“Bayern Munich’s commercial relationship with Qatar has been surrounded by scrutiny since the club first started travelling to Doha for a winter training camp in 2010. For over 10 years Bayern’s relationship with Qatar has grown, and their fans are not happy about it. Seb Stafford-Bloor how Qatar’s involvement with the German champions is causing controversy. Illustrated by Henry Cooke.”
YouTube
“Qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is reaching its conclusion, as countries compete to fill the remaining spots in this year’s showcase on the sport’s greatest stage. … It was determined on Nov. 26 which regions will be paired for the playoffs, whose format has changed. Another wrinkle to qualifying is the expulsion of Russia due to its nation’s invasion of Ukraine. .. Nevertheless, the draw for the 2022 World Cup will occur on April 1, with the March 31 FIFA ranking being used to determine the pots. …”
SI
FIFA World Cup: Which teams have qualified to Qatar 2022? Full list of all 32 nations
“On the 5th of December Jesse Marsch was relieved of his duties at RB Leipzig, becoming the first Bundesliga manager to learn of his dismissal whilst in a COVID enforced quarantine. The peculiarities of Marsch’s departure stole headlines, but the fact that it had come to this dreary conclusion left few surprised. Back in December, Leipzig had taken just 1 victory in their last 6 matches, and the squad’s discontent with the American’s radical tactical shift seemed to foreshadow the downfall long before it eventually happened. Thus, a new, but simultaneously well-known, face returned to the Bundesliga dugout. …”
Breaking the Lines (Video)
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“… St. Pauli: Another Football Is Possible chronicles the journey of one of world football’s most captivating mavericks in stunning, historic detail. While the publication is marketed as a sports book, it serves as an excellent contribution to the historiography of German social history. The reader is taken on a socio-economic odyssey through the history of Hamburg, which is a fascinating topic in itself. In a city renowned for its liberal decadence, political engagement and eclectic mix of subcultures, there is plenty to unpick. Of course, there’s also the small matter of St. Pauli and its rivalry with HSV Hamburg, a fallen giant of European football. …”
St. Pauli: Another Football Is Possible – Chronicling the history of Hamburg’s one of a kind institution
Football Pink
amazon
“The return of European knockout football has us once again watching teams from across the continent go up against one another. But tournament football, clearly, doesn’t see every team play each other, and the beauty of it is that the best team doesn’t always win. And that’s absolutely fine. But what if there was a global league system, rather than one-off knockout ties, that could help us gauge the comparative strength of teams across the world? Well, that’s exactly what Stats Perform’s Power Rankings seek to do. …”
The Analyst
“This is a difficult season for RB Leipzig, who lost the head coach Julian Nagelsmann with key players leaving during the summer. Fresh faces such as Jesse Marsch from RB Salzburg, Achim Beierlorzer returning from Mainz 05, with new players including André Silva, Joško Gvardiol, Mohamed Simakan, and Benjamin Henrichs joined the team. However, things did not go according to plan as they never looked like a side that could challenge the second place in the Bundesliga, while they were knocked out very early in the UEFA Champions League group, after losing to Manchester City and PSG. Therefore, the higher-level authority of Leipzig decided to react by parting ways with Marsch. Soon, they appointed Domenico Tedesco as the new head coach and handed him a contract until June 2023. In Tedesco’s first three games, he obtained 1W1D1L, which was not particularly impressive, but there were interesting tactics behind it. …”
Total Football Analysis (Dec. 2021)
Domenico Tedesco – RB Leipzig – Tactical Analysis
W – Domenico Tedesco
“Bochum came from a Robert Lewandowski goal down to stun leaders Bayern Munich 4-2 in one of the biggest Bundesliga shocks in living memory. The writing appeared to be on the wall when Lewandowski controlled Kingsley Coman’s knockdown and fired in on the turn after nine minutes, but Bochum hadn’t read the script. Christopher Antwi-Adjei converted Gerrit Holtmann’s inch-perfect cross to level, though the hosts did need a goal-line clearance from Cristian Gamboa to prevent Lewandowski restoring Bayern’s advantage soon after. …”
Bundesliga (Video)
“After spending the start of the decade in the shadow of the Premier League and La Liga, German football enjoyed a resurgence in the mid-2010s. 2013 saw an all-German Champions League Final between Jürgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund and Jupp Heynckes’ Bayern Munich, whilst the following year saw Joachim Löw’s Die Mannschaft write their names into the history books with the World Cup trophy in Brazil. When Klopp took charge of Dortmund in 2008, the club was in a financial hole and had been nothing more than a modest, lower-half side, finishing 13th in the previous season under manager Thomas Doll. Klopp, then 41, rejected interest from Bayern Munich to captain the ship at the Signal Iduna Park. …”
Breaking the Lines (Video)
“The Bavarians’ success was remarkable given they changed their coach earlier in the campaign, appointing Hans-Dieter Flick as head coach. Flick had been the number two at Bayern and had filled similar roles with RB Salzburg and the German national team. Prior to that, he was coach of Hoffenheim in the regional league. While Flick inherited a team, he rekindled the fire at Bayern and won three major prizes. Bayern Munich joined eight previous winners of the ‘treble’. …”
Game of the People
“We all know how Jurgen Klopp has turned Liverpool FC into a behemoth of a football club, and how he broke Bayern Munich’s monopoly of German football with his Borussia Dortmund team. But little is known about his origins at Mainz. How he was thrust into a team without a manager, how he made a relegation favourite of the second tier into a Bundesliga competitor, and how he reinvented the german-footballing-style. This is the story of Jurgen Klopp at Mainz, told by Seb Stafford-Bloor. Illustrated by Alice Devine.”
YouTube
“There are still four months remaining in most European domestic leagues, but the big titles are largely already decided. It’s a situation we’ve become accustomed to: the rich clubs wrapping up the league by the turn of the year, allowing them to concentrate on what really matters to them, the Champions League. Winning the title, the fundamental point of holding a national league system, is barely a story, and tense run-ins are largely a thing of the past. …”
The Athletic
Frenkie de Jong
“La Liga leaders Real Madrid fought back from two goals down at home to rescue a 2-2 draw against lowly Elche thanks to a last-gasp Éder Militão goal in stoppage time. Real wasted a golden opportunity to widen the gap at the top of the table after second-placed Sevilla stumbled at home with a draw against Celta Vigo on Saturday. …”
Guardian
“After a summer of frantic international football tournaments across the globe, the new domestic league season is now on the horizon. Ninety-eight teams will battle it out across the top five European leagues, with titles to be won, European football to be secured and relegation to be avoided and we wanted to give you a guide on some of the players to watch in 2021-22. We recruited the very best of Stats Perform’s data editors to give us a list of 50 players. These players aren’t who they think are the greatest – you’ve all read that. This is a selection of 50 players that we think will make an impact in 2021-22. Some are obvious, some less so. Let’s dive in to The Analyst 50, with the first 25 players. …”
The Analyst (July 2021) Part I (Video), Part II (Video)
“Paul Wanner made his professional debut for FC Bayern in the second half of the Bundesliga restart fixture against Borussia Mönchengladbach. The attacking midfielder was substituted on for Marc Roca in the 75th minute. At just 16 years and 15 days, Wanner usurped Jamal Musiala (17 years, 115 days) as the youngest player to ever play in the Bundesliga for FC Bayern. In Bundesliga history, only Dortmund’s Youssoufa Moukoko (16 years, 1 day) was younger on his debut. …”
FC Bayern
W – Paul Wanner
YouTube: Paul Wanner – Youngest Bundesliga player in FC Bayern history, Youngest Player Ever For FC Bayern | 16 Years Old Paul Wanner Bundesliga Debut
“Taking in José Mourinho’s touchline charge, La Remontada and plenty more besides, UEFA.com picks out a classic last-16 tie from each of the last 18 seasons. The 2021/22 UEFA Champions League is the 19th edition since the knockout round of 16 replaced the second group stage. UEFA.com picks out a classic tie from each of the past 18 seasons – all headline scores are aggregate. …”
UEFA (Video)
“This weekend, the Bundesliga returns from its winter break. It’s fair to say it hasn’t been a vintage season in Germany’s top flight. At the start of the season, there was some hopeful anticipation for a more competitive title race after each of last season’s top-six finishers changed head coaches. But when the league entered the break a few weeks ago, Bayern Munich held an all-too-familiar lead atop the table with a nine-point advantage over second-place Borussia Dortmund. It’s not a hugely surprising scenario. After all, Bayern have won the past nine Bundesliga titles. …’
The Ringer (Audio)
“Freiburg head coach Christian Streich says football ‘never gets boring’ for him as he celebrates a decade in charge of the Black Forest side. That’s right, the Bundesliga’s longest-serving current tactician brought up 10 years in the job on 29 December, a remarkable achievement in what is famously a results-oriented and subsequently often a transitional role. There was a certain poetic elegance then, when the 56-year-old recorded his 100th Bundesliga victory as head coach in his team’s final game of 2021, the last-gasp 2-1 triumph over Bayer Leverkusen on Matchday 17 a fitting way of ushering in the anniversary of his appointment. …”
Bundesliga (Video)
NY Times: The Teachings of the Philosopher of the Black Forest (June 2020)
W – Christian Streich
“For a minute this weekend against Chelsea, it looked like Conor Coady might have to come off. He had just made what could have been a game-saving tackle, reaching a perfectly timed toe around Christian Pulisic to snuff out an open shot from the top of the box, but Coady twisted his ankle while going to ground and had to be helped off the pitch. As play restarted without him, the TV crew talked about how rare it was to see Wolves without their captain. Since the start of this season, Coady has played 1,788 out of a possible 1,800 minutes for his club, plus three World Cup qualifiers for England. …”
The Athletic
A mural in Rome depicting Juventus president Andrea Agnelli puncturing a football with a knife. Juve backed the doomed European Super League breakaway.
“Remarkably, the website is still live. Eight months after the European Super League disintegrated in an embarrassing fireball, you might think its founders would be minded to erase all trace of their hubris and humiliation. But perhaps that would be to credit them with too much competence. And so there it remains to this day: ‘The Super League is a new European competition between 20 top clubs comprised of 15 founders and five annual qualifiers.’ Well, good luck with that. There is, of course, an alternative theory. After all, the Super League is still not quite dead in a legislative sense; certainly not if you believe the loud and persistent avowals of Andrea Agnelli at Juventus, Joan Laporta at Barcelona and Florentino Pérez at Real Madrid, the three remaining hoarse men of the apocalypse. …”
Guardian
“… Using a 3–4–3, the midfielders are expected to split their time between attacking and defending. Having only three dedicated defenders means that if the opposing team breaks through the midfield, they will have a greater chance to score than with a more conventional defensive configuration, such as 4–5–1 or 4–4–2. However, the three forwards allow for a greater concentration on attack. This formation is used by more offensive-minded teams. The formation was famously used by Liverpool under Rafael Benítez during the second half of the 2005 UEFA Champions League Final to come back from a three-goal deficit. It was also notably used by Chelsea when they won the Premier League under manager Antonio Conte in the 2016–17 season and when they won the 2021 UEFA Champions League Final under Thomas Tuchel. …”
W – 3–4–3
YouTube: Tifo video: A guide to 3-4-3
YouTube: Why is Germany’s 3-4-3 working so well? (June 2021)
“So, things are a bit of a mess in the Premier League: On Monday, Tottenham were bounced from the Europa Conference League by the governing body itself, UEFA, which awarded a 3-0 win to French side Rennes in the final game of the group phase. The match was supposed to be played on December 9, but a COVID outbreak among Tottenham’s players and coaching staff forced Spurs to postpone—the team’s third such postponement in just over a week. …”
The Ringer
“Hansi Flick’s Bayern Munich set a new benchmark for what it means to win at Germany’s already most successful club, claiming seven trophies in just over 18 months. That winning feeling has very much continued under successor Julian Nagelsmann, but how do the two teams compare after six months under the young tactician? …”
Bundesliga (Video)
W – Hansi Flick
“In 2017 Philippe Coutinho became one of the world’s most expensive transfers as he completed a move to Barcelona from Liverpool, where he had been the club’s joint top-scorer in the Premier League, and top assist provider. However, ever since then his career has fallen. What happened? Why? And where is he now? Seb Stafford-Bloor explains. Henry Cooke illustrates.”
YouTube
W – Philippe Coutinho
“… Needless to say, there was plenty more where that came from. Rightly or wrongly, the prospect of Lille, Sevilla, Red Bull Salzburg and Wolfsburg going head to head over the next four months was not exactly setting pulses racing. For The Athletic, that was only ever going to mean one thing: watching every minute of every Group G match. If you thought that would be a slog, prepare to be disappointed. Two Champions League records were set inside the first 45 minutes of the opening game, a Bulgarian referee made the worst penalty decision in living memory, a manager was sacked, a 28-match unbeaten run came to an end and a teenage striker showed why he is on the radar of every top club in Europe. …”
The Athletic
“… It was a significant game not just for the tyro Tedesco but, it felt, for the Bundesliga as a whole. Leipzig had adapted so smoothly to the top flight for the first time. Against the backdrop of an administrative model that deeply offended swathes of the Bundesliga’s fan community – and they were made to know by just how much on a regular basis – they made clear that they weren’t going anywhere in a hurry. The sporting side of the model not only made light of the leap between divisions, but they offered the promise of sustainability. Ralph Hasenhüttl’s team had the Bundesliga worked out in an instant. …”
Guardian
“Jesse Lingard was streaking away, the ball at his feet, on the right wing. Their legs weary and their hopes dwindling, Arsenal’s defenders heaved and hauled to keep up with him, as if they were running into a stiff wind. And on the other side of the field, Cristiano Ronaldo started to sprint. It was a true sprint, too, a track sprint, a coached sprint: starting in a low crouch, his back straightening as he reached full tilt, head held high, arms pumping. The clock had just ticked past 90 minutes, but there seemed to be a magnet drawing Ronaldo to Arsenal’s penalty area, some elemental force. …”
NY Times
“December 9: Villarreal qualified for this season’s Champions League despite not finishing in the top six of La Liga, the cutoff for traditional Europa League qualification. They did so by beating Manchester United in the Europa League final. And although they couldn’t chase down United to win Group F on Thursday, they did more than they needed to in Bergamo to carry on to the Champions League last 16 despite sitting 13th in La Liga. …”
The Analyst
SI: Champions League Group Ouster Is Barcelona’s New Bottom – Jonathan Wilson
“After back to back top ten finishes, SC Freiburg are now flying high toward a Champions League position in the German Bundesliga. Christian Streich’s team have played some fantastic high pressing, high tempo football, beating some of the best teams in the league without any genuine stars in their side. So following up from our tactical analysis of the team last season, we take a look at how Christian Streich has revolutionized Freiburg in 2021-22. …”
The Mastermindsite
“Once again Thomas Tuchel was left to reflect on Chelsea’s inability to take care of the small details. The European champions are not playing with the right attitude at the moment and although they almost got away with it this time it was not a surprise when they ended up relinquishing top spot in Group H to Juventus after this chaotic draw with Zenit St Petersburg. …”
Guardian
Guardian – Champions League roundup: Atalanta v Villarreal snowed off; Juve top Group H
YouTube: Zenit St Petersburg vs. Chelsea: Extended Highlights | Group Stage
Jude Bellingham (L) could face sanctions from the German FA after criticising the referee following Saturday’s 3-2 loss to Bayern Munich
“This time, at least, there were grounds for debate. Der Klassiker has become the showpiece that retains attention but equally fuels the barbs of the critics, a symptom of Bayern Munich’s indefatigable dominance to pessimists and Bundesliga detractors. This time, the fixture’s usual chaotic energy synced with genuine jeopardy. Even if the current run was extended to Borussia Dortmund beating Bayern just once in their last 10 Bundesliga meetings (with six straight wins for the champions), Saturday’s latest edition oscillated wildly. …”
Guardian
“For the sixth consecutive year, ESPN presents its annual ranking of the best men’s players and coaches in world soccer! Welcome to FC 100. As always, rankings are broken down into Top 10 lists for positions, plus a countdown of managers, in order to present the most meaningful look at talent on the pitch and the sideline. Whereas last year was dominated by Liverpool and Bayern Munich — the clubs combined for eight of the 10 No. 1 spots — the leaders in this year’s edition are spread across six teams, with none having more than two men on top of their respective category. …”
ESPN (Video)
Go to: Goalkeeper | Right-back | Centre-back | Left-back | Central midfield | Attacking midfield | Winger | Forward | Striker | Manager
“This week wasn’t the first time Ralf Rangnick had been interviewed for a job at Manchester United. Or that’s how it felt to him, at least. In the autumn of 2019, United’s football director John Murtough travelled to Leipzig to study the Red Bull football group’s facilities and corporate strategy. A proud Rangnick, eager to show off a Champions League club he had essentially built himself, hosted Murtough for eight hours, at the end of which the German sensed that the real reason for the visit might have been him. His suspicion that he had been sounded out was strengthened when he got word that an unnamed club was conducting background research into his working methods, tapping into his mentor Helmut Gross, a trained structural engineer turned tactical maverick, and Lars Kornetka, a long-time Rangnick collaborator, for insight into his footballing beliefs and his character. …”
The Athletic
W – Ralf Rangnick
YouTube: Brief History Of: Ralf Rangnick
“Should European football ever morph into a super league structure, the landscape will be substantially changed, no matter how any new league might manifest itself. For the past decade, a set of global, elite players have evolved, but beneath the top layer, there are a number of clubs who have scale and presence, some with back stories that belong to a more democratic age. Some of these glorious names may be dominant forces in their own backyard but do not have the financial clout to compete with Europe’s gargantuan institutions. Others were once feared names across the continent, metropolitan clubs from major cities such as Lisbon, Amsterdam, Rome, Rotterdam and Glasgow. …”
Game of the People
“Back in 2014, Rene Maric was a football tactics blogger training a team of amateurs when he got curious about a geometry he’d come across in coaching circles. Managers like Jurgen Klopp and Ralf Rangnick didn’t just divide the pitch into vertical halves or thirds. They talked about five horizontal zones running the length of the field, like the ones Pep Guardiola chalked on his training pitch at Bayern Munich to help guide players’ spacing and movement. The outside zones were easy to name; those were the wings. The middle was the middle. Germans had a specific term for the two bands in between: halbraum, or ‘half-spaces’. Maric admitted it was ‘not a good word’ in English, but for lack of any better ideas, the name stuck. He wrote a long post for Spielverlagerung on what made these two extra zones worth paying attention to. …”
The Athletic
Guardian – From chatroom to the bootroom: Rene Maric’s very modern coaching journey (Sep. 2018)
W – René Marić
“With a year to go, almost half the field for the 2022 World Cup is set. Thirteen countries have already booked their places for the tournament, which opens in Qatar next Nov. 21: some with ease, cruising through qualifying, and some with a touch more drama. Quite what the tournament, riddled with scandal and concern from the day Qatar was announced as the host, will be like cannot yet be known. The identities of the teams who will contest it, though, are remarkably familiar. Most — if not quite all — of the traditional contenders are already there: a 10-country-strong European contingent led by France, the defending champion, and Belgium, officially the world’s best team, as well as the likes of Spain and England and Germany. They have been joined by the two great powerhouses of South America, Brazil and Argentina. …”
NY Times
“With just over a year to go until the World Cup kicks off, 12 teams have qualified alongside hosts Qatar. All four semi-finalists from 2018 have sealed their spots and are joined by former world champions Argentina, Brazil, Germany and Spain, while recent European champions Portugal and Italy still have more to do. With most of the big hitters now able to prepare for the tournament, we assess where they stand as the countdown to Qatar begins. …”
Guardian
The Athletic: CONCACAF World Cup qualifying: Where USMNT, Canada, Mexico and Panama stand with six matches left
World Cup 2022 Power Rankings: France & England the early favourites as Portugal & Italy falter
Gareth Southgate’s England are heading to Qatar 2022, while Wales and Scotland have a play-off place secured
“England have qualified for the 2022 World Cup finals while Wales and Scotland are heading to the play-offs along with some surprising names. European champions Italy and Portugal will also have to go through two rounds of play-off games next March after failing to win their respective groups. Heading to the World Cup so far are: Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Serbia, Spain, Switzerland. The Netherlands, Norway and Turkey are the three teams left who can still qualify automatically. The winners of each group secure a place at the World Cup, with the 10 runners-up joining two Nations League teams in the play-offs, where three further places are up for grabs. …”
BBC
“Bayern Munich’s 5-1 battering of Leverkusen, RB Leipzig’s stuttering start to the season, and Dortmund’s unruly Erling Haaland reliance have all combined to make the 59th Bundesliga season one of the driest title races in recent memory. With the Bavarian giants set to retain their 10th consecutive Meisterschale, it is time to visit the Zweite Bundesliga for hopes of a title challenge. There, Germany’s second division is living up to its billing as The Greatest Zweite Bundesliga of All Time. The numerous fallen giants aren’t just providing a spectacle of unrivaled terrace culture, but the football on the pitch is as competitive as ever, with just 4 points separating 1st and 4th. …”
Breaking the Lines
Breaking the Lines: St Pauli – Culture, Politics, and Pirates
“The tactician has started his stint brightly for the Bavarian club. Julian Nagelsmann arrived at Bayern Munich this summer with a reputation as someone who is not afraid to make changes to ensure success. The 34-year-old hasn’t tinkered as much as expected, however, and a star-studded squad have responded to his promptings with a dominant start to the season. If this is what Bayern are like now, just think about how good they will be when their players are fully used to every little aspect of Nagelsmann’s coaching manual. The former Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig supremo moved to Munich in the summer having proven his ability to bring the best out of players, and now he looks to have earned the respect of some of the biggest names in the game. …”
How Julian Nagelsmann made his mark at Bayern Munich (Video)
W – Julian Nagelsmann
YouTube: Julian Nagelsmann’s Bayern Munich Tactics Explained | Bayern Munich 2021/22 Tactical Analysis
August 24, 2019: “In life, it takes time to create successful ideas and concepts. Scientists and researchers spend years, even decades, analyzing and studying data to create trials or a study before publishing the results to the world. … I mention this because it may seem odd at first to take a 17-year period and be able to identify seven overarching and different tactical revolutions in soccer in Europe. However, Michael Cox has long established himself as a tactical observer par excellence and his new book argues that the dominant soccer cultures in Europe in the recent past have existed for merely 2-4 years. Zonal Marking: From Ajax to Zidane, the Making of Modern Soccer makes the claim that we have seen six dominant styles of soccer in Europe since 1992 with each based around a national soccer culture. …”
World Soccer Talk
Intelligent football: Michael Cox and the rise of tactical analysis (Oct 2020)
Zonal Marking
Vox in the Box: Michael Cox
amazon
YouTube: Football Tactics with Michael Cox (Zonal Marking)(Aug 13, 2019)
“Following the high octane clash between Man City and RB Leipzig in the Champions League that ended with 9 goals, Pep Guardiola called out the fans for their lack of attendance. And there were a lot of empty seats, but why? Written by Seb Stafford-Bloor, illustrated by Marco Bevilacqua. …”
YouTube
Joachim Löw
“Group B of UEFA Euro 2012 began on 9 June 2012 and ended on 17 June 2012. The pool was made up of the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Portugal. Germany and Portugal progressed to the quarter-finals, while Denmark and the Netherlands were eliminated from the tournament. Group B was dubbed by many the ‘group of death’ of Euro 2012. All four teams were in the top 10 of the FIFA World Rankings at the start of the tournament. … Ultimately, Germany defeated Denmark 2–1 after Lukas Podolski and Lars Bender scored for Germany in the 19th and 80th minutes, respectively, despite an equalizer from Michael Krohn-Dehli in the 24th minute. …”
Wikipedia
W – Joachim Löw
W – 2014 FIFA World Cup Final
Guardian: German model bangs the drum for club, country and the people’s game (Dec. 2012)
Germany and Argentina face off in the final of the World Cup 2014
“The map page is pretty self-explanatory, it being my usual basic location-map. The map-page also includes 2 charts – one chart which shows each current club’s Seasons-in-1st-division; the other chart shows the full German football titles list (including the pre-Bundesliga/amateur years from 1903 to 1963). There is one small addition I have made: on the map I have shown the promoted and relegated teams, via small color-coded boxes…green-edged boxes for the two promoted sides (Bochum and Fürth), and red-edged-boxes for the two relegated sides (Schalke and Bremen). Also shown, not on the map-page but further below, are captioned photos of the promoted clubs’ venues [Bochum and Fürth]. …”
billsportsmaps
W – 2021–22 Bundesliga
“Existential angst over competitiveness shouldn’t overshadow the fact we are looking at possibly the best team in Europe. We’ve seen it before, but it’s still difficult to know exactly how it should be characterised. It was brilliant, beautiful, ugly, deflating, awe-inspiring and a huge letdown all at the same time. Bayern Munich’s hegemony shows no sign of letting up and neither does it show any potential for being less of a source of conflicting feelings and views. …”
Guardian (Video)
“The age of Tyler Adams is a matter of perspective. In a strict, chronological sense, of course, he is 22 years 8 months, but what that means — whether it is young, as it appears to be, or old, as odd as that seems — depends on the context. There are times, in fact, when even Adams finds it hard to date himself with any degree of accuracy. Sometimes, he is aware of his youth. He shares the locker room at RB Leipzig, for example, with a host of players who joined the club in the lower reaches of German soccer, and remain in place even now that it has become a fixture in the Champions League. …”
NY Times
W – Tyler Adams
YouTube: Tyler Adams 2020/21 Season Highlights | RB Leipzig (May 2021)
Freiburg’s Dreisamstadion is one of Germany’s most iconic football grounds
“On 26 September 2021, Freiburg played their 360th and final Bundesliga game at the iconic Dreisamstadion, running out comfortable 3-0 winners against Augsburg. It was a fitting way to say farewell to their home of the last 66 years. Before the match, Freiburg head coach Christian Streich had declared that the sense of nostalgia surrounding the club’s final home outing was perfectly understandable, but that it had no place in his dressing room. He and the players weren’t thinking about it, hadn’t really discussed it – they were too busy preparing for a “complicated game” against an Augsburg side who had just got the better of Borussia Mönchengladbach. …”
Bundesliga (Video)
W – SC Freiburg
Leonardo Bonucci in action for Juventus against Sampdoria.
“Thomas Tuchel probably didn’t need a reminder of the difficulty in competing on two fronts this season, but Manchester City and now Juventus have given him just that in the space of five days. The chaotic circumstances surrounding his arrival at Stamford Bridge in January — replacing fan favourite Frank Lampard and thrust straight into a condensed schedule made more unrelenting by COVID-19’s impact — created a degree of breathing space in the Premier League that helped propel them to Champions League glory. Tuchel was of course under a degree of pressure to secure a top-four spot last term, but he harnessed that rarest of things under owner Roman Abramovich — a sense of freedom arising from lowered expectations — to galvanise this group to an improbable European success. The dynamic is different this time. …”
ESPN
Guardian: Tuchel and Chelsea are failing to capitalise on Lukaku’s specific threat
YouTube: Juventus vs. Chelsea: Extended Highlights, Bayern München vs. Dynamo Kyiv: Extended Highlights, Zenit vs. Malmö: Extended Highlights, Atalanta vs. Young Boys: Extended Highlights, Benfica vs. Barcelona: Extended Highlights, Wolfsburg vs. Sevilla: Extended Highlights
Sheriff Tiraspol shock Real Madrid
“The Moldovan side Sheriff Tiraspol pulled off a remarkable 2-1 win away against Real Madrid in the Champions League, snatching a shock victory thanks to a sensational 89th-minute strike from Sebastien Thill. The competition debutants Sheriff went ahead against the 13-time European champions in the 25th minute with a header from the Uzbek midfielder Jasurbek Yakhshiboev, who narrowly missed a chance to double the visitors’ lead later in the first half. …”
Guardian
YouTube: Real Madrid vs. Sheriff: Extended Highlights, AC Milan vs. Atlético Madrid: Extended Highlights, Porto vs. Liverpool: Extended Highlights, RB Leipzig vs. Club Brugge: Extended Highlights, PSG vs. Man. City: Extended Highlights, Dortmund vs. Sporting: Extended Highlights
“Adherents to the rather loaded term of positional play perceive football to be a game of dynamic spatial occupation. Subsequently, players will move in relation to the ball carrier and their supporting teammates. These reference points mean movements carry implications when working under a 5/7 zone structure which provides the framework for optimal creation of passing angles and maintenance of connections. Movement and subsequent vacation of space sends a signal to rotate, typically on the horizontal axis. …”
Running the Show
“The 2021–22 UEFA Champions League is the 67th season of Europe’s premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 30th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs’ Cup to the UEFA Champions League. The final will be played at the Krestovsky Stadium in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It was originally scheduled to be played at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany. However, due to the postponement and relocation of the 2020 final, the final hosts were shifted back a year, with Saint Petersburg instead hosting the 2022 final. The winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Champions League will automatically qualify for the 2022–23 UEFA Champions League group stage, and also earn the right to play against the winners of the 2021–22 UEFA Europa League in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup. …”
W – 2021–22 UEFA Champions League, W – 2021–22 UEFA Champions League group stage
Guardian – Champions League 2021-22 draw: group stage analysis and predictions
“Bayern Munich are the most dominant German football team of all time. And it isn’t even close. They have dominated the Bundesliga for as long as anyone can remember and it seems as though that won’t come to an end anytime soon. But how have they done this? How have they monopolized the league and achieved such unprecedented success? Let’s find out. …”
YouTube: Bayern Munich: Why Does The Bundesliga Look So Easy To Them?
“In early 2005, German football was overshadowed by the discovery of a €2 million match fixing scandal centered on second division referee Robert Hoyzer, who confessed to fixing and betting on matches in the 2. Bundesliga, the DFB-Pokal (German Cup), and the then third division Regionalliga. The scandal has been described as the largest controversy in German football since the Bundesliga scandal of the early 1970s, as numerous players, coaches and officials have been accused of involvement with an organised crime group in the scheme, which came on the eve of Germany playing host to the 2006 World Cup. …”
W – 2005 German football match-fixing scandal
NY Times: Germany Still Consumed by a Scandal (March 2005)
YouTube: The 2005 German Match-Fixing Scandal
“The map is a standard location-map showing the locations of the 32 qualified teams in the 2021-22 UEFA Champions League Group Stage. There are several other aspects to the map page… 1). Groups A through H… At the very top of the map are the eight 4-team groups of the Group Stage, arranged with with each club’s home-country flag shown alongside. 2). Allocations vs. Qualified teams, by country… At the left side of the map page, Allocations (by member-nations) are shown, via a list of the top 41 UEFA Member-Associations in their current [2021-22] Country Co-efficient ranking. I stopped at 41 (out of the 55 total UEFA member-nations) because #41 is the current ranking of Moldova, and Sheriff Tiraspol of Moldova was the club from the lowest-ranked country to qualify for this season’s tournament. This is the first time a club from Moldova has qualified for the elite competition that is the Champions League. But it is not really any sort of fairy-tale story of a David making it into the realm of the Goliaths. …”
billsportsmaps
“… Musiala was named on the substitutes’ bench at the Red Bull Arena, but didn’t hang about after entering the fray in first-half stoppage time for the injured Serge Gnabry. Within two minutes of the restart, the teenager brought an Alphonso Davies ball under his spell and fired with unerring accuracy beyond Peter Gulacsi. The Germany wizard then turned provider for Bayern’s third, ghosting in behind Mohamed Simakan and telegraphing the unmarked Leroy Sane‘s run with an inch-perfect cross towards the back post. It was footballing sorcery at its finest. …’
Bundesliga (Video)
Bundesliga – Jamal Musiala: Who is Bayern Munich’s Germany star of the future?
YouTube: Best of Jamal Musiala – Bayern’s and Germany’s New Wonderkid
Poland 1, England 1
“…In a night of relatively low drama most of the big guns of European football eased to a further three points, not least Germany, who looked impressive in swatting aside Iceland 4-0. An early goal from Serge Gnabry set Hansi Flick’s side on course for a win that takes them four points clear in Group J before Antonio Rudiger, Leroy Sane and Timo Werner found the net, the latter only after wasting a string of presentable opportunities. After two games in which they dropped points the visit of Lithuania came at a good time for Italy with new Juventus striker Moise Kean netting a first-half brace. Their lead in Group C had been looking precarious after a draw against Switzerland but they had Northern Irish goalkeeper Bailey Peacock-Farrell to thank as he saved a penalty that meant Northern Ireland held the Swiss to a goalless draw in Belfast. …”
CBS Sports (Video)
BBC – World Cup 2022 qualifying: Who is close to qualifying? Who are the surprise packages?
Guardian: Szymanski denies England as Poland snatch late draw after Kane’s opener
ESPN: England’s draw in Poland keeps Three Lions on track for Qatar 2022, but they’ll need complete performances to vie for World Cup
“The Spanish national team tasted defeat for the first time in 28 years in a World Cup qualifying match after they lost to Sweden 2-1 on Friday in Stockholm. Sweden came back from a goal down to defeat Spain who lost a World Cup qualifying match after 66 games undefeated. The defeat means that Spain have lost a World Cup qualifying game after 66 matches and 28 years. During this undefeated run, they also managed to win 10 in a row before the 2010 World Cup which they ended up winning. A defeat that Luis Enrique would not have excepted as his men had done well in the Euro 2020 having made the semi-finals where they lost eventual Champions Italy on penalties. …”
Republic World
YouTube: Sweden stuns Spain 2-1 in World Cup qualifier | WCQ Highlights | ESPN FC
UEFA: European Qualifiers: England and Belgium rampant, Sweden stun Spain
“They streamed down the streets in blue and white, gravitating to the Castroper Strasse where trams drop right outside the Ruhrstadion and the smell of grilling sausages hits you as soon as the double doors open. ‘The euphoria was palpable throughout the city,’ said Thomas Reis. They had waited for this and how they deserved it. Bochum is a city of 365,000 people hiding in plain sight in football’s landscape, in the German game’s most teeming region. On a wider scale, VfL Bochum are destined to be the forgotten of North Rhine-Westphalia, squeezed into the space between the bigger and brasher Borussia Dortmund to the east and Schalke to the west. …”
Guardian
W – VfL Bochum
“We’ve done a lot of tactical content here through the years, from investigating Paulo Sousa’s innovative Fiorentina tactics to Thomas Tuchel’s build-up patterns at Borussia Dortmund and Diego Simeone’s suffocating, positionally-oriented Atlético de Madrid. However, this piece is not an analysis of a team or a coach; rather, this piece investigates possible implementations coaches could use when building from the back in a 4-1-2-1-2/4-4-2 diamond. …”
Running the Show (Nov. 2020)
“The first half was a blink-and-you-miss it affair, with chances coming and going seemingly by the minute. Bayern targeted BVB right-back Felix Passlack early on, robbing him of possession three times with their relentless high press to set up presentable scoring chances, but neither Kingsley Coman (twice) nor Müller managed to hit the target. Dortmund were also dangerous going forward, though, and Bayern needed a world-class stop from Manuel Neuer to deny Marco Reus following a sensational through-ball from Jude Bellingham. Reus, Müller, Lewandowski and Erling Haaland all went close thereafter, while 16-year-old Youssoufa Moukoko had a goal disallowed for offside before Lewandowski thundered in the opening goal with a powerful header from Serge Gnabry’s cross to give the visitors the lead at the break. …”
Bundesliga: Robert Lewandowski double as Bayern Munich overcome Borussia Dortmund to win the Supercup (Video)
W – Der Klassiker
YouTube: Tactical Analysis : Borussia Dortmund 1 – 3 Bayern Munich || Nagelsmann’s Mid-Game Adjustments, Borussia Dortmund 1-3 Bayern Analysis |How Bayern won the German Super Cup
“Werder Bremen are the third most successful club, and sit third in the all time Bundesliga table, trailing only Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in both instances. And yet, following relegation last season, the Green-Whites begin the 2021-22 campaign playing in the 2. Bundesliga for the first time in over 40 years. In this short documentary, HITC Sevens takes a look at what went right for Werder Bremen, and ultimately what went wrong, in a tale containing cheats, liars, genius, brilliant signings, awful transfers, relegation, league titles, and everything in between.”
YouTube: What On Earth Is Going On At Werder Bremen?
W – SV Werder Bremen
Scissors Kick 