German Football 21/22 | Gladbach sign Farke

Just out of curiosity, did some research, S04's bond rating has moved up to a stable B-, irrespective of their ability to get promoted again because of "their implementation of cost disciplines" and selling off most of their external assets like their League LEC slot (which side note I didn't know sold for that much holy shit). I guess with the large fanbase they can try and rise funds for the bonds due, but outside of that and promotion (transfers too), they dont really have much left to raise funds with apart from selling off Knappenschmiede?
source: https://creditreform-rating.de/en/r...b-gelsenkirchen-schalke-04-e-v-konzern-4.html
A B- rating is still bad and I am not even sure if you can map Creditreform‘s rating to the „usual“ rating scales from Fitch, Moody‘s, S&P.
 
Its the only information I could gather that was in English, but I agree with the assessment. Its still a junk bond with that rating, but its interesting to see that they were forecasting it to hold steady even without immediate promotion, and while English-language information about the debt in general is relatively scarce, that little nugget surprised me because I was under the impression that no promotion back to Buli was most likely a one way ticket to bankruptcy. All this because I started managing them in FM :lol:
I agree with you and my reply was not meant as a criticism of your post. Changing the outlook definitely is the rating agency not expecting a downgrade.
 
When I meant selling off Knappen, I meant the facilities, not specifically any wonderkids, a la Real some years back. Otherwise, thanks for the info. Interesting reading on their finances.

They already did such a deal once, when the city bought a stake of their stadium, about 10 years ago. And just last year the state secured one of their loans. But Gelsenkirchen has a reputation for basically being the shithole of the West and is heavily indebted itself, so politically it could be a tough sell to give yet more millions to a football club, when so many of their regular citizens are living in poverty and/or suffering from the effects that Covid had on their business.

And in general clubs often like to paint their stadiums and training grounds like some valuable asset to borrow against, but in reality: who would have any use for a huge football stadium or state of the art training ground other than the local football club?
 
I was actually joking. While they obviously still have the capacity to mess things up for themselves, Leverkusen should be the safest bet for third place - at least in theory, because Hoffenheim strike me even less as a consistent team and Union/Freiburg will always bleed draws with their defensive approaches.

I missed the second half of the match, but just looking at the team sheet you can see that Gladbach are in a very dire state and I thought that they actually did quite well to create a fairly even game, even if a bit low quality from both sides, considering what they had to work with.

I see Leipzig getting a top 4 spot unfortunately.
 
I see Leipzig getting a top 4 spot unfortunately.

Sure, it's just three points now and they have the strongest squad among the relevant teams and Andre Silva seems to be scoring fairly regularly again. The only thing counting against them for me is Tedesco.



https://www.kicker.de/huetter-was-die-faelle-ginter-und-zakaria-unterscheidet-886375/artikel

Hütter told the press that the cases of Zakaria and Ginter (both confirmed to leave for free in the summer) are quite different, because Zakaria is "the clearest no 6, while we have several defenders".

What exactly are they smoking in Gladbach? They are seriously pretending that relegating a Germany starter to 5th choice (ironically two of the "better" players gave away a penalty), because 31 year old Tony the mascot Jantschke and Jordan Beyer are in any way better choices? Either they are trying to bully Ginter into a winter move or they are being vindictive over the way he communicated decision to stop negotiations and leave for free. Arguably it already blew up into their faces against Leverkusen and it's a really bad look in general.
 
That being said I never got the fuss about Ginter. He's decent but nowhere near irreplaceable for Gladbach. Neither particularly great in the build up/at passing nor anything special in terms of defending. I wouldn't swap Tapsoba, Tah, Kossounou or Hincapie for him so in Gladbach's stead I wouldn't be too concerned either.
 
That being said I never got the fuss about Ginter. He's decent but nowhere near irreplaceable for Gladbach. Neither particularly great in the build up/at passing nor anything special in terms of defending. I wouldn't swap Tapsoba, Tah, Kossounou or Hincapie for him so in Gladbach's stead I wouldn't be too concerned either.

He's not exactly on the level of Boateng/Hummels in their prime, but he plays like a grown man, who rarely shits the bed. Outside of Leverkusen that's a very valued quality and probably the reason why he is a starter for Germany while someone like Tah struggles to get nominated. And while it's one thing to pick Friedrich and Elvedi over him, Gladbach also sidelined him for Tony Jantschke and Jordan Beyer and got rewarded for it with this record:



Leverkusen actually recorded a fifth of their xG value for the entire season in that match :lol:
 
He's not exactly on the level of Boateng/Hummels in their prime, but he plays like a grown man, who rarely shits the bed. Outside of Leverkusen that's a very valued quality and probably the reason why he is a starter for Germany while someone like Tah struggles to get nominated. And while it's one thing to pick Friedrich and Elvedi over him, Gladbach also sidelined him for Tony Jantschke and Jordan Beyer and got rewarded for it with this record:



Leverkusen actually recorded a fifth of their xG value for the entire season in that match :lol:


Tah has actually been more reliable this season than he used to be the last few years. He's a strange case anyway because he was most consistent when he was young as hell. However, if he maintains his current level, I'd definitely pick him ahead of Ginter. Must admit that I don't watch every Gladbach match but given how streaky they have been this season, I have my doubts that he is as consistent as you suggest. And even if he was, Ginter to me stands a bit for settling for average. And especially in a position in which there's so much talent coming through, that's kind of pointless. I mean, France is probably producing enough strong CBs to feed half the top 5 clubs in the top 5 leagues anyway.
 
Tah has actually been more reliable this season than he used to be the last few years. He's a strange case anyway because he was most consistent when he was young as hell. However, if he maintains his current level, I'd definitely pick him ahead of Ginter. Must admit that I don't watch every Gladbach match but given how streaky they have been this season, I have my doubts that he is as consistent as you suggest. And even if he was, Ginter to me stands a bit for settling for average. And especially in a position in which there's so much talent coming through, that's kind of pointless. I mean, France is probably producing enough strong CBs to feed half the top 5 clubs in the top 5 leagues anyway.

Now that Gladbach is in a collective meltdown I wouldn't necessarily vouch for Ginter's every single performance, but I'd say in general he's quite reliable.

CBs/GKs aren't like other positions anyway: if you do well it's nothing more than expected, but if you make a mistake it's a catastrophe, hence the value of players like Ginter, who are solid all around players and usually don't feck up. Tah for example might have more talent than Ginter and might turn out to be the better player eventually, but how many points will his mistakes and inconsistency have cost Leverkusen by then? And for how long would they get to use him on that level, before he'd want to make the next step. I mean look at Leverkusen's results this season: for all the talent their young players may or may not have at the back the team often seem like they couldn't hold on to a lead if their life depended on it. They have dropped five leads already this year, that's about as much as they usually tally over an entire season. If everyone else wasn't in crisis mode all season, that could easily cost them top four.
 
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Now that Gladbach is in a collective meltdown I wouldn't necessarily vouch for Ginter's every single performance, but I'd say in general he's quite reliable.

CBs/GKs aren't like other positions anyway: if you do well it's nothing more than expected, but if you make a mistake it's a catastrophe, hence the value of players like Ginter, who are solid all around players and usually don't feck up. Tah for example might have more talent than Ginter and might turn out to be the better player eventually, but how many points will his mistakes and inconsistency have cost Leverkusen by then? And for how long would they get to use him on that level, before he'd want to make the next step. I mean look at Leverkusen's results this season: for all the talent their young players may or may not have at the back the team often seem like they couldn't hold on to a lead if their life depended on it. They have dropped five leads already this year, that's about as much as they usually tally over an entire season. If everyone else wasn't in crisis mode all season, that could easily cost them top four.

But that's more a matter of the system. We have almost completely abandoned our previous possession style and even when we're in the lead play very vertical. Often when things go that way this season, most of the players have actually played pretty well and made few mistakes.
 
But that's more a matter of the system. We have almost completely abandoned our previous possession style and even when we're in the lead play very vertical. Often when things go that way this season, most of the players have actually played pretty well and made few mistakes.

Is there a correlation between tactical approach and the ability to defend leads? I mean arguably a lead will force the opposition to concede more space and make your direct play potentially much more effective than when you're trying to fire vertical passes into a low block. Whereas a possession side could potentially find itself struggling when an opponent takes more risk in pressing.
Surprisingly enough the best side at keeping their leads this season is actually Bochum and I wouldn't exactly call them possession hungry either:
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Just as a fun fact: under Roger Schmidt, the connoisseur of chaos, Leverkusen's ppg after leads were: and 2.55, 2.84 (!) and 2.33 (including the Korkut bit)

I also recall some moments, e.g. a certain penalty against Dortmund, that was basically the definition of an inexperienced defender (or Emre Can) or two way too easy goals for Modeste, though I guess admittedly it's mainly Hradecky this year.
 
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Thank you for the info, I was not aware they had already done that. Perhaps a certain neighbor to the east would enjoy purchasing it? ;)
True, I guess Bochum could use those facilities if they establish themselves in the Bundesliga. ;)
 
True, I guess Bochum could use those facilities if they establish themselves in the Bundesliga. ;)

I mean Bochum would have to about double their size by the time Schalke would go bust, but sure, you can take the tram/subway from Bochum central station to the gates of Schalke's stadium without even having to change trains. So in that specific scenario it would actually be somewhat realistic for Bochum to buy a prominent stadium at a discount, rather than build one from scratch themselves :lol:

By the way, I've heard a few times from Schalke fans, that on the sporting side they are actually a bit weary of promotion, because they fear the current squad (a lot of older players, few genuinely promising talents) would just end up being the whipping boys in the top flight and thus be forced to play negative football, rather than build a positive tactical identity for once. Though I'm not they are building much with Grammozis anyway.
 
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I mean Bochum would have to about double their size by the time Schalke would go bust, but sure, you can take the tram/subway from Bochum central station to the gates of Schalke's stadium without even having to change trains. So in that specific scenario it would actually be somewhat realistic for Bochum to buy a prominent stadium at a discount, rather than build one from scratch themselves :lol:
I think we were actually discussing their academy facilities, not the stadium itself?

Anyway, we now proved that there is a possible scenario for @King Kendrick 's idea to become true, and it does not even have to involve the club he was surely thinking about. :lol:
 


HSV vs Cologne could be a genuinely interesting game.
 
Why was that a penalty for Karlsruhe, i thought if the ball bounces off your own body then it's not deemed intentional?
And minutes later Jonas Hector avoids his second yellow despite taking down an opponent, who was running past him into the box :wenger:
 
The stats on Kicker make it look quite dominant by Dortmund. Are they just unlucky to be down at HT?
A goal in the 4th minute is always a bit (un)lucky. St Pauli are simply defending well so far, and Dortmund are dominant but lack ultimately the end result (also due to St Pauli's strong but deep defending).
 
The stats on Kicker make it look quite dominant by Dortmund. Are they just unlucky to be down at HT?

It's unlucky and then it isn't. Dortmund had three good chances by Reus, Hazard and Haaland, you'd expect them to score at least one of them. Witsel scoring an own goal is 50% bad luck and 50% his deteriorated fitness and in general with all his injuries Guerreiro has gone from defensively a bit weak to full blown liability lately, so it's not exactly bad luck, that St. Pauli are causing trouble on his flank.

And St. Pauli also deserve quite a bit of credit for their effort, they are playing like their lives depend on it, their pressing has been relentless so far and the pitch is in a proper "we're playing a cup game against strong opponents" state. ;)
 
Looking at the state of Reus right now is just sad. He's gone down so much in the last 6 months, ended the last season well but his form this season has been poor.
 
The Pirates!!!!

One of the most likeable football clubs in the world :drool:
 
Amazing result for St. Pauli, what an upset. As a Leverkusen supporter it´s kinda infuriating though that Bayern and Dortmund are both gone before the Quarter finals and we can´t capitalise on it because we screwed up ourselves. Huge chance now for the likes of Leipzig, Gladbach, Freiburg and Hoffenheim.
 
I would love to see Freiburg winning DFB Pokal. They and especially Streich would deserve a title.
 
Amazing result for St. Pauli, what an upset. As a Leverkusen supporter it´s kinda infuriating though that Bayern and Dortmund are both gone before the Quarter finals and we can´t capitalise on it because we screwed up ourselves. Huge chance now for the likes of Leipzig, Gladbach, Freiburg and Hoffenheim.
Simply beaten by a better team :wenger:
 
Looking at the state of Reus right now is just sad. He's gone down so much in the last 6 months, ended the last season well but his form this season has been poor.

His season was actually fairly good until the last CL game, it's only in recent games that he's been disappointing.
 
We are in front against Gladbach :drool:

May their crisis continue :cool:
 
We are in front against Gladbach :drool:

May their crisis continue :cool:

2:0...

Would be the fourth team from the 2nd league in the next round if they win... Until now only one team from Bundesliga 1 and that was from a duel with 1st league teams...

I would love Rostock to score, too...

Oh - 50th minute... 3:0
 
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Gladbach 3:0 behind in Hannover. Has to be a new low point for them and I´m wondering how long Hütter ca still survive.
 
Hannover is 12th in Bundesliga 2 and no team has scored less goals then the 15 goals they scored...