2.Liga restart

The 2.Liga restarted after their winterbreak, and the top clubs had some difficulties, whereas a couple of tail-enders woke up…

2.Liga - Round 20

Dynamo Dresden        -   SpVgg Greuther Fürth   3:1 (1:0)   23,555
SC Paderborn 07       -   1. FC Union Berlin     3:2 (1:1)    7,549
MSV Duisburg          -   FSV Frankfurt          1:2 (0:1)    9,577
Alemannia Aachen      -   FC St. Pauli           2:1 (2:1)   22,752
FC Ingolstadt 04      -   Fortuna Düsseldorf     1:1 (1:1)    6,585
Karlsruher SC         -   Erzgebirge Aue         2:1 (1:1)   11,515
Eintracht Frankfurt   -   Eintracht Braunschweig 2:1 (2:1)   36,200
VfL Bochum            -   Hansa Rostock          2:1 (1:0)   12,819
1860 München          -   Energie Cottbus        2:0 (1:0)   14,600


 1  Fortuna Düsseldorf            20    12   7 	 1    44:21  +23    43
 2  Eintracht Frankfurt (A)       20    12   6 	 2    43:20  +23    42
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 3  SC Paderborn 07               20 	12   6 	 2    32:17  +15    42
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 4  SpVgg Greuther Fürth          20 	12   4 	 4    42:17  +25    40
 5  FC St. Pauli (A)              20 	12   3 	 5    39:23  +16    39
 6  1860 München                  20 	11   2 	 7    42:28  +14    35
 7  1. FC Union Berlin            20 	 9   4 	 7    32:32   0     31
 8  Eintracht Braunschweig (N)    20 	 8   5 	 7    26:24  +2     29
 9  VfL Bochum                    20 	 8   3 	 9    27:30  -3     27
10  Dynamo Dresden (N)            20 	 7   4 	 9    36:35  +1     25
11  Energie Cottbus               20 	 6   5 	 9    20:32  -12    23
12  MSV Duisburg                  20 	 5   5 	10    25:29  -4     20
13  Erzgebirge Aue                20 	 4   7 	 9    17:33  -16    19
14  Alemannia Aachen              20 	 3   9 	 8    19:27  -8     18
15  FSV Frankfurt                 20 	 3   8 	 9    20:37  -17    17
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16  FC Ingolstadt 04              20 	 3   6 	11    22:40  -18    15
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17  Karlsruher SC                 20 	 4   3 	13    21:44  -23    15
18  Hansa Rostock (N)             20 	 1   9 	10    14:32  -18    12

Leaders Düsseldorf seemingly had an easy task at no.16 Ingolstadt, but the Bavarians had shown signs of life prior to winterbreak, and they continued their positive trend. Fortuna was the superior side, but after squanderig some chances to take the lead, they found themselves down a man when Lambertz got his ass tossed with 20 minutes left. Ingolstadt attacked furiously, but were unable to break down the leaders defense.

St.Pauli suffered a worse fate, as they got dumped at struggling Aachen 2-1. Despite a miserable season, Alemannia’s fans remain loyal, and they were rewarded with a hard fought victory.

SpVgg Greuther Fürth also went down in flames. Dresden is fairly tough at home, but no one expected Dynamo to dominate like they did. Greuther was on the defensive for most of the match, getting outplayed from the start. Despite having the leagues tightest defense, they could not stop Dresden’s attack, and deservedly lost.

Paderborn continues their sensational run. Every 2.Liga season, there is a surprise team (last year it was Aue) that contends, and SCP is causing waves. Paderborn jumps into the playoff spot with the 3-2 win over Union Berlin, which is the pinnacle of the club’s history. However this was not easy, as Union Berlin proved to be a very tough opponent. In the end, it was mistakes in Berlin’s back line that led to opportunities that Paderborn ruthlessly converted. Union may not be a promotion threat, but they showed that they’re a solid 2.Liga squad.

Eintracht Frankfurt had a difficult match against Braunschweig, but were able to down the LIons with two goals their best player, captain Alex Meier. The guests had taken an early lead, but Meier headed his goals in the 11th and 22nd minutes to give Frankfurt the lead. Braunschweig fought hard and were constantly dangerous, but pretty much “shot their wad” by halftime. In the 2nd half, the hosts controlled the match, and were able to bring it home without much danger. The win allows Frankfurt to leapfrog Paderborn into 2nd and maintain their goal of immediate re-promotion.

Continuing their disgraceful season, MSV Duisburg got stunned at home by FSV Frankfurt, who may start their usual pattern: furious second half charge to avoid relegation.

Karlsruhe finally got some positive news. New coach Jörn Andersen had lost five matches on the trot, but KSC finally pulled one out. Erzgebirge Aue, who have struggled this year, was beaten 2-1. It wasn’t pretty, although the winning goal was: a combo between Steffen Haas and Hakan Calhanoglu (both assists) was lifted by Haas over the keeper. So KSC actually wakes up and opens the door for saving themselves. A lot of work to be done, and the next few matches will tell whether the “giant” is back. Aue has obviously not been able to surprise folks like last season, and will need to be careful they don’t fall into the relegation zone, as all those struggling clubs have started with signs of life.

Another disappointment has been Bochum, who many expected to contend. Instead VfL has been pretty listless throughout the season. Even worse has been last place Hansa Rostock, the top ex-GDR club not too long ago. Bochum had the lead, but couldn’t press their advantage. Just before the half, they got lucky, as Marek Mintal missed a penalty off a handball. (Bochum’s coach Andreas Bergmann got his ass tossed for protesting too much). In the 2nd half, Rostock improved and deserved the equalizer, perhaps dreaming of a point. However, Bochum brought on their new signing, Georgian striker Nikolz Gelashvili, and he got the winner in his debut. A tough loss for Hansa, who remain mired at the bottom. Not sure if Bochum is ready to make a move though. They weren’t too impressive, and in their last training match before the restart, they were outplayed in scoreless draw with 4th division Wuppertal…

The Monday night match is 1860 hosting Cottbus. 1860 needs a win if they are to have any hope of having a say in promotion…(UPDATE: 1860 wins 2-0 on brace by Benny Lauth…)

WSV is back…sort of

Wuppertaler SV has been back in action since the winterbreak, and so far things at least seem to be moving in the right direction. (Officially, the club is known as “Wuppertaler SV Borussia, but only wankers refer to that name. And you’ll probably only hear club officials using that name, so you can draw your own conclusions…)

Obviously, when you get relegated from the 3.Liga and have fallen back into the 4th division Regionalliga West, the situation is pretty dire. And of course, the campaign so far has to be one of the worst in memory. The squad completely sucked in the first half, and indeed were in potential relegation zone. (But of course, this is a bit Monty-Pythonesque, because there will be no relegation this year. The DFB has decided to reorganize the the Regionalliga, and with all the Südwest clubs getting moved to their own division, basically everybody is assured of staying up.)

Things started looking up when the club fired coach Karsten Hutwelker, who meant well, but was completely unable to motivate the squad. Since then, the club has won a few matches, and indeed as climbed up into a semi-respectable 5th place. However, as you look at the table below, respect is relative…

 Regionalliga West 2011-12

 1  Sportfreunde Lotte	       19   12 	  6    1     39:14  +25     42
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 2  Borussia M'gladbach II     19   11 	  5    3     37:24  +13     38
 3  Eintracht Trier	       20   11 	  4    5     31:17  +14     37 *
 4  1. FC Köln II	       20    8 	  7    5     36:30  +6 	    31
 5  WUPPERTALER SV             20    8    6    6     34:28  +6      30
 6  Borussia Dortmund II       18    8 	  4    6     36:22  +14     28
 7  Fortuna Köln (N)	       20    7 	  6    7     28:32  -4 	    27
 8  1. FSV Mainz 05 II	       21    7 	  5    9     30:27  +3 	    26 *
 9  1. FC Kaiserslautern II    19    6 	  8    5     30:30   0 	    26 *
10  SC Wiedenbrück 2000	       19    7 	  5    7     22:26  -4 	    26
11  SC Verl	  	       19    7 	  3    9     22:25  -3 	    24
12  Rot-Weiss Essen (N)	       20    7 	  3   10     27:34  -7 	    24
13  FC Schalke 04 II	       19    7 	  3    9     25:34  -9 	    24
14  VfL Bochum II	       20    6 	  6    8     24:34  -10     24
15  SV Elversberg	       19    5 	  6    8     19:27  -8 	    21 *
16  SC Idar-Oberstein (N)      19    5 	  5    9     21:37  -16     20 *
17  Fortuna Düsseldorf II      19    3 	 10    6     22:25  -3 	    19
18  Bayer Leverkusen II	       19    3 	  8    8     21:27  -6 	    17
19  TuS Koblenz (A)	       19    1 	 10    8     13:24 -11 	    11 *

* - indicates south-west club

As you can see, WSV has zero chance of getting promoted. Instead that worthless club Lotte is running away with the league. (And you thought I was just referring to the Chiba-Lotte Orions of the Japan Pacific Baseball League. Or the Korean chaebol…). WSV really is just playing out the season, trying not to suck too much. Fat chance…

Since the league restarted last week, many of the matches in the lower divisions have been postponed due to the weather. However, WSV has managed to get their matches played. The opener was a 1-0 win over Fortuna Köln (goal by Moosmayer) at the Zoo-Stadion, with a massive crowd of 1,385 fans. Then today WSV travelled and came away with a 2-1 win over FSV Mainz II. Schlieter and Zieba scored the goals (Hey, even I have never heard of them), so now WSV is on an upward trend…

The current squad is not bad from a 4th division standpoint:

                                             Matches  Goals   Valuation (euros)
Goalkeepers
 (AUT)	Klafflsberger, Martin 	? 	        -       -      ?
	Samulewicz, Sascha 	21.03.1986 	7 	0      150,000
	Semmler, Christoph 	03.03.1980 	10 	0      200,000
        Sube, Bastian 	        09.01.1992 	3 	0       75,000

Defenders
        Fleßers, Robert         11.02.1987      14      1      200,000
        Flottmann, Daniel       06.08.1984      19      1      225,000
        Herzenbruch, Felix      08.08.1992      11      0       50,000
        Lorenz, Stefan          19.09.1981      5       0      175,000
  (BEL) Moosmayer, Tom          01.10.1979      18      4      200,000
        Schlieter, Thomas       28.01.1981      20      3      350,000
        van den Bergh, Lukas    07.09.1988      2       0      100,000
        Zimmermann, Jörn        09.02.1992      9       0       50,000

Midfield
  (JPN) Asaeda, Ken             27.07.1983      14      1      250,000
        Baltes, Benjamin        30.03.1984      11      0      150,000
        Brinkmann, Dennis       22.11.1978      2       0      250,000
  (MOR) El Hammouchi, Rachid    12.09.1981      16      0      125,000
        Hammes, Jan             02.02.1985      -       -       ?
        Landers, Marcel         24.08.1984      19      0      250,000
        Matern, Nico            27.11.1992      1       0       25,000
        Meier, Jan-Steffen      30.05.1992      17      0       50,000
        Weikl, Björn            09.02.1977      -       -      100,000
  (POL) Zieba, Maciej           24.01.1987      15      3       75,000

Attack
        Abelski, Ben            19.09.1982      11      1      150,000
  (ALB) Kastrati, Bekim         25.03.1979      10      1      125,000
        Knappmann, Christian    19.03.1981      20     16      250,000
        Quotschalla, Marco      25.07.1988      2       0      125,000

Overall, according to Transfermarkt, (http://www.transfermarkt.de), the squad is valued around 3.7 million euros, with an average of about 140,000. This puts WSV near the top of the division, clearly under performing.

The only player who has been doing well is forward Christian Knappmann, who leads all the Regionalliga with 16 goals. He’s played most of his career in the 3rd-4th level, scoring 86 times in 264 matches. Perhaps this is his swan song. The best known player is Albanian journeyman Bekim Kastrati, who had a cup of tea with M’gladbach in the Bundesliga 2005/06 and was capped by Albania twice. (Although actually I think he was born in Kosovo). He’s bounced around mostly in the 3rd division, where he’s scored the bulk of his 50 goals (140 matches) in Germany. He was brought in to be the big striker a couple of years ago, but has largely flopped. Experienced defender Tom Schlieter has 80 2.Liga matches with Oberhausen, and Tom Moosmayer a glass of beer at that level too.

 

Bundesliga: Dortmund is new leader!

Borussia Dortmund seizes the top spot, as their rivals stumble a bit. The Neons look serious about defending their title.

Critical relegation battles in Freiburg and Kaiserslautern on Sunday, stay tuned…

BUNDESLIGA, Round 20

1. FC Nürnberg	      -   Borussia Dortmund	0:2 (0:0)    45,572  (Kehl, Barrios)
Hertha BSC Berlin     -   Hannover 96	        0:1 (0:0)    36,997  (Abdellaoue)
FC Schalke 04         -   FSV Mainz 05          1:1 (0:1)    60,557  (Obasi - Zidan)
Bayer Leverkusen      -   VfB Stuttgart	        2:2 (1:1)    28,000  (Kiessling, Rolfes - Schieber, Harnik)
VfL Wolfsburg	      -   Borussia M'gladbach	0:0 (0:0)    30,000
1899 Hoffenheim	      -   FC Augsburg	        2:2 (1:1)    22,500  (Mlapa, Salihovic - Mölders, Langkamp)
Hamburger SV	      -   Bayern München	1:1 (1:0)    57,000  (Sala - Olic)
SC Freiburg	      -   Werder Bremen	        Sunday
1. FC Kaiserslautern  -  1. FC Köln	        Sunday

 1  Borussia Dortmund (M)	20    13   4    3    45:14   +31    43
 2  Bayern München	  	20    13   2    5    47:14   +33    41
 3  FC Schalke 04 (P)	  	20    13   2    5    46:25   +21    41
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 4  Borussia M'gladbach	  	20    12   4    4    31:12   +19    40
 5  Bayer Leverkusen	  	20     8   7    5    28:27   +1     31
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 6  Werder Bremen	  	19     9   4    6    31:32   -1     31
 7  Hannover 96	  	        20     7   9    4    22:24   -2     30
 8  1899 Hoffenheim	  	20     6   6    8    22:24   -2     24
 9  VfL Wolfsburg	  	20     7   3   10    24:36   -12    24
10  VfB Stuttgart	  	20     6   5    9    26:28   -2     23
11  Hamburger SV	  	20     5   8    7    25:34   -9     23
12  1. FSV Mainz 05	  	20     5   7    8    28:34   -6     22
13  1. FC Köln	  	        19     6   3   10    28:40   -12    21
14  1. FC Nürnberg	  	20     6   3   11    19:31   -12    21
15  Hertha BSC Berlin (N)	20     4   8    8    25:31   -6     20
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16  1. FC Kaiserslautern	19     3   9    7    15:23   -8     18
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17  FC Augsburg (N)	  	20     3   8    9    19:33   -14    17
18  SC Freiburg	  	        19     4   4   11    23:42   -19    16

Dortmund opened Friday night with a match against a motivated Nürnberg. Der Club was fairly disciplined in the 1st half, and the Neons couldn’t break things down, despite pressing hard. However, a strike by Sebastian Kehl near half put Dortmund in the drivers seat. In the 2nd period, it was more of the same, and Nürnberg really didn’t have enough to threaten. Lucas Barrios finally got on the scoreboard to wrap things up. The press is ranting and raving how “Barrios is back!”, but really the ball just bounced off him into the net. The Paraguayan has had a rough season since the Copa America injury let Robert Lewandowski take the striker lead. Still, Dortmund decided not to sell him during winter, and certainly an in-form Barrios gives the league something to worry about. A valiant effort by Nürnberg, but they’re just not good enough.

Bayern escaped with a draw against a tough Hamburg squad. This was definitely not the same HSV squad that got their ass ripped 1-5 at home against Dortmund only a couple of weeks ago.  Italian midifielder opened his Bundesliga account with a hammer volley past Bayern’s wanker GK Manuel Neuer. Then an excellently organized defense around Heiko Westermann and a superb GK Pavel Drobny had Bayern frustrated. It was left to former HSV man Ivica Olic to sneak in back door and knife Hamburg late in the match. The final 20 minutes saw both teams press for the win, and Hamburg’s South Korean forward Son should have won it. He was put through, dribbled around Neuer, but went too wide and missed an open net. But Bayern had some decent chances as well. Overall, a well played match and the split of points goes in order.

Schalke had trouble with Mainz. The visitors packed the defense, and Schalke, despite looking nice with flowing play, basically forgot how to play when they got close. Mainz seized the lead and held it until Obasi equalized ater about an hour. Schalke continued to dominate, but the visitors held firm for a good point.

Wolfsburg and Gladbach had a hard fought match with few chances and less technical skill on exhibit. The visitors probably had a couple of better chances, but stealing this one probably would have been unfair.

Hertha definitely laid an egg against Hannover. The Berliners created many chances, but basically blew them all. The 96ers managed to steal all the points with Abdellaoue’s killer instinct and a superb GK Zieler. This is definitely one Hertha should not have lost, so if they get relegated, they can whine about this one…

Leverkusen struggled against Stuttgart, who appear to have a major hangover whenever they play. Lucky for them, the Aspirins were short for the last 30 minutes, as Kadlec got his ass tossed. Harnik scored the 2-2 for Stuttgart 1 minute before the end, and then Molinaro equalized fully – by getting red carded in injury for a ridiculous foul. Neither club can be too happy about this overall sucky performance.

Hoffenheim and Augsburg split the same 2-2 score. Good effort by Augsburg, but the Hoppers are just phoning it in these days. They gave minimun effort, and it’s only because Augsburg is a 2.Liga team that they didn’t embarass themselves. Perhaps they should do the league a favor and disband if they’re only going to go through the motions. For Augsburg, they probably could have won it, but they haven’t figured out how to go for the jugular yet.

Winter Transfer wrap up

Of course it’s way to early to say winners and losers, since who knows how these deals are going to turn out. Obviously, it was VfL Wolfsburg that most folks will be watching. Clearly, the VWs were not on the correct path, and boss Felix Magath is not one to worry about spending other people’s money. In this case, he plunked down 30 million euros, bringing in 8 new players. Probably generating the most interest in Swiss international defender Ricardo Rodriguez (19), who cost 8.5 million. If he’s as good as is claimed, this could be a great move. And of course, Magath is famous for his dog house, and 6 players got their marching orders.

If it weren’t for Wolfsburg, you’d have to say that it was a relatively quiet transfer window. SC Freiburg cashed in on Papiss Demba Cissé, picking up a cool 12 million that will stand them well in next year’s 2.Liga campaign (hehehe). They really had no choice, since he was going to leave. But at least SCF can say they got their money’s worth, since they originally bought him from French side FC Metz for 1.5 million in 2009.

Hoffenheim has been an interesting story. After buying their way into the Bundesliga with Dietmar Hopp’s millions, they’ve really shed all those high priced stars. They’re probably still strong enough to hold on this season, but relegation looks in their future. Schalke seems to have made a good deal, as they picked up Chinedu Obasi on loan for peanuts, and he looked good in his first couple of matches. I imagine that Schalke will purchase him outright from the Hoppers if he continues…as they’ll have to worry about whether they can keep Jefferson Farfan. With Vedad Ibisevic leaving for Stuttgart, the Hoppers have almost none of their big euro players left. One who semi-remains is Brazilian flop Wellington, who got loaned out again, his ninth loan in 5 years. I think Hoffenheim acquired him for 5 million, but he’s hardly ever played for them.

Leverkusen did a bit of good business getting GK Bernd Leno, but he was already on loan to the Aspirins from Stuttgart. Buying him direct meant a nice piece of cash for Stuttgart and a potential GK rivalry at Bayer if Rene Adler recovers from his injury.

Most teams did little, so it will be hard to say if their are winners or losers. Obviously Wolfsburg is the big one. Oddly enough, although many expected some moves, Bayern München actually made no moves at all.