German Bundesliga: Suprises of the Season 2008

After the seventh match day the German Football-Bundesliga has one or two surprises in store. The promoted team from 1899 Hoffenheim is currently on the second place and the reigning champion FC Bayern Munich, only on the fifth place. The sextuple German champion Hamburger SV, who gained his last title in 1983, takes first place for now with three point’s advantage over Hoffenheim.

For the high flyer Hoffenheim, it is the first season in the first division. The team ascended to the second division just one year ago but didn’t remain there for a long time. Now they want to conquer the first division. It is spectacular that such a small team can show such a velocity. Hoffenheim’s patron Dietmar Hopp said in an interview: “The progress of this team is astonishing. We did not imagine that so young players could grow so quickly.”

On the first match day, Hoffenheim came up against Energie Cottbus, team that has being playing for the second time in the German Bundesliga since 2006, but they couldn’t overcome the 13th position. With a 3-0 victory, the promoted team led the standings together with the FC Schalke 04 who achieved a 3-0 victory as well.

On the second match day, Hoffenheim was able to keep their position after they won over Borussia Mönchengladbach at home. At least temporary, because one week later they had to face Bayer Leverkusen, that even when they haven’t won any national title, they always finish under the first ten, except for three seasons. With this first defeat Hoffenheim slipped down five positions and remained there until the fifth match day.
 
After a spectacular victory against the six-time German Champion Borussia Dortmund, the team ascended to place two for one week and had to give it up again after the next round due to a 5-4 defeat against Werder Bremen. But this didn’t left the team in the doldrums and so they passed over in a good mood to the next game against Eintracht Frankfurt. After an exciting game, the players from Hoffenheim went home as winners and took over the first position for the moment. Since the Hamburger SV won over Cottbus on Sunday, they placed Hoffenheim on place two with three points of deficit. 

As a conclusion we can just say: Hats off! It has been a very successful start in the first division. However, Coach Ralf Rangnick warned his team against too much euphoria despite the great results; after all, there are still 27 games to play.

The most successful team of Germany, FC Bayern Munich, seems to have forgotten how to win and they’re currently placed on position eleven. With only two victories, three ties, two losses and just a two goal difference, the team has accumulated so far only nine points, seven points behind the top of the league. It has been indeed their worst start in a season in 31 years. Jürgen Klinsmann has had to take a lot of flak from experts and media as well as from his own players. He is especially criticized due to the high amount of rotations that not only brings insecurities to his own team, but seems to give also more motivation to the opponents. Stefan Effenberg, former captain of the team, has said: “They have a problem because they appear in each game with a different team, so they cannot build a stable team.”

To make an end to all these discussions, Klinsmann needs to achieve some victories. Whether with rotations, team hierarchy or training and tactics: If Klinsmann wins the upcoming games, he may have done everything right.