April 2012
1 post
Ghost Goals and The Preetz Effect.
Goal line technology
And so it returns. The much maligned debate over goal line technology. The bile riven indignation of an entire week’s headlines as sport proves once again that, despite the best efforts of EA Games, is not as simple as a computer program.
Juan Mata’s goal to put Chelsea 2-0 up in the FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham should perhaps have not been counted. The...
March 2012
2 posts
Kevin the Teenager and the Dangers of Hysteria.
Dortmund’s latest step towards Bayern-dom
The “Meister der Herzen” tag, which Borussia Dortmund have worked so hard to develop, would appear to be in increasing amounts of danger of late. The charm and success of the anti-Bayern are clearly not enough to prevent Lucas Barrios from becoming yet another not quite world class striker from moving East in search of gold reserves, and Kevin...
A Tale of Two Managers: Solbakken and AVB.
A new beginning at FC.
Volker Finke left 1. FC Köln last week “like the three monkeys: I see nothing, I hear nothing, and I say nothing.” A wise decision, perhaps, at a club at which scandal and stories have, for a long time now, been far more important than football.
The former Director of Sport at the Rhein Energie Stadion finally found himself on the losing side of a power struggle with coach...
February 2012
4 posts
A very Bavarian crisis and a flawed Psycho-logy
Stuart Pearce’s claim for the England managership.
Stuart Pearce declared this week that he would love to manage at England at Euro 2012, but would be uncomfortable taking the job on further, due to his being, in his own words, a “lightly raced coach”.
English football then, still labours under the bizarre illusion that if a man’s achievements have not been sufficiently covered by the...
Prima Donnas: The Good is Bad, the Bad is Ugly.
A word to the wise for the Robben-haters.
As the last remnant of the “Bayern Oranje” team which brought Dutch flair (complete with defeat in a major final) to the banks of the Isar, Arjen Robben must surely expect a bit of stick from the German press. The past few weeks may have been one of the Dutchman’s most disappointing since joining FC Bayern in 2009, but the criticism to which he has...
Departure Time: Capello and Stani
The end of the Capello era.
To paraphrase an example of light hearted patriotism from a better man than I, who do you think you are kidding, Mr Capello? If the Italian’s reign as England manager could have ended in a more typically farcical manner, it probably would have had to involve Benny Hill. The man who once stripped John Terry of the captaincy has resigned on moral grounds. Why?...
Forgotten Dreams: The tragic lack of romanticism...
Schalke’s M Word
Listening to some of the stuff that comes out of Gelsenkirchen in the form of media soundbites these days, you’d think they were all a bunch of masochists. Not only is the “M Word” a forbidden profanity, it is also a risible suggestion, according to most of the declarations from Horst Heldt, Huub Stevens and co.
This refusal to get carried away with success is not...
January 2012
10 posts
Guest piece: Drawing the Parallel Lines
The excellent Vampy Archer is our fourth guest writer this month. With another titular homage to a great record from the late seventies, he takes a look at how stats can change some immediate perceptions, and how some highly rated players suffer as a result.
The big-bang explosion of the sport, mainly football, blogosphere in recent past gave the number of platforms where one could read about...
'Appy 'Arry and a Silent Sex Scandal.
The silent Subotic affair.
When Franck Ribéry was involved in an underage sex scandal several years ago, the press kicked up a tremendous storm. The French winger’s career briefly suffered as a result, and he is arguably only now returning to his best form.
When John Terry was discovered to have had an affair with Wayne Bridge’s former partner, it cost him – if only temporarily – the...
Guest Piece: Watching the Defectives
As February draws ominously closer, Denglischer Fussball welcomes another guest contributor in the form of Bundesliga Fanatic founder Gerry Wittmann. A one time follower of the Premier League, and now a staunch devotee of the Bundesliga, Gerry explains why he fell out of love with the ever becapitaled “Best League In The World.”
I’ll admit, right off, that I’m a Bundesliga...
Guest Piece: My Love Affair with Liverpool is...
In the latest in Denglischer Fussball’s series of guest pieces, Bundesliga Fanatic’s Cris Nyari explains how his passion for Liverpool defies the traditional laws of rivalry and has staunchly Germanic roots.
If you were to buy into the traditions of historical rivalries, it would be unheard of to support both a German and an English club. Any dual affiliation or simultaneous...
A chance to rid the world of Terry and the HSV...
The significance of Gary Cahill for England and Chelsea.
It seems to be generally accepted that the arrival of Gary Cahill at Stamford Bridge will herald the relegation of the mishap prone and unforgivably foreign David Luiz. Cahill will link up with Terry, they say, and all Chelsea’s defensive problems will be expelled. Abramovich will start making money again, and all will be back to...
Guest Piece: Poté's Goals and the Hammers'...
Denglischer Fussball’s latest guest contribution sees Jonathan Lines - an expert on East London and East Germany alike - take a look at Dynamo Dresden’s on field prospects and West Ham’s resurgent Academy.
Mickaël Poté’s vision for Dynamo Dresden
It’s their first season back in the second tier of German football in five years, and, on the pitch at least, it’s gone well for...
Transfers and Titi.
A German January.
The rollercoaster has thus far lived up to its billing in the Bundesliga. We are barely ten days into the transfer window, and there are more stories in Germany than there are Lederhosen at Oktoberfest. There have been tears in Munich, sniggers in Dortmund, perplexity at Gladbach. Oh, and, as ever, there has been Felix Magath.
We shall start with Magath, who was a man born to...
Guest piece: Why are United so hated?
In the first installment of Denglischer Fussball’s January guest piece series, lifelong Manchester United fan Jamie Webb takes a look at why his club, despite its fairytale history, is the most hated in England.
‘No one likes us, but we don’t care’. The song belongs to Millwall, of course. For those who may be unfamiliar with the fortunes of a relatively unsuccessful team in South East...
Sami's Dilemma and the Trials of Tribalism.
The importance of Gary Ablett’s death.
The death of Gary Ablett has brought to light once again the irrelevance of football’s tribalism when faced with a stark reality. It is a sentiment which will be repeated time and again over the coming days, but when a player achieves success on both sides of a fierce local derby and still remains loved, it says a lot about the fickle nature of...
It's January!
Dear DF readers,
With only sixteen days to go before Denglischer Fussball turns one, the blog has given itself a small makeover. Have fun exploring.
Changing aesthetics aren’t the half of it, though. Alongside the usual weekly comment post from the author, January will see a selection of guest pieces from esteemed contributors.
Watch this space, enjoy the first few days of the New Year,...
December 2011
4 posts
Frohe Weihnachten, Brothers.
A Christmas Truce.
One World Cup and two World Wars, the English say. They forget that, in footballing terms, the First World War was a victory for Germany. Not only did the non-autocratic government that followed military defeat lead to a growth in popularity for the “English”, working class game of soccer, but even as early as 1914, the Germans were demonstrating their apparently inherent...
Racism and Romance: Luis Suárez and the Pokal.
Those T-Shirts.
“Luis Suárez is not a racist”, says Pepe Reina. His manager, moreover, declares that “nothing is going to split this club in two.” It would seem that the naivete of those on Merseyside knows no bounds.
Reina’s defence of his team mate is hardly surprising. In its own way it is almost appropriate. It chimes with Dalglish’s insistence that the recent racism scandal will...
Subjective Realities and Magathian Principles.
British coverage of the Champions League “disaster”.
Was there ever a more thrilling, heart wrenching epic than The Tragedy of Manchester? How could we bear to watch, as the two most beloved teams in England were hurled so heartlessly from the competition that is their divine right? Adrian Chiles, for one, declared that he might take up watching darts instead, so painful was the...
UEFA: Dastardly draws and curious coefficients.
Germany’s “Group of Death”
Uli Hoeness didn’t seem to think it was a problem. Neither did Franz Beckenbauer. Nor Matthias Sammer, Theo Zwanziger or even Jogi Loew. The general consensus in Germany prior to the Euro 2012 draw, in fact, was that it was utterly irrelevant who the Nationalelf were pitted against in their opening three games. They could beat anyone at all.
As...
November 2011
6 posts
Complacency and Contempt: Goalkeepers and Nasri.
The dangers of Germany’s goalkeeping talent.
FC Bayern have shown over the last few weeks how costly complacency can be. Jupp Heynckes’ side have slipped and tripped their way through a series of games they should have won, suffering blow after blow from their own premature sense of self-congratulation
It is a lesson of which German football as a whole would do well to take heed....
A persecuted Portuguese and Foals 'n' Billy Goats
The pressure on Andre Villas Boas
Poor old Andre Villas Boas. He must have thought Christmas had come early when Mr Abramovich came up on his caller ID in the summer. Instead, he now finds himself the butt of all jokes as English football’s latest incapable foreigner. Last month it was Wenger who had lost the plot. This month it is AVB. Next month, I can guarantee you it will not be Sir...
Spineless Dortmund and Daring Swansea.
What BVB are doing wrong.
The same fixture last season was one of the most thrilling of the whole season. It was the day on which Juergen Klopp’s BVB came of age. Out they came, their yellow shirts gleaming, their confidence unassailable; and with it, their ability to win. The 3-1 victory over FC Bayern at the Allianz Arena was, if not the day they won title, the day that Dortmund proved...
Derring Do and Doubts: International Week Again.
Jogi’s Marvellous Medicine.
Joachim Loew isn’t just a country bumpkin in a cashmere sweater. He’s a revolutionary. He’s one of the greatest political brains of our time. A swirling supernova of black forest yokel charm, who knows no fear in the treacherous field of international management.
My crushes aside, it will be with a certain sense of vindication that the Germany...
The Island Mentality and Dortmund Reborn.
The media reaction to Arsenal v Chelsea.
It was such a terribly English reaction. The country had just watched two if its biggest teams fight out a 5-3 classic in the most exciting game the Premier League has seen for several years, and the conclusion it drew? National disgrace: Defending is becoming a lost art, and football is worse for it.
What rubbish. Of course John Terry’s slip was...
A mini break to the 2. Liga and the new King of...
An update from the Zweite Liga.
We, the faithful disciples, are renowned for our constant assertions of the moral and cultural superiority of the Bundesliga over its European rivals. Perhaps a little too renowned. Look at Gladbach, we cry. Regard the unlikely rise of Mirko Slomka’s Hannover. Revel in the mild and fluctuating misfortunes of Felix Magath’s former champions in Wolfsburg....
October 2011
5 posts
Bad English and The FCB Complex.
Why the appropriacy of the word rape is non-negotiable.
Alan Pardew gets a lot of praise these days, doesn’t he? It’s entirely justified, of course. Once again, Pardew has staked his claim to be one of the country’s under-appreciated elite. First he led lowly West Ham to a first FA Cup Final in twenty six years, and now he has taken Newcastle Utd back to the top end of the...
Goldenballs and Bayern's defence
David Beckham…in Paris?
Whether its for jealousy, snobbery or just plain antipathy, there is always going to be someone who really can’t stand David Beckham. Someone absolutely delighted to tear him apart, limb from underwear selling limb. How anyone can approach the man with anything but mild ambivalence, though, is quite incomprehensible. He is exactly what the modern footballer...
Finking time and Rooney's Red.
HSV’s new manager.
There have been plenty of sneers being hurled Frank Arnesen’s way this week. After the Dane finally succeeded in snapping up his “dream candidate” inThorsten Fink, the cynics were pouncing on his words with unadulterated glee. Dream candidate, they said? Really? After all this talk of van Gaal, Stevens and Olsen, now Arnesen says that Thorsten Fink was his dream...
Patriot's Progress: Problems with the National...
The mindless “Stammspieler” debate.
This week, kicker online ran a short feature in which the reader was able to “play the role” of Bundestrainer Jogi Löw, and select between the manager’s alleged 50/50 dilemmas between certain potential first choice players.
The age old debate of two equally, if differently, accomplished players in the same position, is, as indicated by the...
LvG nostalgia and the valiant Jamie Carragher.
The continued absence of Louis van Gaal.
How cruel Frank Arnesen is. To raise our hopes, only to dash them in the blink of an eye. To lighten our hearts with the radiant glow of optimistic anticipation, only to cut us down with excruciating reality moments later.
I speak of course, of the increasingly infamous Dane’s careless admission that among the leading figures on his big black list of...
September 2011
6 posts
A reply for Mr M. Samuel, and other pettiness.
Martin Samuel’s Bayern bugbear.
The beauty of football, they say, is in its unpredictability. 1999 and all that. Personally I find as much comfort in the endless inevitabilities that our beloved game throws up. Two such inevitabilities have come to the fore in recent days: the first is that, when FC Bayern play an English team in the Premier League, the English press will go to the ends of...
A forgotten hero and a murky resignation.
The tragic tale of Owen Hargreaves.
If there was a buzzword in the England national team at the start of the last decade, it was probably “golden”. While Goldenballs was on his road to redemption, it was the golden boy Owen who wowed the world in Munich, and paved the way for what, according to most British pundits, should have been a golden generation.
After all, if you have one man who can...
The wronged referees of England, and the wrong...
Referee bashing.
I never really held with the “King” nickname when it came to Kenny Dalglish. I appreciate the success, the European Cups, the Liverpool blood in Anfield veins yadda yadda yadda, but “King”? Really?
King is not an uncommon nickname, of course, but most people to whom it is applied have done a bit more to bally well earn it. Elvis revolutionised pop culture, Kevin Keegan wore...
Cooking the Books (or Emails) and Arnesen's woes.
HSV’s poor start.
Frank Arnesen has rarely been placed in the position of village idiot. As a player he was as well respected as any, and even during that hardly halcyon period at Chelsea he commanded his fair share of reverence. The cartoon in kicker this week, however, betrays what is fast becoming a distinctly uncomfortable truth for HSV’s Director of Sport: his relentless...
Joe The Wanderer Cole and sporting rivalries.
Joe Cole’s ambitions at Lille.
It’s a good job Joe Cole decided to undertake his first overseas adventure in the north of France rather than the South. The bottom half of la Patrie is currently chomping ever more excitedly on their foie gras in anticipation of the Rugby World Cup. One rather unassuming attacking midfielder from England would certainly not cause much of a stir.
Even in...
Lahm-gate, Goetze-gate and why we can't hate City.
Phillip Lahm’s literary exploits.
Phillip Lahm’s eyebrows really are incredible, aren’t they? I ask the question because I fear that the issue has become lost in recent days, under a needless storm of public criticism over some book or other. Anyone who has ever set eyes on the Germany captain will be aware that the foremost point in any Lahm discussion should always be his most...
August 2011
5 posts
Thomas "Daley" Mueller and Wenger's pride.
Thomas Mueller’s diving.
There are few things that Thomas Mueller isn’t. He is prolific, technically gifted, intelligent, even attractive in his own gangly sort of way. Any man who can bring nerd chic to the football field, complete with knobbly knees and a conk to rival Dustin Hoffman’s, and still retain any sort of sex appeal, is to be admired.
None of these, however,...
ESPN, MOTD and their dreadful, dreadful...
The BBC’s embarassingly smug football coverage.
And so it returns. The self-proclaimed best league in the world. The self proclaimed most exciting league in the world come to that; and most attractive, most popular and most envied. No superlative is beyond the Premier League’s smug self-appreciation, even when it is based on factual error. Smugness oozes from the its public image as...
Mob Hypocrisy and the Bundesliga Model.
Football’s role in the London riots.
“London’s burning with boredom now”, sang The Clash in 1977. And so may it be this weekend, should London’s Premier League clubs go forward with their plan to postpone their opening fixtures on the back of this week’s rioting. After all, how many of those hooded looters that the BBC has so sternly exposed, and the social networking...
Mainz-bashing and Barton the intellectual.
The Bundesliga’s useless seers.
Oh the Bundesliga. How we who are familiar with its ways adore it. How we miss it in the summer, how we bemoan the lack of robotic Magathisms from Lower Saxony and three-day-stubbled hilarity from Dortmund. How we are all anticipating the first kick of the season at Westfalen Stadion this evening, knowing that we have once again a full – save the winter break...
Why Klinsi was right to do it, and Allardyce the...
The heroism of Sam Allardyce.
There are times when you feel that English football has lost it’s way irrevocably; that any shred of reason, consideration and honesty has been shredded from it in a whirlwind of greed filled transfer fees and super injunctions. Thank God, then, for those few soldiers who continue to fight the good fight. Those select few individuals who remain true to their...
July 2011
4 posts
Robbéry's recurring injuries and a very important...
Another injury for Arjen Robben and Franck Ribéry.
Before I launch headfirst into yet another assessment of the redder wealthier half of Munich, I should probably offer a small apology. I should like to attribute the somewhat FC Bayern heavy nature of this blog to the club’s eternally engaging allure; their ability to amaze, disgust and enthral on any given day in any given week. Sadly, I have...
Wenger's petite faiblesse, and the Japanese...
The Cesc Fabregas palaver.
Some perceive the fruitlessness of the last six years’ search for a repletion of the trophy cabinet’s contents as proof that Arsene Wenger is losing the plot somewhat. Others look to his team’s home form, pointing to the disappointing and even embarrassing results against Wolves, West Bromwich Albion and Sunderland during the course of last season,...
Schalke, Bayern and sinister agents.
The crucial differences between FC Schalke 04 and FC Bayern Muenchen.
Should Schalke 04 achieve even half of what FC Bayern do in the coming season, it will be an unprecedented triumph of a campaign. A slightly overly bold statement, perhaps, but judging by the differing transfer policies and expectations of these two “Traditionsklubs”, it is not unjustified. While FCB have flexed their financial...
Carlitos the predictable Argentine and the...
Carlos Tévez’ desire to leave Manchester City.
Poor old Carlos Tévez. He never had much going for him did he? Since he first caught the eyes of thousands of Europeans while representing his country at the 2006 World Cup, Tévez has followed what is perhaps the most bizarre of paths taken by any professional over the last five years – even in the world of that endearingly crazy old nutter the...
June 2011
5 posts
Women's Hour: Germany and England's starts at the...
Germany 2-1 Canada
I said I would write more. Sunday saw the opening of the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and Germany’s performance was predictably efficient. If Silvia Neid’s team are feeling the immense pressure which is being piled upon them by a comfortingly expectant nation, they failed to show it on Sunday evening. Despite a certain lack of surety to their play in the first and last ten...
Germanic Girlpower and the unchanging Abramovich.
The Women’s World Cup in Germany.
The poster advert sums it up quite neatly: “Dritte Plaetze,” it reads “sind was fuer Maenner!”. Third place is for men. A light hearted take on the comparisons frequently made between the Men’s and Women’s games, and one which bears a clear message: women’s football is something to be proud of - particularly if you’re German.
There is, after all, an...
Ballack's exile and the Redknapp Renaissance
A potted and biased history of Michael Ballack.
Rarely can there have been a more ruthless press announcement than that of the DFB this week. With truly Stasi-esque coldness, German football’s governing body informed the nation and the world that national coach Joachim Loew “has no more plans for Ballack”. An era is over - or rather, the age of a captain who spanned two eras is over. Michael...
