3rd camarade?

Man in the Mirror:
Last season, the Altintop brothers did not face off against each other in the Bundesliga. Done groaning? Hamit missed the first match, and in last spring’s match in Munich, Halil was subbed off just before Hamit was subbed on. Or at least that’s what the official records show, seems a little convenient from the prankster-analysis point of view. As Hamit has played a grand total of 3 minutes in the Bundesliga since September, their interaction may again be limited to exchanging trikots which conveniently already have the correct name on the back.

What I’m looking forward to:
With Badstuber, Holtby (declared fit by Magath on Thursday), Höwedes and Müller likely to all be on the pitch together at some point Saturday, with the 23 year old graybeard Neuer in goal, there’s going to be a whole lot of the future of German football on display. Let’s hope they all give us an early career highlight reel.

Number play(the section where I do get lazy and steal from Jan):

0: Number of matches Schalke has lost away this season.

0-1: The scoreline in Felix Magath’s first home match as Bayern coach versus Schalke

1: The number of European matches won this season by FC Bayern and Hertha Berlin.

3: The number of goals Bayern has allowed at home this season, but alas, the number of goals that Schalke has allowed away this season.

22: Number of days Franz Beckenbauer has left as president of Bayern Munich. Unless he declares himself president for life. Wouldn’t put it past him.

99: The number of Bundesliga matches Manuel Neuer has played going into Saturday, as well as the number of Bundesliga goals Kevin Kuranyi has scored going into this weekend. Let’s try to keep it to one milestone, fellas.

And from the “not that scheisse again” department:
218: Minutes since Bayern scored a goal, in all competitions.

Sort of stat of the week:
When you take a strictly goal per match average, Schalke has the best away defense in the league, but guess who’s second? I was surprised to find it was Cologne. Tied for third were Bayern and Wolfsburg.

The Prediction
Headline writers will be itching for a scoreline they can work with. 2-0 to Bayern, a magical return to form! 1-0 to Schalke, Van Gaal raus! Unfortunately for all of them, my call is 1-1.

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.

Martin Demichelis will also stay behind in Munich, apparently jet-lagged from his trans-continental voyage from Argentina, although at least he is not also dealing with the post-traumatic stress syndrome of not qualifying.

I hate October transfer rumors. I hate even talking about transfers in October. That usually means, your team really sucks. But, this post needed a little filler, and so the latest and probably meaningless Breno loan rumor involves Juventus. What I do find worth talking about is this: it is pretty apparent that Breno will need to be loaned out, but where should he go? Bayern have a history of loaning out defenders within the Bundesliga. It worked with great success in Lahm’s case, perhaps not as much in Görlitz and Lell’s. I certainly expected we’d be seeing Mats Hummels in red this season at the time we loaned him out, nevertheless, I suppose that is a success of a different sort. At any rate, I think Breno ought to stay in the Bundesliga. I would take it as a sign he will be sold if he’s actually loaned to a foreign side. What do you think would be a good team for him come January?

Head over to http://www.bundesliga.de/de/spielerdesspieltags/2009/spieltag6.php and cast your vote for Daniel. Please! Will it help if I make big huge puppy eyes?

The team was given a well deserved day off on Thursday after their 3rd straight victory in all competitions, a 3-0 win over Maccabi Haifa to open the Champions League schedule. It appears we came out of the Israel trip without any new knocks. Demichelis, Van Bommel and Görlitz remain sidelined, but Miroslav Klose will theoretically be available, as he will practice with the team on Friday. Luca Toni is set to make his season debut…with Bayern II! The amateurs will have a little Bayern-Derby of their own Friday, 1 p.m. EST at the Grünwalder against surprising Jahn Regensburg.

Nürnberg played their best match of the season two matches ago at Stuttgart, a 0:0 draw in which they were probably the better team. They followed that up with their first victory, a less inspiring but effective 1-0 defeat of ‘Gladbach. Statistically, the Franconian outfit have managed to take more shots and control the ball better than you would expect for a team sitting on 5 points from 5 matches. They may take some time to break down. In contrast to Dortmund, this is a team that is terrible in the air, however. Expect this to be a week where one of Lahm’s looping crosses does some damage, or a corner leads to a sparkling header. Nürnberg captain Andreas Wolf’s status is up in the air for Saturday. After the Lell-like action of getting red-carded in a friendly, Wolf was suspended for two matches by the DFB. He is eligible to return this weekend, but had to break off training on Thursday with an injury. Striker Isaac Boakye is also due to miss the match for the visitors.

Key Matchup: Raphael Schäfer vs. the Bayern attack
Realistically, this is the kind of match that can only be salvaged for the visitors by a keeper’s great day in goal. Schäfer will need to bring some magic to the proceedings to carry his team. It can be done. Oka Nikolov pretty much earned a point for Eintracht Frankfurt by himself against Bayern in 2007. But I wouldn’t be betting on it this week.

Prediction: FC Bayern Munich 4:1 1. FC Nürnberg On paper, there is little reason to doubt that Bayern will dominate the match. Der Club has not come out victorious in Munich since 1992, and though last year was a bit of a fluke, Bayern have traditionally been almost unbeatable at home during the Oktoberfest.The final will probably hinge on how early on Bayern is able to break down what we can expect to be a very packed Nürnberg defense. Fitness will be a key here, but I don’t expect any problems. But, I’m not confident enough in our defense yet to predict a clean sheet!

*In the most unexpected display of man-love at a sporting event since…Straight Dave and Lutz, Franck decided giving LVG a big hug would be fun. It was the funniest Bayern moment on the pitch since Oliver Kahn’s celebratory punch in the face of Mark van Bommel, but Franck won’t be laughing when LVG seats him in the cargo hold for the flight to Tel Aviv in response.

*We’ve seen some interesting keeper jerseys over the years. Some keepers seem to swear certain colors (like Petr Cech’s orange) are more distracting to attackers. But one thing we can conclude after today is that mauve goalkeeper jerseys are *never* intimidating. Alas, Dortmund will never be Milan when it comes to fashion.

*I fully expect Bastian Schweinsteiger to be sitting in the stands next week after using Tinga’s thigh as a spike sharpener. What the hell man, seriously?

*Along the same lines, van Bommel was sent off in last year’s match in Dortmund, but this match, and this year in general, they really seem to be letting them play. I am too lazy to look up the stats, but despite the Wolfsburg-Leverkusen match today, it seems to me there have been a lot less cards in the Bundesliga this season, and even dramatically fewer in Bayern’s matches.

*A Kap has it right in his comment about the flow of the offense in the first half. I really thought Olić
would be the engine of the offense, but he never got the support from Braafheid that Lahm was giving Robben. Going forward, it just seems logical to expect Olić will do better when Pranjić is in the game.

*You’ve got to love seeing the vaunted Signal Iduna Park crowd, the supposed ultimate 12th man in Germany’s largest stadium, head for the exits with 20 minutes to go. I’ve got to say, when you watch a match at the Allianz, it might not be the loudest crowd in the league, but they stay for the full 90. Here’s to seeing if we can get the Hamburg crowd to head home at halftime in a couple weeks.

*I’ve got to agree with many of you that have stated that Butt is the “too aggressive” keeper choice and Rensing is the “too passive”. But, give me too aggressive any day of the week. Sure, it might have made Butt look like a 6 year old familiarizing himself with playing FIFA in that 4th minute excursion, but at least he was trying!

* Newsflash: I was able to obtain an unpublished image of LVG and Franck at the airport. Looks like things might work out after all…

2) As I was watching Ribéry and Robben sprint side by side down for the third goal, it made me think of this tangentially related scene. We’ve got to come up with the right nickname for these guys. I’m not sure I like “Robbery”. Rib-Rob, which immediately reminds me of “Jib Jab” (but not enough to create an old-timey animation of Arjen and Franck), seems like it would catch on better with Germans at least. “7-10 split” seems like it could carry some weight. Please weigh in with your ideas guys, this is a creative group, and now is the time, before some annoying moniker we all hate takes hold.

3) The most encouraging thing is, I believe this match could have been won without Ribéry and Robben. We saw a lot more stability out of the defenders, Tymoschuck had one moment where he was too late getting back and allowed Dzeko a free header, but was otherwise solid. The difference yesterday was, we went from competent to stellar with our playmakers on the field.

4) Perhaps the only player on the field who didn’t improve over the Mainz match was Ivica Olic. And yet, you’d be really stretching things to say he had a bad day. He was adequate, nothing more, which was just fine on Saturday.

5) The once heir-apparent to the 10 jersey in Munich, Toni Kroos, had an assist on the game-winning goal for Leverkusen, just 6 minutes after coming into the match. Kroos has remained mostly in the background this season, he was subbed in after the 80th minute in the two previous league matches. Perhaps Saturday’s effort will see him increase his playing time, but following the Robben acquisition, it seems more likely that Kroos’ loan spell has a better chance of becoming permanent. Meanwhile, Bayern’s last #10 also played the part of hero in the dying seconds on Sunday.

6) Almost lost in the excitement of the victory was the goalkeeping change. Hans-Jörg Butt replaced Michael Rensing in goal, after playing in the mid-week friendly. At that time, I was convinced he was simply getting some playing time in a meaningless match, but LVG stated on the club’s website that he will go forward with Butt. Say what you will, about how much a good offense makes a good defense, but Butt kept a clean sheet against one of the fiercest attacks in the league. However, he might owe that to Philipp Lahm’s clearance off the line and well constructed posts as much as to his own performance.

7) Champions League Group A roundup: Maccabi Haifa overcame a deficit, scoring 3 goals in the last 23 minutes of the match for a 3-1 victory at Hapoel Raanana. Juventus has defeated AS Roma by the same count, and Marseilles hosted Bordeaux in a Ligue 1 showdown..which ended like so many of them do over there, 0-0.

8. Multiple sources have indicated that the Rafinha transfer rumor is dead. It seemed to be more than a rumor on Saturday, when Kicker broke the story. Rafinha would have been a much more logical transfer to have undertaken right when the window opened. You’ve got to wonder what those conversations with Magath are like on these topics, there’s got to be some interesting psychological dynamics.

9) Saturday was also a banner day for FC Bayern II. Mehmet Scholl and company got their first victory of the season, defeating recent DFB-Pokal opponent Wuppertaler SV, 3:1, surely to the chagrin of the entertaining proprietor of the Abseits Guide to German Soccer. Despite the Robben debut scheduled for just a couple hours later at the Allianz, 1,700 turned out at the Grünwalder.

10) I wasn’t looking on my calendar when I kept talking about “next week, next week”, as next week is an international week! Bayern will be back in action, September 12, at Dortmund, with a start time of 9:30 Eastern. As you look ahead on the schedule, the weekend of September 26-27 sees the club visiting Hamburg. Although not officially announced by the DFL yet, that match in Hamburg will almost surely be played on Sunday be played on Saturday at 12:30 EST. So, adjust your American college football watching schedule and other commitments accordingly!

On the one hand
How do you really justify 25 million Euros for a player who is in many respects, a redundant part to the current roster? What does Arjen Robben do exactly, for a defense that has been mediocre, a goalkeeper who isn’t up to the challenge of the limelight? It almost feels like a PR move, a move to be made because we had to do something. Robben’s injury history suggests that “Santa Cruz Jr.” is not an unwarranted moniker. Like Roque, will we watch this guy play a few great matches, and know he’s got the talent, but spend a lot more time watching him rehab? Maybe the board felt we’d enjoy losing matches 4-3 more than losing them 2-1?

On the other hand,
I do think Robben brings creativity that has been missing. Whether they want to use him as a true left winger, or in some other midfield composition to be determined, you can’t say that we don’t look real scary offensively on paper. It can look like a glut, but if there is a properly managed rotation, we’re going to have tremendous flexibility in attack. The deal may signify some deeper quid pro quo with Real Madrid that can strengthen us after Ribery is sold as well. And perhaps the board deserves credit, they aren’t so arrogant to realize that they haven’t put together enough of a team, and they quickly respond with a top-class acquisition.

Champions League Draw at a glance
Bayern will face Juventus, Bordeaux and Maccabi Haifa in Group A of the Champions League group stage. This is neither the best nor the worst of possible draws for the club. And it becomes a bit difficult to evaluate when you realize that even the struggling 06-07 team made quite a nice run in the Champions League. I haven’t watched a minute of Ligue 1 football, but Bordeaux are on form to start this new season, and knocked Lyon off their long held title perch last season. Juve haven’t faced much of a challenge yet in the new season, but we’ll see familiar faces with Brazzo as well as Diego playing for the Italians. What little I do know about Israeli football is that it is relatively lower-scoring than most European leagues, which may indicate that Maccabi Haifa may be a team that will require patience to score on. The key for Bayern will be to get points early in the schedule. The toughest match of the schedule will be the last, when Bayern go to Torino on December 8. Given our historical struggles in Italy, we’re going to want to have some points to fall back on before that match if at all possible. The schedule kicks off with a trip to Tel Aviv (which will host Maccabi Haifa’s matches) on September 15. With Germany looking back on the 70th anniversary of the start World War II in Europe in just a few days, the match promises to generate much cultural reflection. This may be one instance where the silly-seeming “Football Stadium Munich” name used during Champions Leagues matches will bring some measure of comfort to the visitors when they visit Munich on November 25, as “Allianz Arena” will likely still offend the sensibilities of some, 70 years on, as it did last year in the US.

As mentioned on the Bundesliga website, Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of arguably the coolest goal ever scored in the long history of FC Bayern Munich. It was August 20, 1989, in a first round Pokal match against Eintracht Frankfurt, when Klaus Augenthaler unleashed this magical shot..

On the Ribéry watch, it seems the Big 3 have more or less come out 2-1 in favor of Louis van Gaal in the ongoing position debate. Rummenigge’s comments try to downplay the entire issue, by stating the both Ribéry and van Gaal have “the same goal” but he indicated the “player will play where the coach decides”. Meanwhile, Hoeness tried to play the “manhood” card to a degree, more or less stating that to be considered one of the great players, one must play in the center, tacitly challenging Ribéry to step up. He was a bit less non-committal about whether the specific
situation at Bayern calls for that, labeling the situation “interesting”. Beckenbauer for his part, continues to bemoan the “problems” created by shifting Ribéry away from the left. It seems to me Franz is perhaps still making penance for his past slap at Franck.

Finally, a wacky story out of Italy as Luca Toni’s agent Tullio Tinti angrily insisted that he alone is the agent for Toni, and not one Jose Alberti. Alberti, whose actual expertise other than passing himself off as an agent or possibly being a fictional character are unknown, was widely quoted in the online stories speculating about a possible Toni move to West Ham over the last few weeks, including one I linked to in this blog. At least I managed to balance it with Nerlinger’s denial of the rumor. Come to think of it, maybe I should pose as Christian Lell’s agent and demand an immediate transfer to somewhere far away.