Luca Toni’s “sort of” apology

Martin Demichelis tries to sound like a leader, fails then decides to tell us where he’d rather be

File under: Double up on Dutch
Beckenbauer and Hoeness begin preparing the hard landing for Louis van Gaal. Bonus: Doctor’s comment on Franck Ribery’s teeth.

From “who are you going to get?” to “I’m about to get fired”

Beckenbauer and Hoeness actually admit an error! (Warning-translation is pretty bad, best to read auf Deutsch if able)

File under: Somebody loves me
Expect to see more Holger Badstuber at left back.

Meanwhile, Badstuber returns the love to his coach.

Irresistible force vs. Immovable Object:
Bayern Munich are set to take on table-topper Bayer Leverkusen at 9:30 a.m. Eastern on Sunday. The match will be shown live at ESPN360.com and on ESPN Deportes.

Although the visitors from the northwest haven’t won in Munich in 20 years, that seems to be about the only stat in our favor. It’s hard to find a lot of weaknesses in Bayer Leverkusen’s game, and it may be even harder to find something bad to say about them, considering our erstwhile coach Jupp Heynckes has finally molded this maturing group into a consistent, competitive team. In contrast to Bayern’s transfer flops, Leverkusen made moderate, targeted purchases with Sami Hyypiä and Eren Derdiyok, which have stabilized a suspect defense and softened the blow of losing Patrick Helmes to injury quite nicely. Leverkusen will be without Simon Rolfes and Renato Augusto due to injury, and though the club was a bit unlucky in two draws to Dortmund and Schalke, step-in Stefan Reinartz scored his first Bundesliga goal in the last match against Frankfurt. Be sure to check out the Bayer 04 Offside for more on the match.

Bayern and Louis van Gaal enter the match with backs now firmly planted against the wall, but that won’t help the injury situation very much. Ribery is still out and Arjen Robben is now rated “very doubtful”. So much for the amazing healing powers. In addition, Edson Braafheid and Danijel Pranjic are both said to have “seasonal flu”. Could it be transfer-seasonal flu? Ivica Olic is still a week away, although progressing nicely. Perhaps the best chance of Bayern scoring is the fear of Miroslav Klose, who was cleared to return to practice Thursday after several days in quarantine because his children had swine flu. You never know, Rene Adler may have a Howard Hughes like fear of germs.

3 points for 3 points
So, what can Bayern do in this match to come away with a desperately needed 3 points? These things seem so basic, and yet we haven’t seen much of them.
1) Maintain a sustained attacking tempo.
Too often we have seen a 7 or 8 minute buildup in possession and attack disperse too easily. I don’t expect to see end to end action, despite Leverkusen’s new found confidence. Slop and speculation in the offensive end needs to be curtailed. As always, Schweini will be a key measure of this.
2) Stingy Butt
It’s so perfect actually, because I do have two meanings here. I want to see Mark Van Bommel really pushing the limits and putting people on their rear ends. Despite Leverkusen’s adept dead-ball skills, Bayern ultimately stand to benefit from controlling the pace and intimidating the visitors. In addition, we’ll need the best out of Jörg Butt, who despite seemingly not holding much of a grudge against his former employers, ought to find a way to get mad at them for 90 minutes.
3) Make Lemonade
Continue to give Braafheid and Altintop opportunities. These are players who do have the ability to create off the dead balls, and since there is no natural playmaker on the field without Robben, the frees and corners become all the more important. The last thing I want to see is Toni/Gomez trotting on in the 70th minute to add a 3rd striker who flops around for 20 minutes creating nothing.

The Toni we need
Of late, it’s been Bayern’s own Toni Kroos who’s been garnering the headlines and the highlight videos for Bayer 04. With 3 goals in the last 5 matches, and two highlight reelers among them, the still-only 19 year old is progressing nicely. Of course there will be a danger that Kroos will never come back to Bayern, especially after his oft-promised future #10 was given to Arjen Robben. Undoubtedly, Rudi, Jupp, Uli and Christian will sit down for a little chat on the subject this weekend. However, I don’t think putting him on loan was such a bad idea at the time. At a basic level, Kroos needed to play. It’s perhaps only a shame that Bayer is not playing in Europe this season, although Kroos did get some seasoning the UEFA Cup campaign two seasons ago. Kroos gives his own rather unrevealing views to the official Bayer 04 website in an interview posted today.

Always looking forward
One thing to remember when pining for Toni Kroos-the great teams don’t just have potential stars, they have potential constellations. And while Bayern II may sit 20th and last in the 3. Liga at present, there are still things to get excited about. Presenting: David Alaba

FC Bayern Munich has reacted with distress and shock to the news of the death of Germany international goalkeeper Robert Enke (32) on the evening of Tuesday 10 November 2009.

We, the board of directors, officials, players and members of the club greatly mourn the loss of Robert Enke. Our deepest condolences at this time go to his wife, his daughter and his family.

See also: This remembrance from former Bayern defender Patrick Andersson, a teammate of Enke’s at Mönchengladbach and Barcelona.

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.

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.

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

But back to the business at hand. Babbel finds himself on somewhat similar footing to Lucien Favre before the ax fell in Berlin. After an improbable, (though admittedly less surprising) charge to the top of the standings in the 2nd half of last season for which he was given much credit, it may be his club’s inability to gel with new parts that has withered the spirit of last season’s rise. Babbel appears to be pretty far out on the plank, despite “votes of confidence”. This is a team that has lost 3 in a row in the league, and only managed to beat Freiburg and Frankfurt. And we know well that you don’t even need to be at your best to manage this feat. And while the numbers bear out that Stuttgart has indeed put forward effort, especially with regard to it’s last two losses against Schalke and Hannover, the squad looked sloppy and careless in its midweek Pokal loss to Greuther Fürth.

It won’t get any easy with the Bavarians coming to town, especially with Cacau and Sami Khedira out, while Ciprian Marica remains a question mark. Babbel has faced Bayern twice as Stuttgart coach, losing in humiliating fashion at home is last year’s DFB Pokal, and in Munich on the final matchday last season. You can track more of the story over at the Stuttgart Offside.

As for Bayern, the match will have special meaning for Mario Gomez, returning to his long-time home for the first time. Frankly, I’m a bit tired of young Bayern strikers being a little too sentimental for their old teams but perhaps we’ll be spared Mario laying face down and crying for Stuttgart if he actually scores a goal.

Almost lost in the shuffle of other news was the fact that Arjen Robben has been declared doubtful for the match. This seems a little bit surprising, considering he’s had a week to work up his fitness since the first Frankfurt match. Louis van Gaal indicated that he’d like to save him for the Bordeaux match, but frankly, I think Robben needs to be ready to contribute if the match is still competitive in the last half hour.

I expect Stuttgart to come out fired up, so the main thing is for the team to maintain its composure and not make any stupid mistakes in the first 15 minutes or so. Once we sustain the initial pressure, we ought to have the creativity and one on one advantage to produce the chances to win the match. I’m calling 2-1 for Bayern.

Demichelis drops turd in punch bowl
So after a 4-0 win in which we actually looked like Bayern, everyone’s happy right? Not so fast! Martin Demichelis didn’t take long to start complaining very publicly about his role at the club. First of all, let’s explain a few things to Micho. Comparing your situation to Mark van Bommel’s is like comparing Rotkohl and Spargel. For one, Micho, you are not the captain of the team! Your name is not Martin van Demichelis (don’t think that doesn’t make a difference!) I’m not at all certain Van Bommel would have come back into the lineup as quickly if it weren’t for the fact that we’ve been forced into playing a 4-4-2. Plus, you didn’t have to go play with the amateurs like Van Bommel and Toni were forced to do before coming back. And finally, are you really going to argue that your presence on the pitch is more valuable or deserved than Daniel van Buyten’s at the moment? Because I don’t think LVG is going to stick your right-footed ass in Herr Badstuber’s place. Ah, that’s better. Now, go help keep a clean sheet against Bordeaux and maybe we’ll think about letting you out of the Bayern Offside doghouse.

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.

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.