It's the Honigsteins 2007!

[Delima]

Gotta love The GUardian's coverage of La Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A!

 

It's the Honigsteins 2007!

 

Our inaugural end-of-season gongs honour the good, the bad and the downright bizarre from the past year in Germany.

 

Raphael HonigsteinJune 5, 2007 11:18 AM

 

The longer the Bundesliga season went on, the stranger it became. Half the league was simultaneously fighting against relegation and for a place in the Intertoto Cup, while the desperately poor champions FC Bayern somehow managed to stay in contention. In the end, Bremen ran out of steam and got distracted by contract negotiations, and Schalke ... well, Schalke were Schalke. So it came that VfB Stuttgart, a team of youngsters, a belittled manager and two unknown Mexicans ran away with it thanks to eight consecutive wins.

 

Down at the other end, Gladbach paid the price for buying 376 rubbish players over the last few years, Aachen suffered from their manager Dieter Hecking's early absconding to Hannover, and Mainz, despite manager Jürgen Klopp's best efforts, couldn't quite turn it around after a terrible first half of the season. Eleven managers lost their jobs, 837 goals were scored (most of them by Theofanis Gekas of Bochum) and 11.8m people showed up. Bis zum nächsten Mal, Freunde.

 

Best player

 

Diego: 13 goals, 100 assists (roughly), a bit of magic and spades of imagination. Oh, and he pissed all over Beckham's parade to score at Wembley the other day.

 

Best XI

 

Manuel Neuer, Clemens Fritz, Fernando Meira, Matthieu Delpierre, Dede, Thomas Hitzlsperger, Pavel Pardo, Bernd Schneider, Diego, Theofanis Gekas, Mario Gomez.

 

Worst player

 

Roque Santa Cruz. Dangerous like a toothless tigress, pacy like a Fiat Punto with flat tyres, strong-willed and powerful like a stoned earthworm.

 

Most muddled analogy

 

"The duplicity of events are amassing" - Franz Beckenbauer on Hamburg's problems.

 

Best way to lose your driving licence

 

1. Claudio Pizarro was stopped by police after attending the Oktoberfest, Munich's annual beer festival.

 

2. Jan Schlaudraff and Aachen team-mate Marius Ebbers crashed Schlaudraff's Porsche into the hard shoulder in February. According to the police, "speeding, aquaplaning and alcohol" were to blame.

 

3. Bielefeld coach Ernst Middendorp celebrated the win against Wolfsburg with a few Chardonnays. A few bottles, that is. He was stopped by police and collapsed on the steering wheel. Tests later showed a blood-alcohol level of 180 millilitres.

 

The Herbert Fandel Award for taking German punctuality to absurd new heights

 

Referee Michael Weiner blew the whistle when poor Miroslav Klose was through on goal against Nürnberg.

 

Best night out

 

"Tonight we will all cry together, then we'll drink something, then we'll swap wives and then we'll cry again" - Mehmet Scholl on celebrating his retirement.

 

The 'Turban' Dieter Hoeneß Award for reckless self-mutilation

 

Thomas Doll. Hamburg's manager appeared with a Band Aid on his forehead after Hamburg's 0-0 draw with Nürnberg in December. "I ran into a door that was sadly only half open," he explained. Runner-up: Mario Gomez (for adding injury to injury), who was so upset about injuring his knee that he punched the first-aid kit really hard. And broke his wrist.

 

Best 'getting it roughly right but still quite wrong' prediction

 

"Santa Claus will not be the Easter Bunny," exclaimed Uli Hoeneß, convinced that "autumn champions" Bremen would be deposed in spring. They were. But not by Bayern.

 

Best backhanded compliment

 

"Credit to them for putting up a fight against a team like us" - Bremen goalkeeper Tim Wiese on beating Bayern 3-1.

 

Best moustache

 

Thomas Schaaf. A monopolist now that jeans-and-tie loudmouth Peter Neururer (Hannover, Hertha, Schalke, Bochum, etc etc) has been finally exposed as the world's most useless manager and can no longer get a job.

 

Best mullet

 

Theofanis Gekas. The Greek striker and leading goalscorer kept it real, old-school style.

 

Best raver's ponytail

 

Leverkusen's Andriy Voronin, not the answer to Liverpool's problems next season.

 

Best Ramones hair

 

Torsten Frings.

 

Best insult

 

"You claim to be a Brazilian?" - Bernd 'Schnix' Schneider (Bayer Leverkusen) to Schalke's Lincoln, who replied with a punch and got banned for five games.

 

Best press conference

 

Klaus Augenthaler's 42-second monologue. The Wolfsburg manager asked himself four short questions, answered curtly and then wandered off. A few weeks later, he got fired.

 

Best forward planning

 

"We now have a team for the next two, three years" - Uli Hoeneß, August 2006.

 

"It's obvious that this team will be completely rebuilt" - Uli Hoeneß, May 2007.

 

Best punditry

 

"Before the start of the season, I bet on Bayern to win the championship. In the winter break, Bremen were my favourites. Now I'm sure Schalke will do it" - Bochum's manager Marcel Koller on May 10 2007.

 

The Stefan 'Stinkefinger' Effenberg award for good public relations

 

Red-carded Timothee Atouba giving irate Hamburg fans the finger on his way out.

 

Best excuse

 

"It was too loud" - Bayern defender Daniel van Buyten on the lack of communication with colleague Lucio after the 3-2 defeat in Dortmund.

 

Most interesting explanation for crap performances

 

"We need more arseholes" - Mark van Bommel after Bayern's 3-0 capitulation in Nürnberg.

 

Most obvious explanation for crap performances

 

"The players have a shit mentality" - Borussia Dortmund's sporting director Michael 'Susi' Zorc.

 

Most unexpected crap performance

 

"We don't come here shitting ourselves. I've had a look before" - Jürgen Klopp, Mainz manager, before his side's 4-0 defeat in Munich.

 

Best sausage-related incident

 

The VIP lounge of second division Offenbach's Bieberer Berg had to be evacuated after a sniffer dog became very interested in a suspect package. In a classic Germanic twist, the box turned out to be full of sausages and a bit of ham.

 

Best non-sausage-related incident

 

Unknown pranksters stole a giant banner from Dortmund's Signal Iduna Park. Fans from Bochum or Schalke were suspected, but there's still no trace.

 

Best ambition

 

"We want to be champions, too. We just don't know in which century" - Thomas von Heesen, Bielefeld manager. He resigned after seven games without a win in February.

 

Best joke

 

"Total domination" - slogan on Schalke's pre-season training shirts.

 

The Pippo Inzaghi award for the most insidious dive

 

Iranian Mehdi Mahdavikia going down against Dortmund like singing bird shot over southern Italy.

 

The Pippo Inzaghi award II for loving your mother, very, very much

 

Halil Altintop (Schalke), on finding a girlfriend now that his cohabiting twin brother Hamit is off to Munich: "No, mum's still there."

 

Most thrilling espionage drama

 

"One day the mole will make a mistake and then we know who he is" - Schalke captain Marcelo Bordon on the ultimately unsuccesful hunt for the tabloid informer in the dressing room. A few days later, Gerald Asamoah, who had gone public with some complaints, broke his leg. And Frank Rost, the only leading player not represented by the shadowy Rogon agency, was surprisingly sold in the winter. Nothing was heard of any moles thereafter. Coincidence?

 

The Vinnie Jones award for homoeroticism in football

 

Stuttgart's Ivorian left-back Arthur Boka, for a perfectly executed "wedding tackle" on Hannover's Arnold Bruggink.

 

Best advice

 

"He has to stop whining and clench his buttocks together" - Dortmund defender Christian Wörns on his Madrid-bound team-mate Christoph Metzelder, who was being booed by his own fans.

 

Deepest defending

 

Energie Cottbus. "We would have had to play all the way to the advertising boards to get behind their defence," said Klaus Allofs, Bremen's sporting director.

 

The Nayim-from-the-halfway-line award for long-range goals

 

Diego. For floating one in from 62 metres against Aachen. No, keeper Nicht wasn't in goal at the time. Beautiful nonetheless.

 

Best form of dissent

 

Willy Sagnol to referee Markus Merk: "Ref, we'll substitute."

 

Merk: "I don't see your sub."

 

Sagnol: "No, we're substituting you."

 

Best fan dissent

 

Fed up with Schalke's lacklustre performances, the long-suffering folk in the Veltinsarena decided to remain silent in the match against Bayern for the first 19 minutes and four seconds (1904 is their founding year). Even when Peter Lövenkrands scored after 13 minutes, there was only a muted response. Six minutes later, the protest was over and the stadium suddenly erupted. Visibly shaken by the deafening noise, Bayern let Levan Kobiashvili immediately add a second in the 20th. The eeriest moment of the season but, like most things Schalke, ultimately futile. Bayern came back to draw 2-2.

 

The Ashley Cole Award for super secretive contract negotiations

 

Miroslav Klose and Werder Bremen had a gentleman's agreement that he could move to a big club abroad. Unfortunately, his young and inexperienced agent couldn't get the phone to ring so in the end the only option was to look south. Klose and Bayern met in a Hannover airport hotel, predictably got caught, but not punished. Even though Klose admitted sitting down with Hitzfeld and Hoeneß, the German FA and league saw no reasons to charge them. They believed Bayern's explanation that the meeting had only taken place for "informational purposes".

 

Most profound analysis

 

"We've rarely lost a game when we kept a clean sheet" - Oliver Kahn.

 

Most appropriate question

 

With Bayern 2-0 down at Schalke after 45 minutes, Felix Magath shouted at his players: "There is no effort and no tactical discipline." Mark van Bommel shouted back: "Tactics? What tactics?"

 

Most unlikely sound-bite from a German manager

 

"Tactics are something for bad players" - Felix Magath.

 

Most bizarre press conference

 

Ex-cocaine addict Christoph Daum, who had just come out of surgery, chose the foyer of a Cologne hospital to declare the he couldn't take on the Köln job. Behind him, patients were shuffling along in their morning gowns with Zimmer frames and drips in their veins. Daum changed his mind a few days later.

 

And finally ... Chelsea's rationale for signing Bayern reject Claudio Pizarro explained

 

"When somebody thinks they should get Shevchenko money, they have to play like Shevchenko" - Bayern vice-president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge on turning down Pizarro's demand of €4.2m salary after tax.

[madras]

na,no one is really gonna read that

[La Parka]

na,no one is really gonna read that

 

Nice read!

[Ritchie]

Best fan dissent

 

Fed up with Schalke's lacklustre performances, the long-suffering folk in the Veltinsarena decided to remain silent in the match against Bayern for the first 19 minutes and four seconds (1904 is their founding year). Even when Peter Lövenkrands scored after 13 minutes, there was only a muted response. Six minutes later, the protest was over and the stadium suddenly erupted. Visibly shaken by the deafening noise, Bayern let Levan Kobiashvili immediately add a second in the 20th. The eeriest moment of the season but, like most things Schalke, ultimately futile. Bayern came back to draw 2-2.

 

This one's great!

 

It's a shame Bayern came back and got a draw, though.

[Delima]

I've been tring to search for the footage on youtube. Saw it once with the speaker off and no ear phone. It is annoying now that I have my earphone but I couldn't find it.

[wacko]

Best fan dissent

 

Fed up with Schalke's lacklustre performances, the long-suffering folk in the Veltinsarena decided to remain silent in the match against Bayern for the first 19 minutes and four seconds (1904 is their founding year). Even when Peter Lövenkrands scored after 13 minutes, there was only a muted response. Six minutes later, the protest was over and the stadium suddenly erupted. Visibly shaken by the deafening noise, Bayern let Levan Kobiashvili immediately add a second in the 20th. The eeriest moment of the season but, like most things Schalke, ultimately futile. Bayern came back to draw 2-2.

 

This one's great!

 

It's a shame Bayern came back and got a draw, though.

Aye, that was cracking. It gets helluva loud in the Nordkurve.

[wacko]

Delima:

 

Here's the clip. Gave me goosebumps.

<Snip. No football clips thanks.>

[Delima]

Wacko what are the tag words?

[Nobby]

DECIBEL RECORD BY FENERBAHCE FANS...

is good

 

as is

FENERBAHCE FANS - THOUSANDS CONFETTI ON AIR!

 

and

FENERBAHCE FANS - WONDERFUL SHOW WITH 30.000 SPARKLERS

[Delima]

Under Löw, Germany could hit the heights again

 

Thanks to the canny tutelage of Jogi Löw, Germany are the best team in Europe right now and well placed to get better.

 

Raphael Honigste

June 7, 2007 4:17 PM

 

On Saturday, exactly one year after Philipp Lahm's sweet curler into the Costa Rican net kicked off a month of frenetic flag-waving, thousands of Germans will don their replica kits, silly hats and black, red and gold scarves again. They will congregate in Munich's tree-lined Leopold Strasse to watch the screening of "Sommermärchen", Sönke Wortmann's award-winning documentary of Germany's World Cup campaign. Franz Beckenbauer will be guest of honour, and he'll witness scenes of jubilation, unashamed patriotism and mass euphoria on a scale that goes far beyond nostalgic indulgence. Somehow, you see, the party never stopped.

 

German football still feels incredibly good about itself, and the national team, in particular, are more popular than anybody can remember. And justifiably so. Jogi Löw's men sit pretty on top of their group, have virtually qualified for Euro 2008 already, and have made it in style (a very laboured 2-1 win over Slovakia last night notwithstanding). With 19 from 21 possible points, they boast the continent's best qualifying record. Admittedly, their group is not the most difficult one, and they have played the mighty San Marino twice, but it's hard to overstate how far this side has come in 12 months.

 

Löw, Jürgen Klinsmann's former assistant, has built on the revolution instigated by his predecessor and transformed Germany's playing style into a workable, more mature system well suited to the unglamorous slog of qualifying. Whereas Klinsmann's football always had something of a sugar-rush about it and was fired by a fanatic fervour to do well in their "own" World Cup, the softly-spoken Swabian has concocted something a lot more refined and sustainable. "He's pulled off the trick of guiding the team into everyday life after the highs of the World Cup, without them suffering a hangover", wrote Berliner Zeitung, admiringly. Like Jose Mourinho and Rafael Benítez, Löw is a huge fan of modern scientific training methods and his stellar results have quickly disarmed tabloid critics who dismissed them all as fads. He's also easily the best-dressed national manager ever. Fact!

 

Beckenbauer, for once, had it right when he recently claimed that Germany's football must be "the best in Europe right now". They play a thoroughly modern pressing and passing game that's totally attack-minded. Crucially, the players always seem to perform a little better for their country than for their clubs. Löw, in other words, gets the maximum out of them and it's no coincidence that Michael Ballack, who's worked with Mourinho, Felix Magath, Ottmar Hitzfeld, Christoph Daum and Otto Rehhagel before, this week called him "the perfect manager".

 

The highlight of Löw's reign has been a very convincing 2-1 away win against the Czech Republic, the team who plunged German football into a deep existentialist crisis when they beat Rudi Völler's side by the same margin in Euro 2004 with only a B team (they had rested of their best players). Völler's resignation paved the way for the Klinsmann shake-up. The ex-Spurs striker was perhaps a little too stubborn and rigorous in his ways - ultimately, a lot of energy was wasted on fighting needless battles against the German football establishment. The much less confrontational Löw, however, has avoided any spats and is universally accepted in a way that Klinsmann never could be.

 

The most surprising aspect of this positive development is the fact that it was achieved despite lots of injuries and the loss of form of a host of key players. Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Lukas Podolski, the devastatingly effective left side of Germany's World Cup team, have been sleepwalking through the season. The latter two didn't feature in this week's easy wins over San Marino and Slovakia because of knee problems but weren't really missed.

 

Ballack, who's also still out with an ankle injury, has, as we know, endured a difficult first year at Chelsea. His midfield lieutenant Torsten Frings distracted himself and Werder with contract negotiations with Juventus, and Miroslav Klose is lost in his own transfer saga. Individually, these players have all done worse after the World Cup, yet the team is playing better than ever. Löw must take great credit for this. The manager has also brought on half a dozen promising youngsters, such as Stuttgart striker Mario Gomez, midfielders Piotr Trochowski (Hamburg) and Roberto Hilbert (Stuttgart) and new Bayern recruit Marcell Jansen. Another batch, including Serdar Tasci and Sami Khedira (both Stuttgart), are waiting in the wings. For the first time in a generation, there is genuine competition for places. The team no longer picks itself.

 

With so much quality on the bench, compensating for the loss of regulars has been remarkably easy. It helps, of course, that there is a coherent system in place, in which new players can fit in without much disruption. It's a striking anachronism in the modern game but true nevertheless: Germany's national team is actually the best team in the country and setting the benchmark when it comes to team development. "Our goal for the new season will be to make improvements on an individual basis. Of course there is work to do on our tactics as well but improving individually is now the target", Löw said on Wednesday.

 

Against Slovakia, the team looked tired and eager to go on holiday. After the summer break England at the new Wembley awaits, the hardest test of Löw's new regime. This match is only a friendly but it could well prove a watershed. When the West Germany of Gunther Netzer, Franz Beckenbauer and Gerd Müller won there 3-1 in 1972 - the performance is still widely seen as the national team's best ever - it heralded a golden age for the national team and the country's club sides.

 

Beating a side chiefly propped up by a MLS player (Delima's comment: How True!) should not be beyond Ballack and co. [/b]To be sure, they haven't won anything yet. But for the first time in nearly ten years they actually look perfectly capable of doing so. For Germany, a country that since the turn of the millennium has become used to mostly being an also-ran, that is a good enough reason to celebrate.

[wacko]

Wacko what are the tag words?

Sorry, I'll have to hunt it down again. Figured it'd be okay to post because it was filmed on a mobile phone. Sorry, Dave.

 

Right, if you search for "stimmungsboykott" (stimmung=atmosphere) you'll come up a winner.