Hamburger SV - FC Schalke 04 0:1
Karlsruher SC - Werder Bremen 3:3
Hannover 96 - Hertha BSC Berlin 2:2
1. FC Nürnberg - Arminia Bielefeld 2:2
FC Energie Cottbus - FC Hansa Rostock 2:1
VfL Bochum - MSV Duisburg 1:1
Bayern München - VfB Stuttgart 4:1
Bayer Leverkusen - VfL Wolfsburg 2:2
So the german championship seems to be decided by now with Bayern winning comfortably against Stuttgart last Sunday, they now are 12 points ahead of the 2nd place and with only four more games to play they should take the title this year. So a rather boring season is coming to an end, at least when you talk about the top of the table. When you look down to the bottom it's a completely different ballgame. There are still five teams in contention for the three relegation spots and they do everything they can to stay down there. Last weekend Nürnberg looked like they were about to finally leave the cellar of the Bundesliga when they were leading 2-0 against Bielefeld at halftime. Cottbus were 0-1 down against Rostock, Duisburg looked good against Bochum leading 1-0. 45 minutes later the tables had turned and verything was back to take one. This is the only exciting stuff happening in this league at the moment. Funny trivia fact: A few minutes from the final whistle on Saturday all matches expect one (Hamburg vs Schalke) were tied.
In the 2nd division of german football, the 2. Bundesliga, it seems that no team really wants to get promoted. Borussia Mönchengladbach seem to stay out of trouble at the moment, but they only drew this weekend and Hoffenheim seems to ressurect themselves. Cologne plays their usual up-and-down form which noone seem to understand. They play great matches and then a week later they look like a completely different team. If they manage to get promoted they will go down again at the end of that season. Right now it's M'Gladbach, Hoffenheim and Mainz on the three lucky places at the top of the table.
Way down the slope at Verbandsliga level, Fortuna Cologne finally started a winning streak and is now in third place, only behind local rivals Viktoria Cologne and VfL Leverkusen. It seems that all the promotion for the project www.deinfussbalclub.de finally seems to pay off a little bit as the attendance figures have risen slightly over the past few home games. around 1.000 people showed up which is quite a lot for 5th division football in Germany. The president, Klaus Ulonska and Sönke Wortmann, the man who started the project, have been going to lots of events and talkshows lately. They even have a story in THE german football magazine "11 Freunde" this month. And although I really don't know what to make of the whole thing it still feels good that a club like Fortuna is getting a little more attention. Past weekend's game against Hennef was won 2-0 and seemed to have been a lucky win with the second goal scored in added time.So with the excitement gone from the Bundesliga the eyes of german football fans turn elsewhere, to England, for example. Last weekend's clash between Chelsea and Manchester United was an interesting one from the german perspective, since Michael Ballack is that captain of the german national team and the audience doesn't get that many chances to see him play over here. Most of the action takes place on pay-per-view TV so the chances to see him on free TV are limited to the top games in the Premier League. The way he presented himself must have been very reassuring for the german fanbase. He scored twice and looked like the "leader" most people expect him to be during this summer's Euro championship in Switzerland and Austria. The 2-1 victory over ManU brought back some excitement to the English championship. Both teams are now level on points and only the goal difference puts ManU up front at the moment.
And while I had the chance to watch a J-League game I really found it interesting of how the fans in Japan participate in the game. They are singing constantly, something which also happens in baseball. This may sound like they are trying to hard and some people might even say that this is all because of the strange discipline and collective thinking of Asians in general, but just to hear the crowd sing in the match between Urawa Red Diamonds and Consadole Sapporo was very refreshing. Urawa was down quickly, then equalized, got behind again, scored another equalizer and finally went in front in the second half and all the time the crowd was there singing and chanting. So there wasn't any real difference from a european game. There was though with the goalkeepers. Both didn't look good at all so it might be a good idea to get someone like Oliver Kahn to go to Japan. Although he already might have abandoned that idea in favour of staying in Germany.
The level of play was rather decent although I have to admit that I am a bit biased when it comes to japanese football. I really like their way of playing a very fast and technical football, they try to play like Arsenal. Something they can't accomplish, that's true, but it's nice to watch. The level is definetely higher than the one played in the american MLS. The season over there is just getting on the way so it might be a little too early to make predictions. The Reds got off to a lousy start and it seemed they were just continuing from where they left off at the end of last season when the suffered a meltdown losing the championship to Kashima Antlers on the last day of play. But they regrouped and now seem to do just fine. The last goal of the match against Sapporo was a wonderful counterattack with former Frankfurt and Hamburg player Takahara Naohiro laying up the ball for teammate Edmilson (4-2).
No comments:
Post a Comment