<b>DFB-Pokal quarter-finals Preview: Schalke against Bayern</b>
Everything that happened in the Bundesliga’s stadiums outside the pitch over the weekend overshadowed what happened on the pitch so much that in the end, no one talked about the matchday’s victors in the Bundesliga standings. One of them was FC Bayern. But even hours before the meeting with Schalke in the DFB-Pokal, it is difficult to focus on the football.Bayern was already leading 6-0 when some of their fans almost caused the game to be abandoned. Since then, hardly anyone has talked about the performance Hansi Flick’s team had delivered during the first 60 minutes of the match. The actions a lot of fans in several Bundesliga stadiums took have been too important and far-reaching, even though the game was another, albeit small, milestone in Flick’s still young career as Bayern’s head coach.Even the draw between RB Leipzig and Leverkusen a day later that allowed Bayern to extend their lead in the standings to three points hardly played a role in any discussion of the weekend’s events. As things stand, Bayern can afford to lose one game more than Leipzig, which could become a vital advantage considering both teams’ remaining fixtures. Bayern still has to play away to such sides as Union Berlin, Borussia Dortmund and Leverkusen. And then there is the home game against Gladbach and not to forget all the other minor stumbling blocks along the way. Leipzig’s final run-in, on the other hand, in the main sees them face opposition from the lower half of the table. Their most difficult tasks will arguably be the away games at Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim as well as the home games against Dortmund and Freiburg.<a href="#back-to-focusing-on-football-not-quite-yet"></a>Back to focusing on football? Not quite yet.Despite the matchday’s good news for FC Bayern, the events of the weekend cannot be easily brushed aside. What happened there was not the beginning of an escalation. It was the final stage of an escalation of a conflict that has been going on for years, with all sides increasingly adopting radical positions.For one, there is the DFB, which did not live up to its role as a mediator. Then there is a faction of supporters who, in the specific case of FC Bayern, have drifted further and further towards extreme positions, because they felt misunderstood. And finally there is FC Bayern itself, who have failed to establish a strategically wise platform for discussion and mutual exchange with their supportersThere is no uniform entity “the Ultras”. By making this generalization, the problems already start. The Ultras, who have to be be regarded as a youth movement of the 21st century even though they do not consist exclusively of young people, are too heterogeneous a group for that. Their members come from a broad variety of backgrounds, with everything from people from socially difficult circumstances to well-off people being represented in these groups – with all the positive and negative aspects that go with this.<a href="#power-struggle-instead-of-dialogue"></a>Power struggle instead of dialogue?This also means that there are people who would be perfectly able to communicate with those responsible at FC Bayern and the DFB on an equal footing. However, as we were told by a well-connected fan in the “Südkurve” (FC Bayern’s Ultra block), the club has not done enough to establish a dialogue with these people in recent years.Instead, the positions on both sides have become increasingly entrenched. The interests of all sides moved into the background against a scene of events that saw all long simmering conflicts escalating last weekend. The most obvious route the DFB could now be tempted to take to “solve” the problem is clear: to issue a collective punishment on all Bayern supporters by barring them from attending future away games at Hoffenheim. This, however, could release a potential for further escalation among organized supporters throughout the country on an unprecedented…
Everything that happened in the Bundesliga’s stadiums outside the pitch over the weekend overshadowed what happened on the pitch so much that in the end, no one talked about the matchday’s victors in the Bundesliga standings. One of them was FC Bayern. But even hours before the meeting with Schalke in the DFB-Pokal, it is difficult to focus on the football.Bayern was already leading 6-0 when some of their fans almost caused the game to be abandoned. Since then, hardly anyone has talked about the performance Hansi Flick’s team had delivered during the first 60 minutes of the match. The actions a lot of fans in several Bundesliga stadiums took have been too important and far-reaching, even though the game was another, albeit small, milestone in Flick’s still young career as Bayern’s head coach.Even the draw between RB Leipzig and Leverkusen a day later that allowed Bayern to extend their lead in the standings to three points hardly played a role in any discussion of the weekend’s events. As things stand, Bayern can afford to lose one game more than Leipzig, which could become a vital advantage considering both teams’ remaining fixtures. Bayern still has to play away to such sides as Union Berlin, Borussia Dortmund and Leverkusen. And then there is the home game against Gladbach and not to forget all the other minor stumbling blocks along the way. Leipzig’s final run-in, on the other hand, in the main sees them face opposition from the lower half of the table. Their most difficult tasks will arguably be the away games at Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim as well as the home games against Dortmund and Freiburg.<a href="#back-to-focusing-on-football-not-quite-yet"></a>Back to focusing on football? Not quite yet.Despite the matchday’s good news for FC Bayern, the events of the weekend cannot be easily brushed aside. What happened there was not the beginning of an escalation. It was the final stage of an escalation of a conflict that has been going on for years, with all sides increasingly adopting radical positions.For one, there is the DFB, which did not live up to its role as a mediator. Then there is a faction of supporters who, in the specific case of FC Bayern, have drifted further and further towards extreme positions, because they felt misunderstood. And finally there is FC Bayern itself, who have failed to establish a strategically wise platform for discussion and mutual exchange with their supportersThere is no uniform entity “the Ultras”. By making this generalization, the problems already start. The Ultras, who have to be be regarded as a youth movement of the 21st century even though they do not consist exclusively of young people, are too heterogeneous a group for that. Their members come from a broad variety of backgrounds, with everything from people from socially difficult circumstances to well-off people being represented in these groups – with all the positive and negative aspects that go with this.<a href="#power-struggle-instead-of-dialogue"></a>Power struggle instead of dialogue?This also means that there are people who would be perfectly able to communicate with those responsible at FC Bayern and the DFB on an equal footing. However, as we were told by a well-connected fan in the “Südkurve” (FC Bayern’s Ultra block), the club has not done enough to establish a dialogue with these people in recent years.Instead, the positions on both sides have become increasingly entrenched. The interests of all sides moved into the background against a scene of events that saw all long simmering conflicts escalating last weekend. The most obvious route the DFB could now be tempted to take to “solve” the problem is clear: to issue a collective punishment on all Bayern supporters by barring them from attending future away games at Hoffenheim. This, however, could release a potential for further escalation among organized supporters throughout the country on an unprecedented…
<b>Bundesliga MD 03 Preview: Bayern vs. Hertha BSC</b>
FC Bayern Munich against Hertha BSC – a game behind closed doors. Granted, a trip to Munich is usually not worth the trouble for Hertha fans anyway. But this time the club from Germany’s capital wil not be chanceless. An analysis by <a href="https://herthabase.de/">Hertha-BASE</a>-Editor <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisdeFrance1">Chris Robert</a>.If as a Hertha fan you make the trip to Munich expecting to win points against the record champions, it is usually not worth your while. The last away victory of the “old lady” was so long ago (1977) that Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Uli Hoeneß were still on the field for FC Bayern.In order to have any kind of hope that this horrific series may finally come to an end, the men of Bruno Labbadia will have to show a completely different face than in their home game against Eintracht Frankfurt, and they would be well advised to take an example from TSG Hoffenheim, too.<a href="#the-young-old-lady-has-not-yet-matured"></a>The young „old lady“ has not yet maturedIt was soon over with the ironic “number one, number one” shouts in the first half against Eintracht Frankfurt. It did not take more than 36 minutes for Hertha to be two goals behind. Overall, it was a weak performance by the very young team, who fought their way back in the second half, but still lost the game 1-3 in the end. It was the seasoned performers most of all who had an off day: Vladimir Darida (the most consistent player of the last season at Hertha) and Peter Pekarik (still the hero of the Bremen game) were both replaced at half time after a disappointing performance. Also new captain Dedryck Boyata, usually a very reliable hand at center-back, caused the penalty for the 0-1 and did not radiate his usual composure.In this season’s three competitive games so far, Hertha fans experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. First there was the astonishing debacle in the DFB-Pokal against Eintracht Braunschweig, where they went out 4-5 in normal time, then the impressive victory in Bremen (4-1), only then to be brutally pulled back down to earth by the painful defeat in the home game against Frankfurt. This start of the season has probably provided a very accurate summation in a nutshell of how the season of Hertha will look. After all, Bruno Labbadia’s “young Hertha” is still a long way from being at a level that would justify a realistic expectation of qualifying for the European League. From chaos club to Europa League candidate in one fell swoop? Doubts are in order. Something like this usually does not happen miraculously within six months, even on the back of dozens of new Windhorst millions.And so Hertha began to clean out their squad in summer and said goodbye to several experienced players, most of whom had been with the club for a long time: Vedad Ibisevic (36), Salomon Kalou (35), Per Skjelbred (33), Thomas Kraft (31) and Alexander Esswein (30) left the club. These departures were intentionally not compensated with experienced newcomers, “so that we do not only think in short term cycles, but also build something up in the medium term. That is our goal and that’s why we decided against signing new experienced players,” as Labbadia explained. Hertha’s squad is the fifth youngest in the Bundesliga with an average age of 25. That is actually a good thing, but it means that fluctuations in performance will be inevitable during the season.Sunday will be no different: Hertha are not nearly as disciplined and well-organized as Hoffenheim. The young guns in Hertha’s offensive still lack the automatisms and the consistency to reliably perform at a high level over 90 minutes. Another major problem is the lack of leaders on and off the field. A pecking order within the team and real “leaders” still have to emerge. In addition, Hertha are still too prone to trip themselves up with individual mistakes.<a href="#back-three-or-not-many-options-for-bruno-labbadia"></a>Back three or not?…
FC Bayern Munich against Hertha BSC – a game behind closed doors. Granted, a trip to Munich is usually not worth the trouble for Hertha fans anyway. But this time the club from Germany’s capital wil not be chanceless. An analysis by <a href="https://herthabase.de/">Hertha-BASE</a>-Editor <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisdeFrance1">Chris Robert</a>.If as a Hertha fan you make the trip to Munich expecting to win points against the record champions, it is usually not worth your while. The last away victory of the “old lady” was so long ago (1977) that Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Uli Hoeneß were still on the field for FC Bayern.In order to have any kind of hope that this horrific series may finally come to an end, the men of Bruno Labbadia will have to show a completely different face than in their home game against Eintracht Frankfurt, and they would be well advised to take an example from TSG Hoffenheim, too.<a href="#the-young-old-lady-has-not-yet-matured"></a>The young „old lady“ has not yet maturedIt was soon over with the ironic “number one, number one” shouts in the first half against Eintracht Frankfurt. It did not take more than 36 minutes for Hertha to be two goals behind. Overall, it was a weak performance by the very young team, who fought their way back in the second half, but still lost the game 1-3 in the end. It was the seasoned performers most of all who had an off day: Vladimir Darida (the most consistent player of the last season at Hertha) and Peter Pekarik (still the hero of the Bremen game) were both replaced at half time after a disappointing performance. Also new captain Dedryck Boyata, usually a very reliable hand at center-back, caused the penalty for the 0-1 and did not radiate his usual composure.In this season’s three competitive games so far, Hertha fans experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. First there was the astonishing debacle in the DFB-Pokal against Eintracht Braunschweig, where they went out 4-5 in normal time, then the impressive victory in Bremen (4-1), only then to be brutally pulled back down to earth by the painful defeat in the home game against Frankfurt. This start of the season has probably provided a very accurate summation in a nutshell of how the season of Hertha will look. After all, Bruno Labbadia’s “young Hertha” is still a long way from being at a level that would justify a realistic expectation of qualifying for the European League. From chaos club to Europa League candidate in one fell swoop? Doubts are in order. Something like this usually does not happen miraculously within six months, even on the back of dozens of new Windhorst millions.And so Hertha began to clean out their squad in summer and said goodbye to several experienced players, most of whom had been with the club for a long time: Vedad Ibisevic (36), Salomon Kalou (35), Per Skjelbred (33), Thomas Kraft (31) and Alexander Esswein (30) left the club. These departures were intentionally not compensated with experienced newcomers, “so that we do not only think in short term cycles, but also build something up in the medium term. That is our goal and that’s why we decided against signing new experienced players,” as Labbadia explained. Hertha’s squad is the fifth youngest in the Bundesliga with an average age of 25. That is actually a good thing, but it means that fluctuations in performance will be inevitable during the season.Sunday will be no different: Hertha are not nearly as disciplined and well-organized as Hoffenheim. The young guns in Hertha’s offensive still lack the automatisms and the consistency to reliably perform at a high level over 90 minutes. Another major problem is the lack of leaders on and off the field. A pecking order within the team and real “leaders” still have to emerge. In addition, Hertha are still too prone to trip themselves up with individual mistakes.<a href="#back-three-or-not-many-options-for-bruno-labbadia"></a>Back three or not?…
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