I mean.. having watched both teams play against us, it is pretty obvious to say the least which one is better. Bayern outclassed us in every aspect while Dortmund narrowly won, arguably thanks to a little luck with refereeing decisions. Based on those two games, they are closer to us than they are to Bayern.
German Football 21/22 | Gladbach sign Farke
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Ah yes, the Leverkusen index. A well known measure of team strength. Though a lot of people also prefer the Leipzig or Wolfsburg index.
My bad. I'm sure we're in for another exciting title race in the Bundesliga. Dortmund definitely proved to be in terrific form against Ajax
Future looking bright. I'm sure Dortmund is going to replace Haaland and Bellingham as well as they replaced Sancho. Maybe Bayern will even keep Haaland and Wirtz in the Bundesliga so we can continue to enjoy them in Germany. In the end, we all like regional phenomenons, don't we?
How annoying do you want to be on the internet?
@Zehner: "yes!"
@Zehner: "yes!"
I mean going from here:
to there:This also has to do with our four CDMs being out injured, though. Playing Amiri and Demirbay in CM meant the midfield was completely exposed. But yes, hugely impressive display by Bayern. In a way I'm grateful it went that way, at least they killed the illusion that it could become a somewhat exciting title race right at the beginning this year
Is quite an interesting leap and I still don't really see how Leverkusen shitting their pants is in any way connected to Dortmund's season, other than maybe making it easier.My bad. I'm sure we're in for another exciting title race in the Bundesliga. Dortmund definitely proved to be in terrific form against Ajax
Future looking bright. I'm sure Dortmund is going to replace Haaland and Bellingham as well as they replaced Sancho. Maybe Bayern will even keep Haaland and Wirtz in the Bundesliga so we can continue to enjoy them in Germany. In the end, we all like regional phenomenons, don't we?
Sorry to say, but I would suggest that your perennial shitting on Leverkusen in any possible way doesn't really help keeping conversations strong...
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Oh, come on. This silly "debate" was driven as much by me as it was by do.obs obsession with dissing pastic clubs at every given occasion.
Mate. No matter how much you like this Neverkusen narrative, fact of the matter is Bayern presented themselves like an absolute force against us and Dortmund did not. Is this "Leverkusen index" proof that Bayern is better? No, but it is further indication. That match was a demonstration. The BVB is not even close to that level of quality, like it or not, and I highly doubt there will be an exciting title race as long as Nagelsmann remains in Munich.
That aside you're just an absolute pain in the ass sometimes and genuinely annoying.
What happened: a team, which GI (for lack of a better metric) gave a 1% chance at winning the title, fell apart against Bayern.
What I read on here: this settles the leage for good.
Like if someone makes a post about Leipzig tanking under Marsch and Dortmund not being in good shape under Rose either, while Bayern look mostly dominant under Nagelsmann, then fair enough, since we're talking facts accumulated over a longer period of time.
But to to pretend that this one game somehow has a special significance for the season? I mean what if Leverkusen would have won? Would they then be the title favourites? Or Dortmund even, since then they would have done better against Leverkusen then Bayern?
What I read on here: this settles the leage for good.
Like if someone makes a post about Leipzig tanking under Marsch and Dortmund not being in good shape under Rose either, while Bayern look mostly dominant under Nagelsmann, then fair enough, since we're talking facts accumulated over a longer period of time.
But to to pretend that this one game somehow has a special significance for the season? I mean what if Leverkusen would have won? Would they then be the title favourites? Or Dortmund even, since then they would have done better against Leverkusen then Bayern?
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What happened was that the the first placed team lead against the second placed team - both on the same point total by the way - with 5 goals after 37 minutes. That alone is telling but if you also consider that the BVB presented itself on eye level with said second placed team, you can definitely take something out of that.
It's you who makes this about "title chances of Leverkusen" and what not. I didn't even think of that when hitting the reply button. But like it or not, Leverkusen is a top 4, possibly a top 3 team of the league this season and Bayern ripped us apart. If that happened in any other league, you'd think differently. But let's be real, you simply can't maintain even the slightest level of objectivity when it comes to the Bundesliga, let alone the "plastic clubs" you despise.
I think that whole logic, trying to blow up the meaning of one-off games, is pointless. Bayern scored 5 goals within 37 minutes against second placed Leverkusen, so they are going to score even more against poor Fürth, right? Bremer SV achieved the same half time score line as Leverkusen against Bayern, so they are of comparable strength, right? Hoffenheim savaged (then) 6th placed Cologne 5-0, so they are a top four contender, right?
Football doesn't work like that. Whether Bayern beat Leverkusen 1-0 oder 10-0 is largely meaningless by itself 5 minutes after the game, especially since we already knew that Bayern have the strongest team. It's literally 1/34th of what makes up the final table.
And please don't talk about objectivity while pretending that any professional team letting in four goals in seven minutes is just the opposition being that strong.
Pot, meet kettle.
Yeah, I know
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RIP
Are we now at the point that big questions have to be asked about Dortmund's medical team? How is it possible that so many players there have muscle injuries? It's happening all over the squad, at some point it stops being bad luck and looks like there is a deeper issue.
Shoot. What did Haaland do? I enjoy watching that kid-freak
I mean the compressed schedule last season in combination with the EUROs cutting short the summer break and preparation for players and early injuries causing a chain reaction (players get injured -> less rotation options -> fit players have to be overplayed) might play a role, but since other clubs don't seem to have problems remotely close to this scale and since Dortmund changed coaches during the summer, it seems to me that the likeliest explanation for these injuries lies in the training intensity or lack thereof.
Something with his hip muscle.
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Meanwhile in Bundesliga 2 . Schalke winning against Dresden with 3:0 making it 4 in a row with zero Goals conceded. Terrode not even scoring the last 2. Still playing very poorly but the Results are right at the Moment so its hard to sack the Trainer
Its crazy to see 54.000 at a Second Division Game and still almost 10k missing from a real full House.
Its crazy to see 54.000 at a Second Division Game and still almost 10k missing from a real full House.
Only unbeaten team in the league (and best defence) after 9 games? Freiburg. Would anyone have predicted that? 
not realy but Freiburg often starts very strong and then falls off.
Not always, sometimes they butcher the first half of the season and recover in the second... hehe. still they are always fun to watch, Streich does an admirable job given they lose their best players season after season and still maintain their level.
Not only the comparison how both teams faired against Leverkusen of course.
However, Dortmund's showing in Amsterdam wasn't encouraging for people hoping the Bundesliga will have a more exciting title race this year. That performance was actually more embarrassing than Leverkusen against Munich as Ajax isn't on the level of Bayern and Dortmund didn't show any improvement in halftime 2.
Even more worrisome were the words of Rose afterwards. Using Kimmich as a role model won't going down well with Dortmund players and fans. That was very Mourinho like reaction.
To be fair that comparison was not Rose's idea, but Mario Gomez (acting as a pundit) made that comparison. Rose basically only confirmed what Gomez said, and every other answer would have been a lie or a loss of reality. Everyone knows that, even Dortmund fans and players, so I do not think that he gets a lot of problem for simply confirming a truth someone else stated first.
I think it's less about the game in Amsterdam itself and more about the fact that it wasn't just a freak accident, but rather heavily foreshadowed in the previous games. At the moment it's just one point difference, but unless the team's way of playing drastically improves (and that is being made even harder by the injury crisis) it's only a matter of time until Bayern create a significant points gap.
And with Leipzig's American dream turning out to be an American nightmare it's indeed hard to imagine that someone will pose a serious threat to Bayern.
Regarding the Kimmich comparison: I think @stefan92 explained its context rather well.
Also what a drama filled weekend in Bundesliga:
Here we see Max Eberl tell his big city counterpart to shut the feck up:
Then we have Kimmich outing himself as anti vaxx:
And in the background there's a little spat between Cologne and Leverkusen, which apparently started with Cologne's coach saying "I didn't have the feeling that Leverkusen had a home match against Bayern. I don't want to offend anyone, but I saw a lot of Bayern fans jumping up." and "in Leverkusen we would have a home game as well."
which Völler parried with:
"I respect Cologne's performance and I think Steffen Baumgart does a really good job. Which is why I'm surprised that he still seems to be in the brown-nosing phase with their own fans."
After which Baumgart said in an interview that it would be wrong to call Wirtz' switch to Leverkusen (in 2020, long before Baumgart himself took over) "unfortunate circumstance", because he thinks their academy has done a good job over a long time and they had an agreement with Leverkusen and Gladbach that they wouldn't poach each other's talents which "has been cancelled. This shows what kind of business we're in."
Here we see Max Eberl tell his big city counterpart to shut the feck up:
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Then we have Kimmich outing himself as anti vaxx:
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And in the background there's a little spat between Cologne and Leverkusen, which apparently started with Cologne's coach saying "I didn't have the feeling that Leverkusen had a home match against Bayern. I don't want to offend anyone, but I saw a lot of Bayern fans jumping up." and "in Leverkusen we would have a home game as well."
which Völler parried with:
"I respect Cologne's performance and I think Steffen Baumgart does a really good job. Which is why I'm surprised that he still seems to be in the brown-nosing phase with their own fans."
After which Baumgart said in an interview that it would be wrong to call Wirtz' switch to Leverkusen (in 2020, long before Baumgart himself took over) "unfortunate circumstance", because he thinks their academy has done a good job over a long time and they had an agreement with Leverkusen and Gladbach that they wouldn't poach each other's talents which "has been cancelled. This shows what kind of business we're in."
Loving that banter between Cologne and Leverkusen. Good to see some emotion going into a derby
Agreed. Though, like Völler, it seemed a bit transparent to me that Baumgart went after Leverkusen's support (or rather lack thereof) after being with Cologne for five minutes.Loving that banter between Cologne and Leverkusen. Good to see some emotion going into a derby
Agree, that attack is kind of a low hanging fruit in that situation.
I didn't know this but it explains the matter. Actually couldn't believe Rose would have been so stupid to say something like this.
Living in the Philippines I can't watch the matches on Amazon prime, this has to rely on the press articles.
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That's quick!
They started rather well into the season, but it's been eight games without a win now. I think too many clubs persist with coaches, who clearly have no long term future, just for the sake of optics. It clearly wasn't yielding results in the short term and if they realized that he is losing the team or out of his depth at this level, then it's actually good to act early.
To be honest everyone expected it to be a mistake hiring van Bommel. But still it is the right decision to fix that mistake quickly.
Oh yes, hiring him was "clearly" a foreseeable mistake. But I have a feeling the press will criticize Schmadtke more for fixing that mistake than making it.
Van Bommel sacked already?
I agree - but it's still quick compared to usual practice. (Well, usual practice outside some Italian clubs and Watford.
)I'm also in that camp. I was happy for him to start out well, but I just don't see it in him as a coach based on what I read about his time at PSV. So I'm not surprised to see the way things have unfolded.
What is wrong with Awoniyi, why does he keep scoring like that?
What's wrong with that entire team?
I really don't understand how a club that starts mediocre players like Haraguchi, Gießelmann or Rami Khedira can be this succesful. Urs Fischer must be an amazing coach.
Urs Fischer obviously is, and Union's DoF also seems to be great at building a very solid squad. Bit different then the usual way to build a squad, as they usually don't sign young talents to develop etc, but simply focus on solid players that for some reason did not cut it at other clubs and sign them on a free or for a very small fee. It is not a squad that has the potential to develop into something great, but this way they know exactly the level their players can perform at, and as they are almost all a bit experienced they do this very consistently. Drilling this squad well into a system gives you every opportunity to beat the more talented but inconsistent teams in the league, at least for some time. Would not surprise me at all to see them qualify again for EL or ECL this season.What's wrong with that entire team?
I really don't understand how a club that starts mediocre players like Haraguchi, Gießelmann or Rami Khedira can be this succesful. Urs Fischer must be an amazing coach.
I wouldn't necessarily say that their squad is that strong. I think in terms of individual quality they are a run of the mill tough to beat team with one or two standout players (first Andersson, then Kruse and now Kruse and Awoniyi) that allow them to edge out a lot of games. I think their biggest strength is their cohesion, everyone (except for Kruse of course) seems to be hard working, they are well organized and that alone makes them a very uncomfortable opponent. Fischer also managed to implement a solid possession game in their second season, so now they can comfortably play back and forth games until Kruse/Awoniyi makes something happen or they convert a dead ball with all their athletic players.
Who do you expect to beat them in the league table? I am convinced Leipzig will surpass them, but they way things are going at the moment I do not see any other team where I would say "they will definitely beat Union".