On Friday 7 August, the safety belts will be fastened, the lever will be pulled and the roller coaster ride known as the Bundesliga will jolt into action. Last season the Bundesliga made a case for being the year’s most vibrant, action-packed and exciting league. It was the place to go for action, with an average of almost 3 goals a game; atmosphere, with nearly 42,000 fans packing out the German top flight’s superb stadia per match, and suspense, with the number of title contenders being gradually whittled down to 4 on the final day of the season.
In the end it was Vfl Wolfsburg who brought home the title. Wolfsburg’s championship triumph was, in many ways, fitting. Their swashbuckling style, driven by the ‘Holy Trinity’ of Grafite, Edin Dzeko and Zvjezdan Misimovic, was the epitome of the season itself: Stylish, attacking football with plenty of goals.
As the action drew to a close on the pitch, it picked up off the pitch as the managerial merry go round gathered pace. Since the final whistles blew, Bundesliga chairmen have been swapping managers like football-mad kids swapping Panini stickers. The most notable switches are those of Felix Magath, mastermind of Wolfsburg’s historic title win, and the Dutch master Louis van Gaal to FC Schalke 04 and Bayern Munich respectively.
It will be interesting to see whether Magath can weave his championship-winning magic at success-starved Schalke. The man himself has made winning the title part of a four year plan which involves a lot of restructuring behind the scenes (which will see Magath take the dual role of trainer and team manager, as he did at Wolfsburg), a strict fitness regime and a shift to a more attack-minded style of play to a traditionally goal-shy outfit. This style shift will put the onus on the likes of Ivan Rakitic and Jefferson Farfan to step up to the plate and supply more ammunition to the likes of Kevin Kuranyi up front. It will also provide the ideal platform for their new young prospects Lewis Holtby and Jan Moravek to shine.
And what of Wolfsburg’s prospects? Despite losing Magath, Vfl look to be in a very healthy position. With Edin Dzeko having ended speculation on his future by signing a new, 4 year contract, the Holy Trinity will still be in place next season, striking fear into the hearts of the Bundesliga’s best defences. New coach Armin Veh has also made some potentially excellent signings in Thomas Kahlenberg and Karim Ziani, who will provide competition for places in attacking midfield. The €10 million signing of Obafemi Martins from Newcastle Utd will add another pacy dimension to Wolfsburg’s forward line.
Veh’s men will again take some stopping next season. The team most likely to do so looks to be Louis van Gaal’s Bayern Munich. Munich have also made some shrewd moves in the transfer market, the best of which was keeping hold of Franck Ribery for another season. Munich fans will be hoping that van Gaal’s experience, along with the signings of Mario Gomez (a €23 million capture from Stuttgart), Ivica Olic, Danijel Pranjic and Anatoly Tymoschuk will be enough to push them over the finish line in 1st place. Indeed, despite the turmoil last season, the team they call ‘FC Hollywood’ finished a mere 2 points behind the champions.
There are more than 3 teams capable of mounting a title challenge, however. The likes of Hamburg SV, Hoffenheim, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen, Werder Bremen and VFB Stuttgart will all be there or thereabouts and cannot be written off. Dortmund and Stuttgart will be hoping to maintain the momentum that saw them motoring up the table in the second half of 2008-09. Both with promising young managers (Markus Babbel at Stuttgart and Juergen Klopp at Dortmund), neither have made wholesale changes in the transfer market. Dortmund’s main signing, Lucas Barrios from Chile’s Colo Colo, is untested but hugely promising, as are the likes of Sven Bender and Kevin Grosskreutz, members of Germany’s excellent youth teams.
Stuttgart have gone down the route of signing largely established players. Alex Hleb has returned on loan and Russian star Pavel Pogrebnyak will be giving his all to fill a distinctly Mario Gomez-shaped gap in the Stuttgart forward line.
Werder Bremen were another club to lose their biggest talent. Playmaker Diego upped sticks to Juventus, but the arrivals of Marko Marin (a rival to Lewis Holtby for the title of Bundesliga’s hottest young prospect) and Tim Borowski, plus the emergence of Mezut Ozil should leave the Bremen fans full of hope for the season to come.
That’s 9 teams then, half of the league, who will be hoping for at least a top 5 finish. What of the rest?
FC Koeln and Eintracht Frankfurt, with new coaches Zvonimir Soldo and Michael Skibbe, will be hoping to be this season’s dark horses. Koeln’s expectations will have been raised especially by the notable signings of Lukas Podolski from Munich and two signings from Madrid: Maniche snapped up from Atletico and Christopher Schorch, the young centre-back rescued from the crazy circus at Real. Skibbe has vowed to bring a more attacking approach to Eintracht Frankfurt following the dour era of previous coach Friedhelm Funkel, which could bring out the best in their biggest talent Caio and bring about an improved league position.
If last season’s dark horses, Hertha Berlin, can repeat their 4th place finish, despite losing Josip Simunic, Marko Pantelic and Andriy Voronin, three of their most influential players, then trainer Lucien Favre will go down in history as a modern day miracle worker.
For the remaining teams: Vfl Bochum, Hannover 96, Borussia Moenchengladbach and the newly promoted sides, SC Freiburg, FSV Mainz and 1. FC Nurnberg, mid-table mediocrity seems to be the best they can hope for. But this is the Bundesliga, and anything can happen.
The action kicks off with Wolfsburg hosting Stuttgart. Fasten your seatbelts.
Written by Geoff Edwards
