high favourites imo. For the vice champion title
German Football 23/24 | Hamburg Derby, Fri 18:30 | Leverkusen vs Dortmund, Sun 17:30
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran discuss United's thrilling but ultimately disappointing 3-3 draw with Galatsaray. They talk Onana, our fading hopes of getting out of the group, and whether we want Europa League football or not.
They also discuss a comfortable (?) win at Everton and probably don't spend long enough talking about THAT goal and Kobbie Mainoo.
Finishing with a look ahead to a punishing December schedule which will make or break the season.
https://www.bayer04.de/de-de/shop/specials/special-studi-angebot
If you're a student you can watch Leverkusen's EL game for 10 bucks and you'll even get a free drink and a free hat, so you can look like a supporter.
Sounds like a great offer.
If you're a student you can watch Leverkusen's EL game for 10 bucks and you'll even get a free drink and a free hat, so you can look like a supporter.
Sounds like a great offer.
Give it a try, you might finally see some decent football for a changehttps://www.bayer04.de/de-de/shop/specials/special-studi-angebot
If you're a student you can watch Leverkusen's EL game for 10 bucks and you'll even get a free drink and a free hat, so you can look like a supporter.
Sounds like a great offer.
True, but the free drink would be a Kölsch, and that's a big reason why this sucks.
How good can the football be if the fans don't even bother to turn up? That's just common sense.
Beer is beer, tastes shitty anyway.
Very good actually. You should remind them how the Leverkusen squad isn't good enough for possession football when you are there. Tell them need to sign some mentality players. I guess before too long Dortmund has some of those to spare
They just spent (relatively) big money on two 31 year olds? It looks like they had a 10/10 summer window, so now they get rewarded with a great season, at least in the third that's been played so far. But what does proof about strategy? Strategy goes deeper than a few months or individual coaches and players.You should remind them how the Leverkusen squad isn't good enough for possession football when you are there. Tell them need to sign some mentality players. I guess before too long Dortmund has some of those to spare
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Its funny how theres absolutely zero to hate about Leverkusen from a sporting perspective right now so now you decide to hate on them for making.... tickets.... affordable..... to students?https://www.bayer04.de/de-de/shop/specials/special-studi-angebot
If you're a student you can watch Leverkusen's EL game for 10 bucks and you'll even get a free drink and a free hat, so you can look like a supporter.
Sounds like a great offer.
I find that a bit difficult to swallow coming from a man who supports a team where they drink Gilde.
*cough* *mumblemumble* I have to agree on this...
In other news: Urs Fischer is gone, as claimed in a public statement "It was a common decision of president Dirk Zingler and Urs Fischer to part ways". The deep free fall has consequences. Not surprising, but typical for the Union leadership that they act quite unemotional when changing staff, even if it's their hero manager who led them from the second BL into the CL.
Union is a very odd story. Over years they got much better results than they should have based on their statistics and now they suddenly perform in line with them. Has something changed or was it just the biggest purple patch in history?
Difficult to say without internal knowledge, but I wouldn't be surprised if they failed this season to build their typical team spirit they had during the last years. Players like Bonucci, Volland or Gosens are just a lot bigger "names" than the rest of the squad and all of their previous transfers, that could have had an impact
I drank Herrenhauser when I lived in Hannover, but it´s shit as well, would take Kölsch over that piss any day.
Yes it´s strange thought Urs was absolutely untouchable.
The first step would be them getting their mythical home field advantage back...
They play Augsburg, Gladbach and Köln at home before Christmas so there'a a good chance they get back on track just in time. And they're lucky that there are so many weak performers this year, 6 teams with 10 points or less after 11 match days sounds like a new record.
If anything, that might be why it took so long before he was let go - because most clubs that were sub-top and playing in Europe for a few years and are now suddenly at the bottom of the league probably would have sacked their coach earlier (even if it's still just November).
Easy answer. What has changed is that with the CL qualification they had to go play games in the Olympiastadion so they got quite some Hertha stuck on them and haven't been able to wipe it off ever since.
But they did play ECL and EL matches there as well, didn't affect them.
As a follower of Union since they were in third tier, I think it’s sad. I love Urs Fischer and what he has done with the club. He managed to build an incredible work ethos despite a very high turnover of players you would generally not expect to playin the upper part of the BL table I think. This year was exception with Bonucci etc, and I too suspect this could have rocked with the magical receipt.
Introducing players with (formerly) big reputations is the obvious starting point when searching for reasons, but xG also tells a clear story. As in Union had a ridiculous overperformance last year. 50 goals from 35 xG, 62 points from 42 xPTS [understat.com]. Sheraldo Becker alone doubling his xG value with 10 actual goals. In terms of xG they already had the worst attack last year and their xGA was pretty good at 42 xGA, but nothing spectacular either: Köln's was even better for example.
This year their xG moved up to second worst team in the league, but in reality they went from absurd overperformance to moderate underperformance.
If we look at their individual stats two players stick out:
Sheraldo Becker, the huge overperformer of last season, is without a goal in the BL so far. Now before we play blame the Dutch guy we should also consider that he's only got 0.98 xG to his name, which probably means Union's counter attacks aren't what they used to be - which I guess is an obvious fact, if you consider that they are trailing every game sooner or later.
And then there's David Fofana, the kid they loaned from Chelsea, who also sits on 0 goals, but actually has 3 xG to his name.
So their attack was always kind of shit, but they relied on overperformances and set pieces to grab goals anyway. But this seasons their output has been more in line with xG, when xPTS already put them 6th from bottom last season. Add some bad luck and a young striker, who doesn't score, to the mix and it's not the biggest surprise this situation deteriorated into a big losing streak.
This year their xG moved up to second worst team in the league, but in reality they went from absurd overperformance to moderate underperformance.
If we look at their individual stats two players stick out:
Sheraldo Becker, the huge overperformer of last season, is without a goal in the BL so far. Now before we play blame the Dutch guy we should also consider that he's only got 0.98 xG to his name, which probably means Union's counter attacks aren't what they used to be - which I guess is an obvious fact, if you consider that they are trailing every game sooner or later.
And then there's David Fofana, the kid they loaned from Chelsea, who also sits on 0 goals, but actually has 3 xG to his name.
So their attack was always kind of shit, but they relied on overperformances and set pieces to grab goals anyway. But this seasons their output has been more in line with xG, when xPTS already put them 6th from bottom last season. Add some bad luck and a young striker, who doesn't score, to the mix and it's not the biggest surprise this situation deteriorated into a big losing streak.
In the end this might turn out a big chance for Union. Their squad now is good enough to play very good football I think, they also have a couple of very promising, technical players such as Fofana and Aaronson. Maybe Urs Fischer wasn't the right coach to take them to the next level as he's not familiar with more prosctive brands of football.
I'm really interested in what kind of coach they're going to pick though...
They don't strike me as the kind of club that goes for Labbadia-style short-term solutions. Up to a year ago I would have expected them to go for a promising no-name coach but after the last couple of years they might be attractive enough to attract coaches in the Glasner / Favre category, proven coaches who have worked at bigger clubs. Being in last place is probably going to turn some candidates off though.
On the bright side they've had a couple of weeks to prepare for this scenario so I hope they got some good candidates lined up.
They don't strike me as the kind of club that goes for Labbadia-style short-term solutions. Up to a year ago I would have expected them to go for a promising no-name coach but after the last couple of years they might be attractive enough to attract coaches in the Glasner / Favre category, proven coaches who have worked at bigger clubs. Being in last place is probably going to turn some candidates off though.
On the bright side they've had a couple of weeks to prepare for this scenario so I hope they got some good candidates lined up.
If you look at their current situation (their squad, the table and their momentum) I wouldn't be surprised if they go for a conservative choice - at least to finish the season. If they play a solid season form now on they should end up clear of relegation worries, but a failed experiment could turn an unfortunate situation into a catastrophe.
Felix Magath it is
Glasner would be their best chance I reckon.
Interesting side fact: The current top 4 of the Bundesliga is either fully or partly owned by large multinational corporations.
You could even say top 6 as Hoffenheim belonged to SAP for the best part of the last decades and Dortmund is owned by Bayern
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I could say this is turning out worse than expected, but that would be a lie.
Whenever you think you have hit the all time Löw... (autocorrection kept for comedic effect)
Honestly though, this is beyond disappointing.
It's not at all surprising with a guy like Völler. But it is appalling that he is allowed to appear in an official capacity on this scum channel. In all seriousness, this is grounds for dismissal. but who am I kidding.
What an idiot
I had to look up what "NiUS" is. A populist right wing channel which peddles racism and xenophobia, climate change denial, anti-LGBT+ agenda, and generally all the kinds of lies and twisted statistics that you'd expect from, as one source called it, the German Fox News. Do I have the right of it? I hadn't heard of them before this.
If that is indeed what NiUS is, then this has to have career-ending consequences for Voeller at the association. Everything about this gave the impression that he was there in his role as DFB official as he sat there talking about his national team, dressed in his DFB shirt. Even if it was apparently not an interview cleared with DFB (according to ntv) this would reflect extremely badly on them if they ignore this incident or let him get away with just a warning. He is too experienced and in too prominent a position to excuse himself with claiming he did not know what the channel he was visiting for the interview stands for. I never took Voeller for the smartest or most sensible cookie, but this is outstandingly dumb even for him.
As far as I could find so far no statement, neither by Voeller nor by the DFB, has been made so far, despite quite a few news outlets having picked up on the story thus far and the interview having happened even before their game against Austria on Tuesday? Are they hoping to just quietly sweep this under the rug or have they just been unable to figure out their response even several days later?
If that is indeed what NiUS is, then this has to have career-ending consequences for Voeller at the association. Everything about this gave the impression that he was there in his role as DFB official as he sat there talking about his national team, dressed in his DFB shirt. Even if it was apparently not an interview cleared with DFB (according to ntv) this would reflect extremely badly on them if they ignore this incident or let him get away with just a warning. He is too experienced and in too prominent a position to excuse himself with claiming he did not know what the channel he was visiting for the interview stands for. I never took Voeller for the smartest or most sensible cookie, but this is outstandingly dumb even for him.
As far as I could find so far no statement, neither by Voeller nor by the DFB, has been made so far, despite quite a few news outlets having picked up on the story thus far and the interview having happened even before their game against Austria on Tuesday? Are they hoping to just quietly sweep this under the rug or have they just been unable to figure out their response even several days later?
While Völler is certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed, I am pretty sure that he is fully aware about what he is doing. Him appearing on a right-wing channel is no surprise when you look at Völler's quotes over the last years. But doing it in a DFB shirt should normally get him fired.
They are still pretty new, so it's not surprising you haven't heard of it before. It was founded by Bild's (basically the German Sun if you don't know Bild) former editor-in-chief Julian Reichelt who was sacked for having affairs with employees and such stuff. Always has been a despicable human being and terrible journalist and him being fired by already terrible Bild apparently only pushed him further to the extremes.
I will readily admit to going out of my way to ignore interviews and other public statements made by officials of either clubs or national associations, as a huge number of them seem to be there purely for their business acumen and not for their ethics or social capabilities, or even just their abilities to deliver a good public speech or making an interview interesting. Be it Voeller, Watzke, Hoeness, Rummenigge, Calmund back when he was still active, Bierhoff, and what have you in the who-is-who of German football officials, most of them leave me with the thorough wish to slap them across the face after hearing them talk for a few minutes if they haven't managed to lull me to sleep with pointless platitudes by then.
What I do not feel willing to ignore however is if one of them spouts abuse or other despicable statements, or turns themselves into the willing helper of a platform that does so.
When one is such a terrible and disgusting person that even Bild isn't willing to put up with you that really is saying a lot.
Back to more positive news: Our U17 just won the World Cup quarter final against Spain 1-0. And they did this by classic German virtues like Völler wants to see them - just 24% possession, terrible play overall, but just outfighting Spain and being cold as ice when it mattered most (Brunner smartly won a penalty and finished it). Side note: It's a shame how the Spanish players protested the referee. They even got 10 minutes extra times which was very generous of him. Fair play is something else.
Choupo starts ahead of Müller. What the feck is up with Tuchel and Müller?
Really good game from us except for wasting half a dozens of sitters. Luckily one of the big chance fell too the feet of Kane who isn't as wasteful as Choupo, Coman and especially Sané today.
Harry fecking kane. This guy is unbelievable
All these wasted chances scream late equalizer
Not one substitution from Bayern? Is Tuchel punishing the starting XI for being so wasteful?