Bundesliga, DFB Cup, and other Bundesliga business 2014/2015

[PedroMendez]

Back to square one.

The UEFA-country coefficient is eventually the best way to answer this question. It’s not perfect and it doesn’t tell the whole story, but it’s better than any random anecdotal nonsense. In average there is not much between the EPL and the Bundesliga anymore. If you swap Chelsea and Bayern both teams would eventually win more or less the same amount of points per game as they do now. Bayern would be distinct favorite to win the title in the EPL even with Chelsea as competition.

For years I have been laughing at german pundits, journalists and fans, who pretend that the Bundesliga is the best league in the world. Many of their arguments were cringeworthy. Same nonsense comes now more and more from the english media. Both leagues are at least one step behind la liga.

 

[Bob Loblaw]

Chelsea beat Arsenal 6-0 last season in the league for example. There have been countless ridiculous results between top teams in the Premier League in recent years. It's fascinating how many English football fans completely ignore reality and buy into all the stupid clichés about the amazing superiority of the Premier League.

Indeed. It was the same in the "Would Messi/Cristiano score as much in England?" thread. All facts and logic are ignored.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Actually you see plenty of high scoring results and it's not against bottom teams. In the recent past you can see a Manchester City 6 Arsenal 3; Manchester United 8 Arsenal 2; Everton 3 Chelsea 6; Southampton 8 Sunderland 0; West Brom 5 Manchester United 5; Liverpool 5 Arsenal 1; Manchester United 1 Manchester City 6 (sry for this one my United supporter friends ) Things aren´t as linear.

Yes but most of those are at home, and the United loss was playing with 10 men for the second half and conceding 3 goals in injury time trying to chase the game. Yes you will always get some strange results but my point is really the intensity of the PL is not the same as the BL week in week out, if the top teams do not really put an effort in every week they can easily slip up

 

[Balu]

Yes but most of those are at home, and the United loss was playing with 10 men for the second half and conceding 3 goals in injury time trying to chase the game. Yes you will always get some strange results but my point is really the intensity of the PL is not the same as the BL week in week out, if the top teams do not really put an effort in every week they can easily slip up

Someone should tell that to Dortmund. If only they knew how easy it is to beat Bundesliga teams.

 

[Sly]

Yes you will always get some strange results but my point is really the intensity of the PL is not the same as the BL week in week out, if the top teams do not really put an effort in every week they can easily slip up

Well that's case for most top leagues and top teams. In terms of intensity, it's an abstract concept and a matter of opinion. I'd agree that the PL is a more competitive league but in tactical and technical terms i'd give a slight edge to the BL.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

Chelsea beat Arsenal 6-0 last season in the league for example. There have been countless ridiculous results between top teams in the Premier League in recent years. It's fascinating how many English football fans completely ignore reality and buy into all the stupid clichés about the amazing superiority of the Premier League.

Someone should tell that to Dortmund. If only they knew how easy it is to beat Bundesliga teams.

Yes there have been some ridiculous results in the PL, notably involving Arsenal, but if Bayern played with half their "first team" and the rest with fringe players they'd still win the BL, they would find it a lot tougher in the PL. Not saying any team in the PL is necessarily better than Bayern

 

[Bojan11]

In terms of competition and strenght, La Liga wins. You got three teams capable of winning the league. Then decent teams like Sevilla, Valencia and Villarreal.

At the moment there are only two really good teams in England. We still way off that level to be a really good team at the moment.

Bayern with the squad they have would win the EPL. Wouldn't be as dominant, but they would still win it.

And yeah if they were in the premier league they wouldn't be able to buy their Rivals players. But that sort of thing has been happening in leagues like Germany and Italy for ages.

They made an awesome turn around from where they were 5 to 6 years ago. Getting embarassed by Zenit in the Europa league. Then Barca destroying them. There was a period where nobody talked about Bayern or even Madrid as contenders for Europe. It was the Top four English clubs and Barca.

But we'd see how they are in a few years as Schweinsteiger, Lahm, Ribery and Robben are in their 30s. It's going to be hard replacing those players without a drop in quality.

 

[Raoul]

Yes there have been some ridiculous results in the PL, notably involving Arsenal, but if Bayern played with half their "first team" and the rest with fringe players they'd still win the BL, they would find it a lot tougher in the PL. Not saying any team in the PL is necessarily better than Bayern

Agree with this. Apparently, not bowing down to Bayern's eternal greatness by suggesting they would face stiff competition if they were in the Prem is tantamount to not respecting their achievements. They are a fantastic club, but just would not run away with the league in England as they do in Germany.

 

[anchan1989]

Bayern have conceded only 4 goals in the league so far this season, that would never happen in the PL, they conceded 3 in one match against City

AGAIN; we had 10 men and ruled the best PL team in England till fatigue kicked in. And some BIG time players were missing and/or were very unfit.
City didnt do much in München, when we were in full speed.
Its laughable to compare a great first half of a season to ONE game where we kicked Citys butt till they got lucky.
Till the 2:2 that game was a reason to be shocked for every PL fan. Your super City trolled by a team with 10 that didnt even care.

Bayern have had uber-Teams in the past that should have won the lague by 10 points or more. They rarely didn't because they couldn't be arsed playing well against some underdog on a cold November afternoon (and i've sat and watched them do that quite a bit).
This is the main difference to todays team, who does exactly that. They have brought their hunger for wins to a new dimension.

Thing is, neither City nor Chelsea do it any other way. They also bagged 39 points in 16/17 games, against arguably more competitive mid- and lower table teams. Highly doubt Bayern would run away in the EPL, neither would Real. Not much between those four teams.

Please. IF Bayern would have Citys european record for the time between 2011 and 2014 you would call us an average team.
And Chelsea get all this praise but for what? They won nothing in 2014. Yes, the win most games in the PL and they play good football most of the time.(And there are very average games in there too, not few)
But against the big guns Jose is afraid to play openly. He hides behind a very defensive approach. Because he knows that Chelsea cant rule a game like a top top team can.

And a reminder; atm the Bundesliga would overtake the PL in the UEFA ranking when the 2010/11 season is taken off next summer.
But yeah, talk on about a weak Bundesliga and a not special Bayern team.
And I get called fanboy here. Thanks for the Christmas laugh attack.

 

[Sean_RedDevil]

AGAIN; we had 10 men and ruled the best PL team in England till fatigue kicked in. And some BIG time players were missing and/or were very unfit.
City didnt do much in München, when we were in full speed.
Its laughable to compare a great first half of a season to ONE game where we kicked Citys butt till they got lucky.
Till the 2:2 that game was a reason to be shocked for every PL fan. Your super City trolled by a team with 10 that didnt even care.



Please. IF Bayern would have Citys european record for the time between 2011 and 2014 you would call us an average team.
And Chelsea get all this praise but for what? They won nothing in 2014. Yes, the win most games in the PL and they play good football most of the time.(And there are very average games in there too, not few)
But against the big guns Jose is afraid to play openly. He hides behind a very defensive approach. Because he knows that Chelsea cant rule a game like a top top team can.

And a reminder; atm the Bundesliga would overtake the PL in the UEFA ranking when the 2010/11 season is taken off next summer.
But yeah, talk on about a weak Bundesliga and a not special Bayern team.
And I get called fanboy here. Thanks for the Christmas laugh attack.

You deserve a own forum for your bollox

 

[Redo91]

Pretty laughable that people think Bayern would win the PL at a canter like they do in Germany. Completely different ball game. Yes they would be favourites to win the league but they wouldn't be wrapping it up in March/April like they do in Germany. We ran them close last season with Moyes in charge and it took a late winner for them to be beat City at home plus they obviously lost to them away.

 

[anchan1989]

You deserve a own forum for your bollox

And you deserve a free ticket for an argument class. Cant do better then this? Ok...

Back to grown up talk; Dortmund just stated that they got Kevin Kampl. 24, strong performances in Austria AND the EL.
I trust Klopp and Zorc there. He has "very good player in a overlooked league" all around him.

 

[Pyroblazer]

Pretty laughable that people think Bayern would win the PL at a canter like they do in Germany. Completely different ball game. Yes they would be favourites to win the league but they wouldn't be wrapping it up in March/April like they do in Germany. We ran them close last season with Moyes in charge and it took a late winner for them to be beat City at home plus they obviously lost to them away.

We didn't ran them close, we parked the bus and still didn't look any minute like we could beat them and that was at the end of the season, when they lost their form a little bit. Bayern would easily win the PL, I don't know why so many PL supporters are still that ignorant when PL teams look more often than not pretty average in Europe. City is called a great team, but why? They are a joke and I would bet a huge money on Barca outplaying them again. They should be lucky that Bayern didn't care in the second game and that Roma was even worse.

 

[Redo91]

We didn't ran them close, we parked the bus and still didn't look any minute like we could beat them and that was at the end of the season, when they lost their form a little bit. Bayern would easily win the PL, I don't know why so many PL supporters are still that ignorant when PL teams look more often than not pretty average in Europe. City is called a great team, but why? They are a joke and I would bet a huge money on Barca outplaying them again. They should be lucky that Bayern didn't care in the second game and that Roma was even worse.

At one point in the second leg we were going through. It doesn't matter how we did it but considering that I think we did run them close by any definition.

Did I say that they wouldn't win the league? I would fancy them to win it most years but no way would they win it as comfortably as they win the German "league".

Not sure how you can call City a joke. They have plenty of world class players. I think their struggles in Europe are down to mental issues and bad luck with draws.

 

[Nighteyes]

Our worst ever side hammered Leverkusen 9-1 on aggregate and it could easily have been about 15 in the two games.

 

[RORY65]

We didn't ran them close, we parked the bus and still didn't look any minute like we could beat them and that was at the end of the season, when they lost their form a little bit. Bayern would easily win the PL, I don't know why so many PL supporters are still that ignorant when PL teams look more often than not pretty average in Europe. City is called a great team, but why? They are a joke and I would bet a huge money on Barca outplaying them again. They should be lucky that Bayern didn't care in the second game and that Roma was even worse.

Bayern would be clearly the strongest squad in the league, they're the closest to Real Madrid in European football at the moment. However, the likes of Wolfsburg, Leverkusen and Schalke who are the chasing pack are surely not as strong as City, Arsenal and United. It must also surely be helpful to Bayern to not only have fewer league games but slightly inferior challengers (admittedly I have no idea what the feck has happened to Dortmund).

 

[anchan1989]

At one point in the second leg we were going through. It doesn't matter how we did it but considering that I think we did run them close by any definition.

Did I say that they wouldn't win the league? I would fancy them to win it most years but no way would they win it as comfortably as they win the German "league".

Not sure how you can call City a joke. They have plenty of world class players. I think their struggles in Europe are down to mental issues and bad luck with draws.

You were still the English champions. And fully motivated for a CL quarterfinal against the champions! Your best 11 was experienced enough and good enough to create a good defense.
Add to that the situation of a CL quarter when every team plays slower, looks to minimize the risks and you get a "close" tie. We still beat you 4:1 without some of our best players.
Again; taking 1 or 2 games out of context is just silly.
Every top 4 club from Germany and England can run any other team of those leagues close in 1 or 2 games with a bit of luck and so on.

Our worst ever side hammered Leverkusen 9-1 on aggregate and it could easily have been about 15 in the two games.

And you lost 0:2 in Greece and just got through with 3:2. So the Greece league is nearly as strong as the PL now?
Of course not? Bayer was and (perhaps) is a mental weak team. They can play great(hold us to a 1:1 that season) and beat Dortmund and they can s*** themselves.
You, like any football fan, know that 1 or 2 games say not that much about a team, and more so a league.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

AGAIN; we had 10 men and ruled the best PL team in England till fatigue kicked in. And some BIG time players were missing and/or were very unfit.
City didnt do much in München, when we were in full speed.
Its laughable to compare a great first half of a season to ONE game where we kicked Citys butt till they got lucky.
Till the 2:2 that game was a reason to be shocked for every PL fan. Your super City trolled by a team with 10 that didnt even care.

They're not my Super City but don't BL teams get lucky ever? Easy for Bayern to play the league at half throttle and still walk it and concentrate on the CL games, can't do that in the PL

 

[Pyroblazer]

At one point in the second leg we were going through. It doesn't matter how we did it but considering that I think we did run them close by any definition.

Did I say that they wouldn't win the league? I would fancy them to win it most years but no way would they win it as comfortably as they win the German "league".

Not sure how you can call City a joke. They have plenty of world class players. I think their struggles in Europe are down to mental issues and bad luck with draws.

Yeah for like 5 seconds, which just shows me again that there wasn't really a chance at all. Bayern stepped their game up in the last minutes and got comfortable through in the end imo. And it's only one game anyway, I don't know why people always mention one game at any point in a season, where factors like current form or form on a specific day comes in. And Chelsea for me is a step below Bayern and Real and they lost only one game this year. So how can anyone say Bayern couldn't be unbeaten in the PL? Some matchdays ago Chelsea had more points than Bayern in the same amount of games. If they win it by 15 points or 20 points, I don't really care at all, but they would easily win both leagues imo.

And City never impressed me, I don't care about world class players, they are not a good team at all. With their individual class they will be fine over the course of 38 games, but in the deciding games they never looked like a proper team and they are every season the most overrated team in the caf for me. And you can't talk about bad luck when even teams like Ajax or CSKA Moscow make them look like a joke.

Our worst ever side hammered Leverkusen 9-1 on aggregate and it could easily have been about 15 in the two games.

And Schalke finished their group above Arsenal just some time ago, the worst ever Dortmund side was still good enough to finish above Arsenal again. Those comparisons are pretty useless anyway, that game against Leverkusen was a freak result, one of our best games and them playing like a joke.

 

[Nighteyes]

And you lost 0:2 in Greece and just got through with 3:2. So the Greece league is nearly as strong as the PL now?
Of course not? Bayer was and (perhaps) is a mental weak team. They can play great(hold us to a 1:1 that season) and beat Dortmund and they can s*** themselves.
You, like any football fan, know that 1 or 2 games say not that much about a team, and more so a league.

No, it just means we're shit. But even being shit we played Bayer off the park.

 

[Pyroblazer]

Bayern would be clearly the strongest squad in the league, they're the closest to Real Madrid in European football at the moment. However, the likes of Wolfsburg, Leverkusen and Schalke who are the chasing pack are surely not as strong as City, Arsenal and United. It must also surely be helpful to Bayern to not only have fewer league games but slightly inferior challengers (admittedly I have no idea what the feck has happened to Dortmund).

United, Arsenal are obviously the bigger names with more money and more individual class, but right now none of them looks like they will have a easy game against the german counterparts. In the end I don't think there is much between the Top3 leagues, but if you want to call one of them the best, than it's most likely La Liga. People keep praising City, but in the end they often didn't even make the R16 in the CL like Liverpool this year too, that's for example something teams like Leverkusen or Schalke still do on a consistent level, even if they get their smashings here and there.

 

[Balu]

Easy for Bayern to play the league at half throttle and still walk it and concentrate on the CL games, can't do that in the PL

I don't think it works like that. Last season it hurt us a lot that we won the league title so early, the determination in all games dropped a level and we couldn't switch between low intensity games in the league and high intensity games in the CL. It lead to a significant drop in form in all competitions after we secured the league title. We often played strong CL campaigns when we were challenged in the league until the end. It can be an advantage, at least a physical one, but it can just as easily be a huge problem in terms of mentality.

Also the notion that we can reach 90 points in 34 games in the Bundesliga while playing half throttle is plain stupid. We put an incredible amount of workrate in every single game and it's not easy to keep the concentration at such an high level to make our style of play work. It's definitely physically and mentally highly challenging.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

I don't think it works like that. Last season it hurt us a lot that we won the league title so early, the determination in all games dropped a level and we couldn't switch between low intensity games in the league and high intensity games in the CL. It lead to a significant drop in form in all competitions after we secured the league title. We often played strong CL campaigns when we were challenged in the league until the end. It can be an advantage, at least a physical one, but it can just as easily be a huge problem in terms of mentality.

Agree, but playing teams of a similar standard every two or three games in the PL is more demanding physically and mentally -when Bayern know there's no team close to their standard in the BL, where would Schalke Leverkusen etc finish in the PL over a 38 game season, not too high I would estimate

 

[Balu]

Agree, but playing teams of a similar standard every two or three games in the PL is more demanding physically and mentally -when Bayern know there's no team close to their standard in the BL, where would Schalke Leverkusen etc finish in the PL over a 38 game season, not too high I would estimate

What does that mean? Every two or 3 games? Are you telling me that the Premier League has 7-8 teams of a similar standard than Bayern?

 

[Blackwidow]

Agree, but playing teams of a similar standard every two or three games in the PL is more demanding physically and mentally -when Bayern know there's no team close to their standard in the BL, where would Schalke Leverkusen etc finish in the PL over a 38 game season, not too high I would estimate

I give you a little tip - watch the matches. I do not think Pep would have to change his tactics that often if Bayern would just walk the park.

I do not think that the players would have to run their asses off that much if it was that easy...

The CL matches have been easier than a lot of the Bundesliga matches - that says it all...

Yes, at the end Bayern wins. But - no. It is not easy. They are just THAT good.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

[QUOTE="Balu, post: 16871678, member: 56994"

Also the notion that we can reach 90 points in 34 games in the Bundesliga while playing half throttle is plain stupid. We put an incredible amount of workrate in every single game and it's not easy to keep the concentration at such an high level to make our style of play work. It's definitely physically and mentally highly challenging.[/QUOTE]

See you added the last part later with the insult - if a team is far superior to the others of course they can reach 90 points easily - stop kidding yourself

 

[Balu]

See you added the last part later with the insult - if a team is far superior to the others of course they can reach 90 points easily - stop kidding yourself

It wasn't an insult. However it's plain ignorance to say that we play Bundesliga games half throttle. No one who actually watches our games would say such a stupid thing. The workrate we put into basically all our league games puts for example United's or Arsenal's performances in the Premier league to shame.

 

[Paul the Wolf]

I give you a little tip - watch the matches. I do not think Pep would have to change his tactics that often if Bayern would just walk the park.

I do not think that the players would have to run their asses off that much if it was that easy...

The CL matches have been easier than a lot of the Bundesliga matches - that says it all...

Yes, at the end Bayern wins. But - no. It is not easy. They are just THAT good.

I do watch some matches but get bored
Think a few pointers may indicate the quality and competitiveness of the respective leagues

PL supposed to be "below standard" yet 119 players from PL teams played at the WC, 78 from BL teams and 64 from La Liga - did the PL get all the rubbish ones
I don't live in the UK, live in France, which league does everyone watch in France other than Ligue 1 , certainly not the BL, the main French channel, Canal + show 5 PL games every weekend and maybe a 10 minute slot for the BL - or you can catch a BL match on a minor channel

 

[ctp]

http://clubelo.com

You can draw all the lovely conclusions you like from this.

 

[gofelx]

PL supposed to be "below standard" yet 119 players from PL teams played at the WC, 78 from BL teams and 64 from La Liga - did the PL get all the rubbish ones

And what conclusion can we draw from this? And who said the PL is "below standard"? In my opinion most PL "stars" were disappointing in the WC e.g. Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero, Rooney, Hazard, Silva, Costa, Cazorla, Dzeko, Baines, Willian, Fernandinho, Lukaku, Song, Henderson. Can you say the same about the Bundesliga players?

I don't live in the UK, live in France, which league does everyone watch in France other than Ligue 1 , certainly not the BL, the main French channel, Canal + show 5 PL games every weekend and maybe a 10 minute slot for the BL - or you can catch a BL match on a minor channel

That just tells us that the marketing machine "Premier League" is working.

 

[Sammyjunn]

I'm in France currently, and BeinSports doesnt show EPL a bit. I think you have to pay for Canal

 

[justboy68]

Why would we buy the equivalents of Götze and Lewandowski and not just, you know, Götze and Lewandowski? As far as I know, it's not forbidden for English clubs to buy players from the Bundesliga.

The whole discussion is rather absurd, because we won the treble and set the points record in the Bundesliga without signing any player from Dortmund, so the argument we couldn't build an equally great team in a different league makes zero sense. The success at the moment is built on brilliant work in the youth academy and smart signings along with great tactics from the managers, it's not built on weakening our rivals.

Obviously we couldn't win the Premier League with a comparable gap to the 2nd team as we have now, if the best team in the Premier League finishes the season with significantly more points than the 2nd best in the Bundesliga. That's common sense, doesn't mean that we wouldn't be capable of winning the league title relatively easy though. After all, it's an incredibly strong team and surely that's what's most important.

I didn't really make the right argument but what i mean is gotze and lewandoski were star players for your rivals. Buying them has ripped that team apart. You can't dismantle PL rivals in the same way. RVP is the exception that proves the rule in that regard. No one thought there was a chance in hell of it happening. This current Bayern team though would definitely win the league, probably hit the 90 point marker too. On the team building front, you wouldn't have the same monopoly over the national talent that there is for you in the BL. Some will be enticed to United or Chelsea etc whereas in Germany every kid knows the only way to truly 'make it' domestically is to get the Bayern transfer. That pull is so strong it even applied to a star player, teenager of a team who had actually enjoyed trophies in consecutive years, yet he still couldn't wait to get the Bayern gig.

 

[PedroMendez]

the problem with this logic is, that the majority of the squad arent from other bundesliga teams.
Boateng, Bernat, Benatia, Rafinhia, Martinez, Thiago, Ribery, Robben, Alonso, schweinsteiger, lahm, müller, badstuber, alaba, shaqiri, hojbjerg vs. dante, lewandowski, götze, neuer, pizarro, rode.

how is that so much different to what english teams do?

 

[Cassidy]

the problem with this logic is, that the majority of the squad arent from other bundesliga teams.
Boateng, Bernat, Benatia, Rafinhia, Martinez, Thiago, Ribery, Robben, Alonso, schweinsteiger, lahm, müller, badstuber, alaba, shaqiri, hojbjerg vs. dante, lewandowski, götze, neuer, pizarro, rode.

how is that so much different to what english teams do?

Imagine United taking Hazard and Diego Costa from Chelsea, or Yaya and Aguero from City would never happen in a million years thats why its a little different.

 

[gofelx]

Imagine United taking Hazard and Diego Costa from Chelsea, or Yaya and Aguero from City would never happen in a million years thats why its a little different.

Dortmund isn't comparable to Chelsea or City who are able to pay their players 10m + in wages. They are more comparable to Arsenal who constantly lose their best players every year (RVP, Nasri, Song, Fabregas). Alexis will be off in a year or two as well.

 

[Cassidy]

Dortmund isn't comparable to Chelsea or City who are able to pay their players 10m + in wages. They are more comparable to Arsenal who constantly lose their best players every year (RVP, Nasri, Song, Fabregas). Alexis will be off in a year or two as well.

Dortmund won the league 2 years in a row before they lost Gotze? I'm not talking about the wages they're able to pay, and saying that it even highlights the point even more as Arsenal are not direct title rivals to United, Chelsea and City and haven't been for years (no offense to Arsenal fans)
So the point is Bayern we're able to sign the top 2 players from their direct title rivals and thus weaken their main opponents which they would never be likely to ever do if they were playing in the EPL, infact there would be at least 3 other teams who could compete with them from a financial stand point.

 

[Sarni]

See you added the last part later with the insult - if a team is far superior to the others of course they can reach 90 points easily - stop kidding yourself

90 points means winning at least 28 out of 34 league games. Even if your team is far ahead of the rest of the league you cannot possibly say that any side could achieve that 'easily'. It is equivalent of 101 points in Premier League and no club has ever got close to that.

 

[Sean_RedDevil]

The german clubs are busy in winter

Hannover are Stindl's level imo. I don't blame him for the move. But sorry i don't understand this transfer.

 

[PedroMendez]

Dortmund won the league 2 years in a row before they lost Gotze? I'm not talking about the wages they're able to pay, and saying that it even highlights the point even more as Arsenal are not direct title rivals to United, Chelsea and City and haven't been for years (no offense to Arsenal fans)
So the point is Bayern we're able to sign the top 2 players from their direct title rivals and thus weaken their main opponents which they would never be likely to ever do if they were playing in the EPL, infact there would be at least 3 other teams who could compete with them from a financial stand point.

I am not denying that England has three clubs that don’t sell their players to other EPL clubs and Germany has only one clubs who doesn’t need to sell players. Still it’s a ridiculous statement that Bayern was only able to build their team because they monopolized the Bundesliga. It’s obviously wrong. Bayern´s transfer decisions in the last years were remarkable good.

United could have bought at least 5-6 of those players, but they were never in consideration. That’s not a problem of pulling power or unfair advantages but of scouting and decision making.

 

[gofelx]

Hannover are Stindl's level imo. I don't blame him for the move. But sorry i don't understand this transfer.

Stindl is a very good player in my opinion. I first didn't think much of him but ever since he completely destroyed us (Hamburg) last season I paid closer attention to him and he convinced me every single time. Would be a massive loss for Hannover as he's by far their best player.