“I was there when Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 won the Champions League and the UEFA Cup only seven days apart, back in 1997. And I was desperately trying to meet deadlines in late October 2000, when the Christoph Daum cocaine scandal blew wide open, plunging the domestic game into a major crisis and triggering an absurd media frenzy. Finally, I still remember the howls of protest that went up (in either camp) when Manuel Neuer, a Gelsenkirchen boy and Schalke’s brightest hope for the future, announced his move to Bayern Munich in 2011. But somehow it all pales in comparison. There’s never been a week like this in German football. Not least because this one condensed almost all of the aspects listed above – and then some – in a mere handful of days. It also proved once more that there is a vast discrepancy between the view from the inside and how you are viewed from the outside.” ESPN