Bundesliga 2017/18

What a fecking strike by Sahin with his weaker(!) foot.
 
This Hamburg v. Koln match has descended into madness

Hamburg down to 10 because of a red card... 13 mins of stoppage time... Sorensen (Koln) goes into goal to wrestle the ball away from a guy after he scores in the 8th minute of stoppage... Papadopoulos (Hamburg) then engages in one of the most egregious fakings of an injury caused by an opponent's elbow (an elbow that never happened) that's ever been seen in the history of football... Papadopoulos then gets carded by the Ref who consulted VAR... then Hamburg goes 3-1 up in the 10th minute of stoppage.

Utter madness.
 
Very good performances from Dortmund.

I had my fears regarding Bosz. Not that he isn't a good or aat least decent manager, but that it will take a long time to implement his style. And that would cause at a big club like Dortmund some unrest, especially after the Dembele transfer.

But the team was very willing to learn. And many of the players still know how to move in a pressing system, unlike most teams in the dutch league. Weird, because they invented it. The play with the ball is decent, you see that there is a plan, although not that fancy and a little bit schematically. But he acknowledge this as a problem.

But this little drop in quality with the ball is over compensated by the massive improvement in the defense. A functioning Gegenpressing is against most teams bar Barca, at times Bayern and Napoli a huge weapon to neutralize their efforts and create a massive dominance. That looked different last season, where we conceded many goals after counter attacks.

Even when we played good. Hertha as a good counter attacking team had just 1 chance after a corner. The games last season were quite different.
 
I know they are not often a topic on here, mostly because afaik they are no full blown supporters of them on here, but can someone please explain to me what the feck is going on at Schalke?

Longtime captain, biggest identification figure and one of the few constants Benedikt Höwedes is extremely close to joining Juventus for 15-20 Mil.€ and from everything I´ve heard the initiative came from Schalke. Coach Tedesco and DoF Heidel basically pushed him out the door. Not only was he recently demoted as captain (with Goretzka, who is certain to leave the club next Summer being made vice captain ahead of him) he also fell in the internal pecking order behind gramps Naldo.

Why in the world would you treat a club legend like that and take such a major risk? My two Schalke supporting mates are going completely ballistic over this matter and the moment the results won´t be promising the fans will turn on the officials, fast.

Looking at their unbalanced squad filled with mediocrity, they bascially need to overperform this season or else they are in real danger to become irrelevant for years to come. A look at their contract situations points to a really grim future.

As a rival I probably should feel elated at their implosion but in truth I´m nearly saddened for the wasted potential and the fact that our biggest rival won´t play any role of note in the Bundesliga anymore.
 
Sphaero said:
I know they are not often a topic on here, mostly because afaik they are no full blown supporters of them on here, but can someone please explain to me what the feck is going on at Schalke?
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I'm not a Schalke expert at all, but my guess would be that there's a young, ambitious coach, who fears that a longtime captain would probably question him and his decisions (maybe Höwedes already did?)...and Tedesco obviously gets backed by Heidel - he basically has to, because it was a (unnecessary?) risk to appoint him.
 
Sphaero said:
I know they are not often a topic on here, mostly because afaik they are no full blown supporters of them on here, but can someone please explain to me what the feck is going on at Schalke?
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Schalke just being Schalke? *shrug*. Basically what Zippy said. Heidel's performance so far can be called spotty at best. If Tedesco doesn't deliver big time, it'll be his last season there for sure
 
Sphaero said:
I know they are not often a topic on here, mostly because afaik they are no full blown supporters of them on here, but can someone please explain to me what the feck is going on at Schalke?

Longtime captain, biggest identification figure and one of the few constants Benedikt Höwedes is extremely close to joining Juventus for 15-20 Mil.€ and from everything I´ve heard the initiative came from Schalke. Coach Tedesco and DoF Heidel basically pushed him out the door. Not only was he recently demoted as captain (with Goretzka, who is certain to leave the club next Summer being made vice captain ahead of him) he also fell in the internal pecking order behind gramps Naldo.

Why in the world would you treat a club legend like that and take such a major risk? My two Schalke supporting mates are going completely ballistic over this matter and the moment the results won´t be promising the fans will turn on the officials, fast.

Looking at their unbalanced squad filled with mediocrity, they bascially need to overperform this season or else they are in real danger to become irrelevant for years to come. A look at their contract situations points to a really grim future.

As a rival I probably should feel elated at their implosion but in truth I´m nearly saddened for the wasted potential and the fact that our biggest rival won´t play any role of note in the Bundesliga anymore.
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Weren't they supposed to be on their way up?
 
PedroMendez said:
Höwedes is average and mediocre leader. Schalke are certainly a mess, but höwedes isn't making any difference.
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Just that there is nobody better in that team. Fährmann the goalkeeper is captain now and a guy that will leave next season second - that just is not a better choice.

For me that is just political. A young coach who wants to show who the boss is doing it that way.
Höwedes was in a weaker position lately as he has been injured in the recent two years what was not good for his performances either.
 
Schalke are already doomed imho, they went all-in with their siginings last summer and it failed spectacularly. Now their first XI is mediocre at best, they have almost literally no depth and apparently lack the money to adress it. And what's their outlook? Goretzka and Meyer leaving on a free transfer, the same with Naldo, who is so old by now that you don't really want him to extend his contract anyway. They'll probably have to sell Kehrer as well, since he, too, refuses to extent his contract.

Sure Höwedes isn't the youngest, probably earns a hefty wage and is quite limited/mediocre, but as was already mentioned he is a bit of a club legend to most fans and disposing of him like that only invites trouble for Heidel and Tedesco. The fans won't forget this anytime soon, unless they show some pretty convincing results (spoiler alert: the state of their squad most likely won't allow this) this will keep stewing for the rest of the season until at some point the crowd decides that unceremoniously fecking off their favourite wasn't part of some master plan, then they turn on Tedesco and that will be the end of him and possibly Heidel.
 
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Sphaero said:
I know they are not often a topic on here, mostly because afaik they are no full blown supporters of them on here, but can someone please explain to me what the feck is going on at Schalke?

Longtime captain, biggest identification figure and one of the few constants Benedikt Höwedes is extremely close to joining Juventus for 15-20 Mil.€ and from everything I´ve heard the initiative came from Schalke. Coach Tedesco and DoF Heidel basically pushed him out the door. Not only was he recently demoted as captain (with Goretzka, who is certain to leave the club next Summer being made vice captain ahead of him) he also fell in the internal pecking order behind gramps Naldo.

Why in the world would you treat a club legend like that and take such a major risk? My two Schalke supporting mates are going completely ballistic over this matter and the moment the results won´t be promising the fans will turn on the officials, fast.

Looking at their unbalanced squad filled with mediocrity, they bascially need to overperform this season or else they are in real danger to become irrelevant for years to come. A look at their contract situations points to a really grim future.

As a rival I probably should feel elated at their implosion but in truth I´m nearly saddened for the wasted potential and the fact that our biggest rival won´t play any role of note in the Bundesliga anymore.
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Schalke is fecked.

They have still more than 190m € debts, which cost around 10m € in interest. Their wage Bill is 110 Million by 214m Revenue, which includes international football. The wage bill is far too high for their potential. Playing in the Europa League they barely break even, withou any incoming transfer fees. Schalke needs the CL more than anything else.

And in that context, selling Höwedes is understandable. He is the only valuable aasset, they can sell. Because all the other players (Goretzka, Meier) have the ability to get away with letting the contract running down and still playing a big role in the squad. Mind boggling.

Last season not getting a spot for international football was their Brugge moment. The moment, wen they slowly fade into financial problems. With the huge transfers of Bentaleb, Konoplyanka and Stambouli Schalke made a gamble, which didn't pay off. After this season they will relaise, that it will be a long hard way. Like BVB had to go 12 years ago.

Now i look at theri former DoF different. Heldt was at best a medicre plyer in buying good players. But he was a good seller. And in combination with their good academy he kept them running. I don't know why Heidel lost his competence at Schalke. Maybe it is something in the water? Or is it just their fanbase, which is just crazy.



do.ob said:
Maybe I'm being silly but:

"The one who is happiest about Dembele's transfer is [Wolfgang] Schäuble". Ulrich "convicted tax evader" Hoeneß tries to explain taxes regarding the Dembele deal.

http://sportbild.bild.de/bundesliga...r-millionen-barca-wechsel-53040718.sport.html

It's not like he says anything wrong tbh, I just find it amazing how oblivious he seems to be to the irony of him explaining taxes.
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He just talks nonsense.

The tax rate for profits is 32%. The transfer fee is 105m €. 20 m go to Rennes. Makes 85m € for Dortmund. The player is still in the books with 12m, so this sum is tax free. 73m have now to be taxed, if there were no other amortisation. There is, but we will ignore that to make it simple. In Dortmunds case, the financial crash 12 years ago is still in our books, now for our best, by tax loss carry forward. With that we can reduce our our taxes on profits to 15%. That leaves us with 74m € for Dembele. Without the extras!

With that money we bought Yarmolenko and still have around 40-49m € for investment next year. Maybe we will use some of that money for a contract extension of Marco Reus and Christian Pulisic, or we will buy Julian Brandt for his release clause of 20m €. We will see.

Uli Hoeneß is just a master of what we call in Germany Stammtisch talk.
 
EmmaandSiggi said:
Now i look at theri former DoF different. Heldt was at best a medicre plyer in buying good players. But he was a good seller. And in combination with their good academy he kept them running. I don't know why Heidel lost his competence at Schalke. Maybe it is something in the water? Or is it just their fanbase, which is just crazy.
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Heldt is a destroyer of clubs, yet he always finds a new one to kill. Stuttgart paid for his crap for years selling youngsters prematurely under value. During the Norway game in Stuttgart on one goal the last four touches were all by former Stuttgart players. Almost 1/3 of that Germany squad went through their youth set-up: Leno, Kimmich, Rudiger, Rudy, Khedira, Gomez, Werner. Now it´s Schalke´s time to suffer. Another team with a brilliant academy to pay for/balance out all his mistakes.
 
Werner is class. Such a pace and a cool finish. Lewandowksi replacement in the future i think.
 
My mate, Helmut Eifler keeps me informed of all the goings on in the Bundesliga

He is a Bayern fan, but Manchester United is his favourite team, in England...

We do have a few friendly debates on "Whats App" every weekend....
 
Two changes after 30 minutes due to injuries. The ref changes his decision from a yellow to a red card after consulting the video ref for a disgutsting tackle on Schmelzer.
 
Freiburg will sub on Niederlechner at some point in the second half, and he will then go on to score a sneaky winner.

Or Dortmund opens the gates in the second half and really trashes Freiburg, who knows. :D
 
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