[retired_cassiechi]

I was at the Burghausen -Bayern game and it was awesome. The only game in my life i didnt root for Bayern as Burghasuen is my local club and it would have been awesoemt to beat Bayern. Also had a seat 2 metres away from the Bayern bench and could have some words with Hoeness.

[retired_jaydeschizo]

Originally posted by GerdMüller:
I was at the Burghausen -Bayern game and it was awesome. The only game in my life i didnt root for Bayern as Burghasuen is my local club and it would have been awesoemt to beat Bayern. Also had a seat 2 metres away from the Bayern bench and could have some words with Hoeness.

Some words? You should've thrown a bratwurst after him

[retired_jaydeschizo]

Bah, Schalke takes the lead. Hilbert deflects Kobiashvili's shot

[retired_jaydeschizo]

Halftime:Stuttgart-Schalke 0-1

Quite crappy game and Schalke leads- man I hope not that's a trend for the season

[retired_mika318]

The second best English language German football coverage after Orzelek.

Believe the hype: the Bundesliga will be a breeze for Bayern

The big-spending Bavarians mean business this season, meaning that only the race for second place will provide any real lasting suspense.
Raphael Honigstein
August 10, 2007 12:06 PM

The 45th Bundesliga season kicks off tonight when champions Stuttgart take on runners-up Schalke. For at least one prominent Swabian, it's come not one minute too early. One member of the Stuttgart team got so bored by the endless golf sessions and beach holidays during the summer break that he had the club's crest shaved into his hair. Not in the hair on his head. Oh no. Downtown. Full-on photographic evidence of this *****ly commitment was produced in the glossy and in no way homoerotic book called "Shaved! ... Der intimrasierte Mann" (the intimately-shaved man), though the player's head was strategically cut off to protect his anonymity. Stuttgart have so far closed ranks and refused to reveal the identity of this naked Spätzle. This column's money is on Germany's Footballer of the Year Mario Gomez but we won't name any names here.

Yes, German football is sexier than ever, and with the exception of the Leverkusen striker Theofanis Gekas, there's not a mullet in sight. A record 380,000 season-tickets have been sold and shirt sponsors are paying an unprecedented €120m (£81.2m) to the 18 teams. A recent study by business auditors Ernst & Young named the Bundesliga as "the most suspense-packed of the big five leagues" (behind, er, France) and this year's competition is again wide open. The competition for second place, that is.

Don't pay attention to the predictable backlash that's followed two months of incessant hype about the new, £50m-improved Bayern team: last year's fourth-placed finishers were privately described by Uli Hoeness as "the worst in a decade", but with this term Bayern will run away with it. World-class additions such as French winger Franck Ribéry, Italy's World Cup winner Luca Toni and the Germany left-back Marcel Jansen, combined with Miroslav Klose's goals, Hamit Altintop's work-rate and the return of Zé Roberto in a cultured central midfield position have put the Bavarians out of reach before the first ball has even been kicked.

Shockingly, they even seem to have bought an excellent South American, Jose Ernesto Sosa from Estudiantes in Argentina. Millions of Bayernhasser (Bayern haters) will have to find solace in 2006-07 season-review DVDs - without the burden of the Champions League, the big red beast will storm to victory. What's more, they'll actually play very decent football for a change.

Against Third Division Wacker Burghausen in the cup last Monday, when they needed penalties after 120 minutes that had inexplicably finished 1-1 (Bayern had some 40 shots on goal), president Franz Beckenbauer even complained that his side had played too stylishly. "It was like Circus Sarrasani," the Kaiser scoffed. What he really meant was that Bayern, traditionally Germany's most ruthlessly efficient, cynical and calculating team, are in acute danger of turning into Arsenal.

General manager Hoeness has also warned about complacency but must be pleased that his summer prediction - "we'll be so far ahead that the competition will need binoculars to see us" - looks like coming true. He's belatedly realised that it makes more sense to invest Bayern's millions in fresh legs rather than to stash them away in a savings account.

Schalke have taken the exact opposite approach. After years of risky spending they've used the millions from their Russian sponsors Gazprom to consolidate financially, their new signings Ivan Rakitic (Basle), Heiko Westermann (Bielefeld) and Jermaine Jones (Frankfurt) have not sent the collective Royal Blue pulse racing. They'll be solid again but a tad too one-dimensional. Werder, on the other hand, have decided to play an even more intricate passing game and bought Brazilian Carlos Alberto for €8m (£5.4m) from Porto or, to be more precise, from MSI, the reputable investment company behind Carlos Tevez. Boubacar Sanogo, the Ivorian striker who was made a scapegoat by Hamburg fans, has come in to fill Klose's boots and there's a new and promising Serbian defender, Dusko Tosic. Unfortunately, they have been plagued by an injury list of Chelsea-type proportions in pre-season and Torsten Fring's knee injury, in particular, sees them start on the back foot.

The champions have also endured difficult preparations, with their new signings - Ciprian Maric, a Romanian bought from Donetsk, and old Bundesliga favourite Ewerthon (from Zaragoza) - joining late and many big name players suffering niggling injuries. Fragile playmaker Yildiray Bastürk (brought in from Hertha) is supposed to add creativity. Apart from goalkeeper Timo Hildebrand, who left for Valencia, the important players have been kept at the Gottlieb-Daimler stadion. Manager Armin Veh, rightly voted last season's manager of the year, is never the less happy to take on the role of underdog again. "We're comfortable in the shadows," he said.

While Dortmund fans dream of a black-and-yellow renaissance and Bayer Leverkusen are seen as the dark horse by some, there's a bigger chance that Hamburg will return to challenge for a Champions League place. The Northerners have bought smartly: Dutch winger Romeo Castelen was a shrewd signing from Feyenoord and Mohamed Zidan a canny capture from Mainz. Hamburg, then, will be a very different proposition that last season provided Vincent Kompany stays fit at the back.

Elsewhere, Felix Magath, once memorably called "the last dictator in Europe" by Jan Age Fjörtoft, has indeed been given Mugabe-like powers at Wolfsburg. He's brought in 11 new players, talked about winning titles and should at least get some joy from Sergiu Radu and Vlad Munteanu, the two Romanians from Energie Cottbus. Wolves will be much improved - at least in a physical sense - under Magath's strict regime but they're too sheepish at the back. So for this year's real surprise team, look no further than Hannover 96. The squad lacks star quality but manager Dieter Hecking is severely under-rated and poised to work wonders.

At the other end of the scale, new Hertha manager Lucien Favre is said to be close to resigning already. The Swiss championship-winning manager from FC Zurich was lured into the German capital under false pretences - manager Dieter Hoeness told him about the many talented youngsters at the club, but when Favre got to Berlin, he found that most them had been sold, amongst them self-styled "ghetto kid" Kevin-Prince Boateng to Spurs for a frankly ludicrous €8m (£5.4m). Hertha will do well to stay up. Cottbus, Bochum and Rostock will also struggle to avoid the drop.

But those unfortunate enough to get relegated need not fear. They can simply follow the lead of their more successful colleagues and supplement their reduced wages by visiting a barber with a steady hand. "The intimately-shaved man in the Second Bundesliga" would sell like hot cakes. Probably.

There are links within the article to said shaved man but there's no way in hell I'm going to post them in here.

Now come on VfB sort this Schalke lot out

[retired_jaydeschizo]

Khedira equalises :cool:

[retired_jaydeschizo]

Penalty for VfB!

[retired_jaydeschizo]

Pardo with a great penalty! Stauttgart has turned the game around \0/

[retired_jaydeschizo]

Raketic equalises

[retired_jaydeschizo]

FT: Stuttgart-Schalke 2-2

A fair result in the end