Hollerbach's Geisterspielwurst - Bundesliga 20/21

[imp]

Ha! As you've intuited, I let out a mighty, "Thank fuck for that."

We were watching Bremen-Leipzig on Friday night. 0-0 at 90 minutes, I forecast a 2-1 win for Leipzig aet. It's terrible watching a game when you want a team like Leipzig to lose, but at the same time you're thinking about your scoreline prediction and how fucking super-clever it will make you look if it's realised. Though the extent of the analysis was this. Frau imp: What makes you think there are going to be three goals in extra time after none in the first 90 minutes? Super-pundit imp: They're all knackered.

[CY_Boaby]

It's not often an A-League player makes the move to the Bundesliga but that's just what's happened to Alou Kuol, who's heading to Stuttgart at the end of the A-League season. Still very raw, but an extremely talented striker he tends to come off the bench for Central Coast Mariners and cause havoc. I hope he settles in well and makes a real go of it in Germany. It's always disheartening when young players make a big move abroad and then end up back home 12 months later.

[treibeis]

Ha! As you've intuited, I let out a mighty, "Thank fuck for that."

So you trust Roger Schmidt when he says something like that? Roger Schmidt?

[imp]

I'd rather not think about the alternative...

[treibeis]

Horst Hrubesch is now head coach at HSV for the last three games of the season. He should have told them to fuck off.

[G-Man]

HSV functionary 1: "Did you see that Koln have fired our old friend Gisdol and appointed a pensioner in his place? How do we top that?"

HSV functionary 2: "Let's appoint Uwe Seeler as head coach."

HSV functionary 3: "Idiot. Uns Uwe is paying bingo on Fridays."

HSV functionary 1: "I know. Horst Hrubesch must be fishing somewhere. Maybe he can coach our team in between catching trout."

Felix Magath: "Am I fucking ashes?"

[imp]

Early Monday evening kick-off for a Covid make-up game, and I feel more than justified in cheering on neighbours (not rivals) Mainz - with its two Eintracht loan players having more than helped turn their season around - against Hertha Big Shitty Club*.

*my juvenile re-labelling of the team has yet to catch on with the German football social media elite.

[G-Man]

Fuck Mainz. When I want them to lose, they win. When I want them to win, they draw.

[Gangster Octopus]

And when you want them to draw?

[danielmak]

Dortmund can finish third or sixth given the remaining games. I'd prefer an easier schedule instead of playing RB and Leverkusen among the last three games but the reality is that too many points were pissed away against clubs that should not have caused Dortmund problems. The sell-on clause for Haaland doesn't kick in until next off-season so finishing third or fourth could help in terms of keeping him. At the same, time it's a low clause if I remember correctly so they could take the highest bid this off-season. He will be gone either way. That's how it goes with this team. I can't complain too much since Immoble is the only striker purchased in the past 8-10 years who has not worked out.

Losing to RB this weekend and in the Final would not be fun. And I remain concerned that a coach has been hired for next year whose side has not outperformed Dortmund in any of the three competitions in which both sides competed.

[G-Man]

And when you want them to draw?

They'll do the opposite. Look at when the played Koln. It was a 2-2 draw until injury time, and I was reluctantly happy with that. Then the bastards scored a winner.

[G-Man]

Talking of... If the Bring-Back-Stoger thing falls through, the leading candidate to become Koln coach is Thorsten Fink. I'm weeping just at the thought of it. If he comes, give him as contract until April, by when he'd be fired anyway. Not that I'm happy at the idea of Steffen Baumgart either. HSV might want him, and he should go there. I've heard Tedesco's name mentioned, and I can contain my excitement. Kohfeldt will be linked with our lot soon enough, too, have mercy.

So my list of coaches I don't want is exhaustive. And somebody will ask me whom I would be okay with. Well, Pep Guardiola deserves a chance to prove himself at a club with no money and no star players. Until, he has done that, he should never be regarded as a great coach. So, Pep, if you're reading this: Las puertas estan abiertas.

Failing that, I'd take Bosz or Favre, but I suspect that they might aim a bit higher than Koln. So, given the possibilities, I like the idea of Stoger as a manager type with assistant coach Andre Pawlak in an elevated role taking care of the day-to-day.

[Sporting]

Las puertas estan abiertas.

Perhaps he prefers Catalan.

[treibeis]

Talking of... If the Bring-Back-Stoger thing falls through, the leading candidate to become Koln coach is Thorsten Fink. I'm weeping just at the thought of it. If he comes, give him as contract until April, by when he'd be fired anyway. Not that I'm happy at the idea of Steffen Baumgart either. HSV might want him, and he should go there. I've heard Tedesco's name mentioned, and I can contain my excitement. Kohfeldt will be linked with our lot soon enough, too, have mercy.

So my list of coaches I don't want is exhaustive. And somebody will ask me whom I would be okay with. Well, Pep Guardiola deserves a chance to prove himself at a club with no money and no star players. Until, he has done that, he should never be regarded as a great coach. So, Pep, if you're reading this: Las puertas estan abiertas.

Failing that, I'd take Bosz or Favre, but I suspect that they might aim a bit higher than Koln. So, given the possibilities, I like the idea of Stoger as a manager type with assistant coach Andre Pawlak in an elevated role taking care of the day-to-day.

I used to be like you, back in the early 1970s when I drew up my Christian present list. "I'd like a scrambling bike, a go-kart, a snooker table, a candy floss machine, half a dozen gold ingots and a lifetime's supply of jelly babies."

I knew, deep down, that my parents had neither the money not the inclination to get me anything but a jigsaw puzzle and a new pair of wellies. And you know, deep down, that your club has neither the money nor the inclination to get you anything but Der Schoene Bruno and Eddy Soezer.

[G-Man]

Well, it's more like asking for the trainers with two stripes rather than fabric shoes. The Stoger/Pawlak combo rather than Thorsten Fink (whose record on militant anti-racism advocacy apparently isn't entirely unblemished. So he's not just a fabric Turnschuh, but a no-brand Croc).

Perhaps he prefers Catalan.

Yeah, but my Catalan is very rusty.

[imp]

Hamburg have had 22 changes of coach since 2004. I wonder why the club's such a basket-case. Handy win for Kiel last night to take them a point above HSV into third, still with two games in hand. Furious promotion race in D3 as well - three games to go, with two points separating first-placed Dresden (66 points) from fourth-placed Ingolstadt (64). Rostock (66) and 1860 (64) are second and third. Kaiserlslautern have improved a bit, but are still just two points above the drop zone and what would be a catastrophic fall into the Regionalliga - once you're in there, it's a bastard to get back up.

Last year's D3 champions, Bayern Reserves, could also go down. Annoyingly, Freiburg Reserves are five points clear at the top the Regionalliga Suedwest, with a game in hand, in the only promotion spot. Their only challengers are a resurgent Offenbach, whom I desperately want to go up so there's a D3 team within biking distance. Freiburg should do the decent thing in the name of tradition and let Offenbach go up anyway. Reserve teams should be barred from D3.

FSV Frankfurt are a respectable sixth. In October, we'll be moving flats to within a mile of their ground, and I'm hoping that will be it now for moving, at least until they stick me in a home. I feel that I will then have fulfilled my only real ambition in life - to live within easy walking distance of a football stadium.

[imp]

In less than surprising news, one of the all-time great assholes of German football (and he's up against huge amounts of very stiff competition), Jens Lehmann, has been fired from the Hertha BSC board and as an "advisor", for accidentally sending a racist message about former player and current Sky pundit Dennis Aogo to.... Dennis Aogo (asking the intended recipient, presumably someone at Sky, if Aogo was making up the broadcaster's quota of Blacks, followed by a laughing emoji). Aogo called him out immediately, Lehmann apologised with shovels of grovel, got fired anyway.

Lehmann's previous moment of grand assholery was when Thomas Hitzlsperger came out, and the former keeper said it wasn't good to have gay players in the team because you have to share a shower with them...

[treibeis]

Lehmann's such a dick that he'll probably try to sue Aogo for going public with a WhatsApp message without his consent.

I didn't know about the stuff Lehmann said about Hitzlsperger. How has he ever managed to get as many jobs as he's had?

[Nocturnal Submission]

Excellent. A chance to post one of my favourite pieces of football comedy:

[Amor de Cosmos]

Lehmann apologised with shovels of grovel, got fired anyway.

His apology/excuse is hilarious in it's desperation. Calling Aogo a "quota black guy," was meant to imply he was "very knowledgeable." As in a 'quotable black guy' presumably.

[treibeis]

His apology/excuse is hilarious in it's desperation. Calling Aogo a "quota black guy," was meant to imply he was "very knowledgeable." As in a 'quotable black guy' presumably.

Lehmann didn't even spell the word correctly in his text message. Forgot the "u".

[imp]

His apology/excuse is hilarious in it's desperation. Calling Aogo a "quota black guy," was meant to imply he was "very knowledgeable." As in a 'quotable black guy' presumably.

A dying excuse rendered unconscious for good by the laughter emoji.

[G-Man]

Aogo says he has accepted Lehmann's apology, though I think he's just being the bigger guy. And maybe it's better to to let it go, from his side, to avoid more racist crap from the "can't-say-anything-anymore" constituency, and the disapproval of Germans who are of course very opposed to racism but don't really like troublemaking blacks in their country.

[treibeis]

His apology/excuse is hilarious in it's desperation. Calling Aogo a "quota black guy," was meant to imply he was "very knowledgeable." As in a 'quotable black guy' presumably.

Lehmann claims the "word play" was intended as "Black guy who is so good on telly that he boosts the viewing figures." ("Quoten" can mean "viewing figures".)

Hmm, Jensie. At best, an extremely thoughtless and clumsy thing to write. At worst (and most likely), a downright lie.

[imp]

Aogo's got nothing to lose by accepting the apology. Lehmann's toast - also sacked as a pundit now. Time to volunteer at his local club coaching the U11 goalies, if they'll have him.