Season Preview 2008/09: Bundesliga

Sasha Gracanin

The German Bundesliga is scheduled to start on the 15th of August. Careful optimism is building and predicting who will try to topple Bayern München, would mean having to consider the whole bunch of 17 remaining teams. It used to be Serie A or La Liga everybody wanted to watch, besides the Premier League, but in recent years the Bundesliga is really competing with the best there is, featuring world class players, interesting and fast offensive football, teams with innovative and diversified game play and the iron clad will of Teutonic trainers forcing their men to new achievements every week. So, who to watch out for this year?

I’ll start with the champs, Bayern München , a team with seemingly all the right players, perhaps the best attacking formation in continental Europe, Luca Toni, Miroslav Klose und Franck Ribery with a little or more help from Podolski, Borowski, Schweinsteiger and Altintop, with Lucio every now and then, as well as Philipp Lahm and I did not even mention van Bommel or Ze Roberto. The only surprise is the goalkeeper. Kahn finally decided it is time to stop playing, not that he was bad in any of his previous outings, but the years were creeping up on him.

Competing to pull on that number one jersey will be Michael Rensing and Hans Jörg Butt. Butt came from Portuguese side Benfica to compete for the top spot. The third goalie is still Thomas Kraft. Although the 24 years old Rensing is lauded as the best Goalkeeper there is, it remains to be seen how good he will be when serious pressure is on his shoulders. The best players are still harbouring injuries, most prominently the German Footballer of the Year 2007/2008 Franck Ribery.

Who are the challengers?

The main challenger should be Schalke 04. The seven times champions from Gelsenkirchen assembled a team that should really be very hard to beat. Kevin Kuranyi, perhaps the most underappreciated talent Germany has, will again this year try and truly shine, Gerald Asamoah was missing his usual lethal scoring ability and much is expected from Jefferson Farfan, newly arrived from PSV Eindhoven. But the team has perhaps their best addition hidden in the midfield. Orlando Engelaar came from FC Twente and is supposed to finally bridge the gap between the defence and the attack. This is one of those teams that could either dominate or disappoint, which it will be, I don’t know.

Werder Bremen is another team that demands respect, and I don’t see why. Klose and Borowski left a huge gap and nobody was brought to fill it in. I doubt that Hugo Almeida will prove to be the goal getter he was supposed to be, Torsten Frings is still good, but can he play alone? Boubacar Sanogo is no Drogba, although he thinks he is, Markus Rosenberg came from Ajax, but did not play like he did there, Aaron Hunt and Martin Harnik are nobodies. Perhaps one of them is a huge talent? I would not waste my money betting on Werder.

Hamburger SV lost Rafael van der Vaart to Real Madrid and Juan Pablo Sorin just ran away, destination unknown. That’s a bad sign. I am afraid this team will be another disappointment. It’s going to be a tough start to Bundesliga life for Dutch coach Martin Jol.

VfB Stuttgart, whose name is actually Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart (club for motion games) should really move up this year, because first of all, they’ve got Lehmann. The Arsenal goalkeeper and the current goalie for the national team is perhaps the best German goalkeeper still playing. A band of really interesting players, like Khalid Boulahrouz, Yildiray Bastürk, Cacau and Mario Gomez, together with the talented, but rather unknown Martin Lanig and the previously troubled but now really dangerous and interesting Czech Jan Simak strongly suggest that this will be the competitor number one for Bayern, my advice is to watch out for these guys.

Felix Magath, a great player in his time, made out of an uninteresting team a strong competitor. VfL Wolfsburg is a team owned by Volkswagen and the good work by Magath made VW open the expense account for plenty of new purchases. No huge names, though, but interesting ones, like the Brazilian Rodrigo Alvim, supposed to be the new Roberto Carlos. But it seems like there is no replacement for Peter Van Der Heyden and Danijel Ljuboja who both left, and Grafite seems lost in the attack. Mahir Saglik, a relative unknown, has arrived and here lies some hope in that he was really shooting goals in the “Regionalliga Nord” having scored a total of 27 times. I understand why he was picked up. Let’s not forget to mention that Diego Benaglio, the Swiss national goalkeeper, is still there, so is Marcelinho. A talented kid to look out for is Alexander Esswein. Just 18 years of age, he seems to have the goal getting capabilities of a Gerd Müller. Magath really has an eye for talents.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen is also a team older than 100 years, like most in the Bundesliga. Last year’s seventh is set to improve this year and the Greek player Theofanis Gekas is set to break his record of 11 goals this year. He is supposed to get help from Renato Augusto, a Brazilian wunderkind, who was supposed to go to Palermo, but he came to Bayer instead. He is regarded as the next Robinho. I am really curious.

Hannover 96, Energie Cottbus and Arminia Bielefeld show no big changes, Borussia Dortmund brought a real star for the defence this year, Patrick Owomoyela, and a future superstar in Felipe Augusto Santana, also in defence, is really a very talented guy, already meant to be the next Naldo. I see no reason why VfL Bochum should matter much this year, apart from not having a single attacker from Germany in their team. They did bring in Marcin Mieciel from PAOK last year, but he did not fulfill expectations.

Karlsruher SC did pretty well last year, given the fact that they came up from the second league. Sebastian Freis has to be mentioned here, as the big German talent, as well as Martin Stoll. Antonio Da Silva changed from Stuttgart to Karlsruhe and should deliver some real power in the midfield. Perhaps he will help Joshua Kennedy, who started with promise earlier this year with four goals in five games.

What to say about Hertha BSC? One of the biggest teams in Germany, from the capital Berlin, is really eager to fight this year. Marko Pantelic, a talented player from Serbia and Raffael, a Brazilian who came to Berlin in mid-season and Bulgarian Valeri Domovciski, together with the young but extremely talented Tunisian Amine Chermiti, have perhaps the most interesting attack of the whole Bundesliga. I can’t wait to see what these kids will do. Together with Raffael, there are five Brazilians in the team, Rodnei, Cicero, Lucio (not that one, he’s still with Bayern) and Kaka (not that Kaka either). Have a look too at Ibrahima Traore, a French 20 year old. He is really someone with an interesting future.

Eintracht Frankfurt has some interesting players, no question about it, like Michael Fink or Christoph Preuss, but watch out for Nikos Lymperopoulos, the Greek star and a real improvement for this team. Hopefully he can work together with Caio, the Brazilian who had trouble with his weight last year and was mostly benched. Caio is really a talented guy and perhaps the next season is the one where he will truly shine.

Left are the three promoted teams, 1899 Hoffenheim, a newbie, and the returnees Borussia Mönchengladbach and 1. FC Köln. The biggest surprise with Hoffenheim was that they managed to bring in Wellington, a 20 year old from Brazil. That is a guy to watch out for, really talented, and probably the cause of many headaches for rival defences this season.

Borussia is bringing a couple of well known players back, like Oliver Neuville, or the French defender Jean Sebastien Jaures. Karim Matmour, a French-Algerian player is the talent to watch, he is supposed to be a very dangerous offensive player. He came from SC Freiburg, from second league, where he was their MVP in every single game.

Wolfgang Overath, also a football great, with trainer Christoph Daum, a well known coaching name from the Bundesliga, are bringing back the “billygoats”, with Petit, the Portuguese midfielder, Andre, the exceptional Brazilian midfielder and furthermore, we get to see Matthias Scherz and Carsten Cullmann again. How Köln will do is anyone’s guess, but it is sure to be a rollercoaster.

Well, what’s in store? We’ve not long to find out. Besides Bayern, there are some really interesting teams, VfB Stuttgart will be strong, Schalke 04 and Wolfsburg will make it interesting, the promoted teams are coming up to stay, Hertha and Karlsruhe will be a bit unstable but dangerous and the others can go either way. This will be definitely an interesting season and we’ll be watching closely.