Bayern Offside Goes Live; News, Notes & Rumors

By: Luke | August 25th, 2009

I am pleased to announce the Bayern Offside plans to run an interactive liveblog for this weekend’s match versus Wolfsburg. As of right now, ESPN 360 has set aside a 12:30 p.m. EST slot for Bundesliga, almost certainly meaning they will show the match. ESPN Deportes is still displaying Dutch and Spanish league action at the same time in their current schedule. Hopefully you’ll join us as we try to make this most important of matches a full interactive experience. To that end, I will be testing out the system during tomorrow’s friendly against Union Berlin. Drop in if you can, and if I can’t get a video feed, I’ll still be playing with the features, issuing poll questions, etc.

Buying our way out of a corner?
Whenever the “C” word is lingering in the air, there’s going to be a lot of transfer speculation. Of course, the Bayern way to solve any roster issue is to buy our way out of the problem. Let’s have a quick look at the names floating around at the moment.

Arne Friedrich: I don’t see how this one is realistic at all. Why would Hertha weaken themselves by losing Simunic and Friedrich? This was a move that could have been made before Friedrich got a new contract. It seems to be wishful thinking, nothing more. The caveat to that is that Paul Breitner just happened to be at the Bochum-Hertha match..which seems a little less than random.

Darijo Srna: I think it’s real easy with him: Bayern are not going to pay for him. I’ve read anywhere between 13 and 20 million Euros. Not going to happen.

van der Vaart/Sneijder: These guys continue to be totally ruled out by all involved. I think the point that Real Madrid doesn’t want to do Bayern any favors is valid. Then again, it may feel like less of a favor to just dump these guys. I’d still pay close attention, because with Søren Lerby as agent for both of them, there is likely backchannel stuff going on that is entirely out of the media.

Robert Enke: This is a move that I have long argued would make sense. You have a seasoned keeper who is ready to play, a guy who needs the international experience to make his case to be starting at the World Cup, and he wouldn’t cost you and arm and a leg. It might have happened last year, but I don’t see it happening now. We have to remember that LVG and Enke have a history in Barcelona. I simply can’t see LVG signing off on this.

So, as of now, I don’t find it likely that there will be any more buys before the window closes. If the boys can go out and win on Saturday, a lot of people will feel a bit better about that, but I think it’s their intention no matter what happens.