That is not how it works at Bayern. They all want their share and there is no primary outlet. Last season (in all competition) it was Müller and Mandzukic with 26 goals, Robben with 21, Götze and Ribery with 16. But he matches very well into it as he can prepare as well as he can score and he matches very well to the players. You have to see that until now they pretty good complemented each other. And I do not think that this should change. Müller has a superb conversion rate away from home with his shots and averages a goal or assist every 60 minutes there - that works very well with the others that have more fun at home.
That is not how it works at Bayern. They all want their share and there is no primary outlet. Last season (in all competition) it was Müller and Mandzukic with 26 goals, Robben with 21, Götze and Ribery with 16. But he matches very well into it as he can prepare as well as he can score and he matches very well to the players. You have to see that until now they pretty good complemented each other. And I do not think that this should change. Müller has a superb conversion rate away from home with his shots and averages a goal or assist every 60 minutes there - that works very well with the others that have more fun at home.
True, but then again a reason for that could have been because of a lack of a top class striker like Lewa. He definitely fits in perfectly though with his ability to hold up the ball and set others up. I don't think Bayern's goals will be as spread out as before, mind you that's just an opinion not based on very much. Robben and Muller will still probably get around 20 goals though, provided they stay fit.
Will be interesting to see who the main attacking players are for next season though, when all are fit who will be starting. Gotze will want to kick on and push for a starting spot, robben is maybe better then he's ever been at the moment so I think he'll be a key player. Muller as well apparently wanted assurances last season when he was going for a new contract, and he's an excellent player so I think he'll start. With Ribery's injury I wouldn't be too surprised to see him slowly phased out this season really, as good as he is.
What the hell are you talking about?
This was the squad going into the season 2013/2014:
GK: Weidenfeller (Langerak)
LB: Schmelzer (Durm)
CB: Hummels, Subotic (Sokratis, Sarr)
RB: Piszczek (Großkreutz)
DM: Bender (Kehl)
CM: Gündogan (Sahin)
LW: Reus (Aubameyang)
CAM: Mkhitaryan (Ducksch)
RW: Kuba (Hofmann)
CF: Lewandowski (Schieber)
The only real complaint you could have had about this squad was the quality of the striker backup. The vast majority of our offensive players could play multiple positions on roughly the same level including a CM/AM hybrid.
Piszczek was expected to be out for the majority of the first half of the season, so Großkreutz became the starter for that time with Durm being his direct backup. If Durm would be needed for the other flank squad player Kirch would have moved up.
Gündogan´s injury (especially the extend of it) was completely unforseeable. We could only react on this in the winter, which we did with Jojic. Having a highly rated defender talent as Sarr as 4th CB is not the weirdest planning. Did not help that he missed a part of September and the whole October because of an injury slowing down his development and was completely out of rythm when the hammer blow came.
Comparing our injury situation with the one of Schalke does simply not make that much sense, just because they missed a similar number of players. This is not about total numbers. This is about the concentration of the injuries. We had the whole offensive arsenal at out disposal, but our complete devensive part of the team was gone. I don´t understand, how it is so hard to grasp what this does to a team. Replacing single players is one topic, replacing whole systems of players a completely other one.
This becomes less about the sheer quality of the backups and more about the interplay as a whole: coordination, understanding, pressing and organisation. We played devensive systems that did not make a single competive game before in these forms, nearly a dozen different CB pairings over the course of the season.
What made it even worse was that we had nearly no time to develop a decent interplay in training because we played every four days. We struggled immensively vs. the top teams in the league, because our pressing system has fallen apart, but somehow made it through the most difficult group in the CL, which we clearly prioritised at that time. After six, seven horrible weeks we finally caught a break, literally. The Winter break gave Klopp and his coaches the chance to actually train interplay and create a working system in the back. Manuel Friedrich, who had to come in because we basically missed four central defenders (two because of injuries and two because of lack of playing rythm after injuries) could be really integrated into the team, Oliver Kirch and the newcomer Milos Jojic became real assets for them.
We did not suddenly became lucky with injuries in the second part of the season. We still played without at least five starters every single game, but the injuries became more balanced. Kuba was out for the rest of the season, but Piszczek got back to a decent level. Reus missed several weeks, but Hummels returned. Kehl fully recovered from several smaller injuries.
In the end, we recovered nicely because of the before mentioned things, got second in the league pretty comfortably, scared the shit out of the later CL winners and gave Bayern Munich a proper fight in the Cup final.
We certainly had not much luck this season, though. Missing five or six starters at the same time can happen if you are unlucky. Having them all being defenders and central/defensive midfielder is highly unlikely and nothing short of a horror scenario.
We did develop players last season. Durm and Hofmann turned out nicely.
Leonardo Bittencourt had one problem and this was Jonas Hofmann. It was Klopp´s decision to go for the latter because he had a more defined grasp on the system, which set the transfer to Hannover in motion, although it was always clear that the intention is to bring him if he develops well.
Moritz Leitner is a different case. Leitner had over 2000 minutes at Dortmund to leave a lasting positive impression and simply failed to show up most of the time. Leitner does not lack the talent, but the necessary attitude to make it at a club of Dortmund´s calibre IMO and I honestly don´t think he will gain it in time. Leitner´s problem was not the lack of chances. He simply did not take them.
It also does not change the point, which I made earlier. Both would not have changed the problems of Dortmund in the slightest. The offensive was not the problem. We scored 80 goals in the league season, which is a good figure no matter how you twist it. The problems were in the back, which led to a collapse of our pressing, which is essential for the way we play. With that the two would not have been a help at all. Just bodies for the bench, which is not what they need.
Massive deja vu here. We had this exact discussion already a few months ago with the exact same people, right?
True - i apologize. Just getting miffed about all that "we are the oh so poor and small opposite of the big bad Bayern" of one of the biggest clubs in europe. Also that blaming-everyone-but-themselves. Klopps attitude is obviously contagious.
Last edited:
While I agree with that to a certain degree, I still think it's wrong to dismiss Dortmund's extreme injury crisis and blame the club for not being prepared for such an extreme situation. I found it really annoying how Dortmund supporters dismissed our injury problems at the end of the season and in the cup final as well, just like I hate it, when Pep is ridiculed for using Lahm in midfield when he was forced to do it most of the time because of our ridiculous numbers of injuries in CM. Shit happens, in the end I'd say both teams handled their injury crisis overall really well. It just seems that football fans nowadays expect the 3rd and 4th backup for a single position to be a worldclass player as well, which is a bit stupid. If you're that unlucky, you can't expect to replicate record breaking achievements from previous seasons, it's really that simple.
We ARE the smaller club in every apect. Your last annual revenue was 160 Mil. € higher than ours. You spend more than double than us (net spend and this is generous because I assume in this calculation that nothing else happens on your side this Summer and that Lewandowski did not cost money, when there was obviously a signing fee involved) on players over the last 5 years. Your wage bill is higher than ours and Schalke´s put together.
I´m not saying, that you don´t deserve to be on that level, because you do based on the last decades of good work, while we fecked up royally more than a decade ago and got nearly destroyed in the process, but these are the facts. You can try and discuss them away, but they do matter.
You call us one of the biggest clubs in Europe, when this is simply not true. We are a strong, healthy and growing club, the second strongest in Germany but we are nowhere near the top of the food chain. We are neither an European elite club nor have a sugar daddy to back us and throw money at us if needed. If we would belong to either of these two groups, we would not need to replace the next key player for the fourth season in a row. All of them were taken by the elite of European football, because they offered more prestige, more money and higher chances for silver ware. In short: because they were and still are bigger clubs.
It´s hilarious, that you can sign our biggest talent in god knows how long and maybe the best striker in terms of technical skill in the clubs history and I´m not even allowed to acknowledge the obvious difference in size between both clubs.
I also acknowledged your rotten luck in terms of injuries in the CM in the past on here, but there is a little difference between both injury crisises. You still cruised to the league title, while we were out of the title race because of that in December. It showed the sheer quality of your squad and your world class coach, who would not work for your club if it would not have the standing it obviously has.
Like it or not, we are still the underdog compared to you (just like the rest of the league are underdogs to us) and will continue to be so until we might reach at least some kind of equal footing in terms of ressources in the not so near future. You might think that I enjoy being in that role, but I would rather have the comfortable position of Bayern supporters, who don´t need to worry about what potential void is the next which needs to be filled.
Lastly, I would appreaciate if you would tone down the generalisations a bit here. I gave up posting on most German boards, because you could not have a normal discussion with Bayern supporters due to the hardened fronts between both camps. Unless you find former posts of mine, where "I blame everything but ourselves" and never get critical with my own team, this has nothing to do with this debate. I kindly refer to my reactions to the disastrous Hamburg game in the Bundesliga thread, where I went balistic (for my standards anyway) and clearly criticised the attitude and motivation of squad around CL fixtures (not for the first time). Do I think we do a generally very good job right now? Yeah, otherwise we would not be where we are right now, but this does not mean that I view everything as super in terms of Dortmund.
Much truth in that BUT winning the Bundesliga 2 of the last 4 times and the Cup and the Supercup since 2011 is BIG. You are one of the 10 biggest clubs around. Your money isnt soo great(changing fast so) but you had and have a group of winners. And that is worth gold. You are also in a strong position in Germany after Bayern; see Reus transfer and so on.
You arent a much smaller club anymore. And certainly no underog. That is Schalke or Leverkusen, but no club who reached the CL final and quarters the last 2 years and makes big deals with sponsors now.
Have to agree with strongwalker here: Im a bit fed up with that talk too.
Accepted, for the last part. You were undeservedly on the receiving end of my anger at the brand of german football fans that drove *me* away from german language boards
My apologies!For the rest: Yep, BVB are smaller than Bayern. That is still something else than being the underdog. After succeeding twice in a row both domestically as in Europe means that there is cashflow. You guys *can* hold Klopp and Reus and you can attract players like Mykythatrian or Immobile. Such as Schalke can get Huntelaar or Boateng.
If we would apply that logic, every team but Bayern, Real, Barca, Chelsea, United or PSG were "Underdogs".
Fact is, BVB is quite hot stuff and would be attractive to many top players although maybe not those that are the hottest shit on the transfer market, but to the very next batch, and i wouldn't say that makes difference between being and underdog or not.
I also stand by my opinion that BVB *could* have been better prepared for last season. It was the 4th season in a row they were competing for the title and the second after a very long and demanding season, i feel it was forseeable there would be squad issues - ditches in form, injuries. I think it was a risk the management saw and accepted. Because of that, all that blaming of bad luck is a bit hypocritical. There *was* bad luck, but partly the massive effects that had were home made.
Also watching Klopps reactions for a couple of years now, he does have a way of blaming everyone else but himself - referees, etc. I feel a class coach should be above that.
Since ManniKaltz is banned the average quality of Dortmund posters on the Caf is top-notch again. That guy was one bitter and delusional fan, really dragged every single Dortmund or Bayern discussion down to the worst level of German football boards. Wasn't a bad poster on other topics though.Accepted, for the last part. You were undeservedly on the receiving end of my anger at the brand of german football fans that drove *me* away from german language boards
I agree with many things you say, but whenever I read something like that from the Dortmund area (especially from your club boss), I think "Well, with that attitude you never will be..."
Sure, you are smaller than Bayern. Your club obviously likes itself in that position, being the underdog. But eventually you're going to want to attract big names. And who wants to play at a club that still sees himself as a local phenomenon when even big clubs in other European countries have gained massive respect for Dortmund in the past couple of years?
You need to cash in on your youth work soon, otherwise this generation will have as lasting an effect as Ricken had... one CL title without perspective to get more. When do you think Dortmund starts to spend money? Will they continue being stingy like that for long? I still think they're good to reach the quarters if not the semis. I hope that'll be enough money for you to invest next season, you desperately need a blood transfusion soon. It was painful to watch you the last season. And you're still bleeding out... no offense.
Lewa is exactly the kind of player Pep wanted Ibra to be at Barca. Hell of a talent that fits the system like a glove.
Fully expect him to be bayerns best player this season.
Pep's an idiot if he thought Ibra was going to 'fit the system like a glove'.
And, in contrast to Ibra, a top top pro.
Fully expect him to be bayerns best player this season.
He started off the season very well at barca scoring lots of goals and assisting lots too. This was when he was playing in the middle. I remember guillem balague and other journalists at the time calling him the best player in the world (they meant by how well he was performing, not that his best is better than messi and ronaldos best) and at the time I did not disagree. It started to go downhill for him when messi got moved to the middle and he picked up an ankle injury around November. I really think he could have been a great player for them if he was willing to adapt to a new position (although perhaps he simply would not be able to play on the left) and didn't want to be treated exactly the same as messi. From what I saw in those first two or three months for barca and certain moments from 2010 I was impressed and I really think he could have been much better for them if things had been done differently.
I guess you could also say that he was unlucky that barca decided (after a few games in that position in 08/09 too) that the position that ibra was best in was also the position that the best player in the world was the best in and there was always only going to be one winner. For the most part though when ibra was signed, messi played on the right and he also did at the start of 09/10 and I guess that was where pep expected him to play that season with ibra in the middle until messi asked to be played there. I doubt he predicted messi would have asked to have played there in all the matches and in the end with the results that were got from messi playing there I wouldn't call it bad management either.
Last edited:
He is a world class player and probably the only striker I want to see at United. He is exactly what you want from your complete number 9, fantastic link up play and finishing
Yeah, I'm starting to side with bayern supporters on this one. Dortmund don't have the big club mentality needed to be the opposition they should be to bayern(think arsenal to us in late 90's to early 00's). They still believe coming second and CL quarter final places are a good season for them. That's just nonsense as they have a coach who's proven that he's got arguably the most sophisticated set up in all of europe, and gets everything out of his players. However even he doesn't have the mentality nowadays to really challenge bayern(contrast his underdog mentality to the winner mentality of simeone).
They had a good thing going but if they don't sort themselves out its going to reduced to the pages of history. None of the stuff they're doing In the market screams ambition to me. Last season should've showed that sahin and kehl at the very top level are done yet they'll go in the season with one of them as a first 11 player and the other a substitute for a supremely injury prone player.
No amount of injuries should have any top club putting someone like grosskreutz in their attacking 4. Sahin and kehl in midfield, and aubemeyang as a lone striker. There's just too much of a gap in quality between the first 11 and the squad players. They better be willing to raise the wage bill of they harbour any ambitions of winning anything in the next half a decade. Reus played 1 v 11 at the bernabeau, wouldn't be all that suprised If he's plotting a move out of there.
They are smaller than bayern and its clear for all to see. Bayern has 2 of their best players at their club atm but they are still a pretty big club. They have the 10th highest revenue of all europes clubs, and its growing at a steady rate year on year. They can clearly afford to make good big moves that will hold them in good stead. Money isn't everything and they should know that more than everyone. They won the bundesliga title when they were 20th on the same list.
They had a good thing going but if they don't sort themselves out its going to reduced to the pages of history. None of the stuff they're doing In the market screams ambition to me. Last season should've showed that sahin and kehl at the very top level are done yet they'll go in the season with one of them as a first 11 player and the other a substitute for a supremely injury prone player.
No amount of injuries should have any top club putting someone like grosskreutz in their attacking 4. Sahin and kehl in midfield, and aubemeyang as a lone striker. There's just too much of a gap in quality between the first 11 and the squad players. They better be willing to raise the wage bill of they harbour any ambitions of winning anything in the next half a decade. Reus played 1 v 11 at the bernabeau, wouldn't be all that suprised If he's plotting a move out of there.
They are smaller than bayern and its clear for all to see. Bayern has 2 of their best players at their club atm but they are still a pretty big club. They have the 10th highest revenue of all europes clubs, and its growing at a steady rate year on year. They can clearly afford to make good big moves that will hold them in good stead. Money isn't everything and they should know that more than everyone. They won the bundesliga title when they were 20th on the same list.
I don't disagree that his failure there was never guaranteed, but I still don't think he ever fitted the system. What success he had early on was down to his quality, and the quality of the team, but there was always a disconnect between the way they were playing and the goals that he ended up scoring. They were moving into their 'peak tiki-taka' phase, moving away from the individualism of the Deco-Ronaldinho days, and further towards the system that effaced individuality (this before Messi started to become an important exception to that rule) in favour of the system.
Ibra is an individualist. He's one of the most extreme examples. It doesn't suit him to be available for the five yard pass and then return it to, say, Iniesta or Xavi, before moving to a slightly different position, until eventually a channel opens up for a pass beyond the defence. He doesn't want to be getting the ball except where he can really do something with it himself. He doesn't want to be receiving the ball merely for the purpose of moving other players around the pitch a little. He doesn't want to be making a run just to pull a FB out of position so that in three passes time a CB is pulled out of position and three passes later Iniesta slides him through to score. He wants to be receiving the ball with the CB still in position but in such a way that he can beat that CB, or feint to gain a yard on them and blast it into the top corner. That's not selfishness, mind, it's just a style of play.
So while I agree that under the right circumstances he could have made more of a lasting success of his time there, I still think, as I did at the time, that he was never going to be a true fit.
Sorry btw, entirely my fault that we've strayed OT!
Those are good points, good post. Villa was definitely a better fit for them. I still think they could have won the cl and league with ibra but like you said the team would have been much more individualistic than with villa. They also would not have gotten the best out of messi with ibra as he is unable to play out wide like villa can. I guess at the time most people didn't expect that messi would want to move into the centre permanently. At the time It was the position that people associated with him and when they lost to inter people criticised pep for playing him there (unfairly I might add as he played well their for most of the season). The next season messi proved that without a doubt it was a good choice.
Nice strike
I prefer this one.
Couldn't think which thread to post it in, so might as well stick it here.
Plus, she's French, you're French. It was meant to be.
Cheers
Not trying to sound sexist but I'll never understand why women's football don't play with smaller goal posts. Goalkeepers are short and the goals are the same size as the men's game but women's can almost shoot the ball as powerfully and with the same crazy trajectories.
Absolute quality, probably my favourite striker in the world right now outside of utd. Gutted he left Dortmund but looks like he has picked up straight away at Bayern.
Cheers
Not trying to sound sexist but I'll never understand why women's football don't play with smaller goal posts. Goalkeepers are short and the goals are the same size as the men's game but women's can almost shoot the ball as powerfully and with the same crazy trajectories.
Yeah, I've thought that true. Of course, the goals are sized the way they are based on the average male height back when the laws of the game were first drafted. With footballers so much taller these days (especially keepers) you could actually argue that the female keepers are playing in appropriately sized goals and the men's are undersized
I watched some of that match last night and was impressed by the technical and physical qualities of some of the French players, especially one of the two blondes in the clip you posted. Either the number 8 or 10 in that clip showed genuine vision, creativity and technical skill throughout the match. Very impressive.
Yeah but they have periods so they'll be unavailable for the best part of a week every month. hehehehehe
While it's true that Ibra had a great start at Barça (scoring in a jointly held record first 5 league games in a row, I believe) he was struggling, among other things, with his finishing all season though and that is essentially what undid him and caused Bojan (!) to take his spot in the starting line-up... but that only happened near the end of March (and even then wasn't set in stone). Watershed moments were the Almería and Zaragoza away games in the league and the CL semi-final games against Internazionale (in both of which he was subbed off around the hour-mark).
I feel there's also some subtle revisionism going on when it comes to Messi's shift to the centre: I have no doubt that the player would have put Guardiola under considerable pressure to play there, but the way it often seems portrayed is as if the idea was completely floated by Messi himself. Guardiola had already had this transition in mind and you as a RM fan should now that better than most, because it was first "experimented" with in the infamous 6-2. And successfully continued in the CL Final. As far as I'm concerned from that moment on Messi playing centrally was a foregone conclusion. Guardiola did attempt to fit both Ibra and Messi in the beginning (with Messi retaining his RW spot for long stretches of the season in fact) and it did the job, but lacked fluidity and gradually that began to show (esp. in the CL group stage where they were outright poor save for one game). Messi's shift only really became a permanent feature in March 2010 IMO, by which time Ibra's "honeymoon phase" had long passed (he only scored a single league goal in the period January-March).
And now for my next trick I'll flawlessly (*cough*) merge all this Ibra/Messi talk with the actual topic of this thread: 09/10 Ibra was also the least capable version in terms of playmaking (hell, even one of the most individualistic versions of Messi was a more frequent creative influence that season), but overall I'd rate him and Lewandowski as probably the best playmaking forwards/strikers (bar Messi) together with Arsenal-period Van Persie and Luis Suárez (even though he's clearly the least "refined" on a technical level). I'd have included Rooney in this row but that'd be problematic (as his playmaking tends to be a lot more confined to his role/position than with the aforementioned players where you feel more as if it's a natural expression of their skill -- perhaps unjustly? as you could argue similarly for Utd-period Van Persie). Rooney and Suárez probably belong just below those other three I mentioned in this category (Rooney's claim to make it in would likely be his passing range compared to the others and his productivity in terms of assists; Suárez more a question of great vision coupled with fairly average execution). The only "slight" on Lewandowski's playmaking credentials could be his relatively low number of KPs and assists in comparison, but with him joining Bayern those could/should go up considerably.
Lewandowski has scored about four absolute belters in pre-season already.
He's going to score shedloads this season, barring injury.
He's going to score shedloads this season, barring injury.
i remember the summer before RVp was signed or maybe it was that summer there were heavy rumours about us wanting him. Would it be absolutely criminal to suggest he would have been a better long term investment alternative to Robin? although this would probably be based on him joining Juventus over City.
I think we probably would have got him if we could, however I'm led to believe his deal with Bayern was agreed 2 years ago in principle
Not to take anything away from the strike but that's down to poor goalkeeping too.
Does move a bit to be fair to him.
His performance against madrid in that semi final first leg was one of the best one man demolition job I can remember.
Poor defending from Robben there.
I've read a few reports saying he's struggling so far this season. Is this true? I haven't seen any Bayern matches this season and I'm curious, didn't think he would have any issues at all right.
Bayern are "struggling" this season, not just Lewandowski. Struggling is of course relative. They haven't looked as good as they usually are, but it's early days - they'll move through the gears and be unstoppable before long - they played quite well last night I thought.