The former Bayern midfielder has solidified a baffled, lost squad of players with methods so old-school that they’re almost ingenious againHey Bundesliga? Si senõr, the league is on. Ten games into the 2016-17 season, there are the old, familiar, expected faces at both ends of the table – FC Bayern (unbeaten und unconvincing) at the top, Hamburger SV (clueless, rudderless, irreparable) at the bottom – but otherwise, it’s a jolly good mess of smart overachievers, former giants growing in stature, elite sides mired in inconsistency and an array of sporting disasters of varying magnitude. Only six points separate the first seven teams. RB Leipzig, are second behind Bayern on goal difference after another exhilarating win, 3-1 over Mainz. While their...
A 0-0 draw at the Signal Iduna Park was a fine result for Schalke but served to increase the pressure on Dortmund’s Thomas TuchelAs if the Revierderby wasn’t claustrophobic enough, Saturday night at the Signal Iduna Park only served to squash the warring neighbours closer together. Nothing at all could separate Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 after 90 draining, goalless minutes, and in the table, too, the Royal Blues (12th and rising) and the Black and Yellows (sixth and falling) were firmly put on a mid-table collision close, having spent the opening weeks of the season at opposite ends, a million miles from each other. Related: Tim Wiese goes from Bundesliga to WWE: ‘I’ve got trash-talking in my blood’ Related:...
Supporters across Europe have long got together as a force for good but suspicions over negative aspects of tribal warfare have left British clubs behindLook out! The ultras are coming. Well, not quite. And definitely not those ones – although it depends on what your definition of an ultra is – but there are moves afoot in Britain to try to adopt a culture of support which often appears to be more misunderstood than Mario Balotelli.Whenever stories about European ultras penetrate British media they invariably come dripping with negative connotations of the fans involved: extreme violence, racist chanting, threats against players and other such depressing accounts that help portray these groups as a repugnant, often entitled, subculture within football. Related:...
Slowly but surely, Germany’s friendliest town is getting back on to the map again, helped by a super-hot striker and a hard-working, tactically astute teamOnly the most prominent 1. FC Köln supporter refused to join in the fun on the stroke of five o’clock on Saturday. Eyewitnesses at the RheinEnergieStadion reliably claimed that Hennes VIII, the four-legged football deity, bleated out a displeased “Määähhh!” as news of a goal from another stadium was read out over the public address system.Bayern Munich had just conceded an equaliser to make it 2-2 away at 10-man Eintracht Frankfurt. Under normal circumstances, that turn of events would have done little to get fans in Cologne excited. But circumstances refuse to be normal this season....
Christian Heidel’s side stumbled upon their good fortune against Borussia Mönchengladbach like a late 80s, new-school hop-hop producer acquiring James Brown’s Funky People compilationThe numbers spoke of another humiliation. They were outpassed (231 to 712), outfought (44% to 56% one-v-ones won), outplayed (28% to 72% possession) in front of their home fans. But Schalke 04 had friends in low places on Sunday night; the most important ally of all, in fact, down there, where it really mattered: on the pitch. “The ball was Schalke’s buddy tonight,” winced Borussia Mönchengladbach’s sporting director, Max Eberl. Related: Borussia Dortmund slip to defeat at Bayer Leverkusen in Bundesliga Continue reading...