Bundesliga Thread

It was mainly the Kahn flag-mocking by Neuer, as the Schalke keeper, which made us not want him. At the same time, our keeper "talent" Thomas Kraft, nowadays relatively unknown, made a good start at Bayern. Our previous high-profile number one goalkeeper, Hans-Jörg Butt wasn't bad, but nowhere near a world-class man (despite reaching the Champions League final with him in 2010), which perhaps didn't set a high bar for Kraft - but it was a good start by the boy, nevertheless. Demands by the fans to stick with Kraft and reject Neuer (me included) were ignored by the Bayern board (in hindsight, thankfully), who were convinced in the greater potential Neuer would bring the club.

I don't know a lot of Bayern fans, but my impression was that we started accepting Neuer within his first season when he helped us reach the 2012 Champions League Final. The season prior to that, Neuer himself outperformed Bayern in the CL, reaching the semis with Schalke after deservedly beating the same Inter side that we failed to avenge from the previous final. By 2013, I had the feeling we were all glad to have Neuer, winning the CL final for the first time since 2001 which allowed us to forget the Finale Dahoam loss. Next, Neuer won the World Cup as Germany's new outstanding "Libero". The 'Harakiri' goalkeeping against Algeria is legendary. Of course, he was great throughout the tournament, proudly representing Bayern after traitors like Kroos signed for Real Madrid.

A few years ago, when all the Bayern haters used to pretend Ter Stegen was better than Neuer, if they had their way with Germany's number one, there would've been a real uproar among Bayern fans.

 

Thank you Oli. I'm glad to hear that they've all "kissed and made up".

On a side note, I thought the Neuer waving the corner flag as a piss take of Kahn was pretty amusing.

But then again, I'm not a die hard Bayern fan, and until I watched the recent Amazon prime documentary on the club, I always thought Kahn was a bit of a pr*ck.

 

It's actually very good. Takes you behind the scenes and gives a great insight into the club.

Netflix is good for drama, but Amazon Prime seem to have sports documentaries nailed. I've seen ones on Man City, Spurs, the All Blacks, the Aussie cricket team, and they are all worth a watch.

 

When I thought about this yesterday, I find that flag piss take pretty hilarious now. It makes me laugh how I could be so annoyed about this little banter at the time.

I think Kahn was the sort of athlete that needed an unlikable mentality to use his full potential. Even after bitter losses, he was able to congratulate his opponents. He even congratulated 'Mad Jens' Lehmann after a big win at the home 2006 World Cup. I think it was after Lehmann helped Germany beat Argentina on penalties, if I remember correctly. Months before, when Klinsmann rejected Bayern's demands to stick with Kahn, there was a feeling Lehmann and Kahn could hardly stay in the same room.

...is it just me, or is Jörg Butt's goalscoring record better than most of HSV's strikers' over the past 5-10 years? I hope HSV trash Dresden btw.

I haven't seen it myself yet, but I'll watch it then for sure.

 

Make sure you do. It's called "Behind The Legend" and it's a 6 parter.

It's given me a new respect and admiration for Bayern. I always thought their players and officials came across as arrogant, but it turns out that they're great guys who just love their club.

 

I was always for signing Neuer, only a few idiots from Schickeria didn't want him. He was fully accepted years ago.

 

Had no idea there was hatred among the Bayern fans for Neuer. To me it was always the bitter Schalke lot who were jealous that he was playing for Bayern instead of them.

Bayern is well run and very good at basically everything they do. This is the main reason why everybody hates them.

 

Didn't find the yellows that convincing personally. More like Freiburg who were terrible. I mean even Meunier scored. Twice!

It's a schade that shame didn't start the game as he was very good coming on...

 

Those few idiots from the Schickeria must carry some weight though, if the club had to officially meet them and draw up some sort of agreement.

What's going on there then? At Everton we currently have some fans protesting Rafa as manager, and the club have basically said, "Shut up and support the team." Do Bayern's supporter groups wield a lot of influence?

 

The members do, and Bayern have over 290,000 members. Schickeria are a load of noisy idiots but are a small minority amongst the membership.

 

Lewa destroys Köln on his own.

 

I thought Bayern were crap to be honest. Their pass accuracy and ability to shield the ball were low, causing lost possession far too often. Musiala and Gnabry were poor. The defence was also too leaky and Köln could've scored a few if they showed more quality upfront. Luckily, Köln were even worse. Sané provided some good service after coming on. Good hattrick for Lewandowski's 300th Bundesliga goal. Superb first goal by Tolisso too, fantastic volley.

 

Anyone caught Gladbach/Bayer last night? Terrible first half but the second period was decent. Sommer saved a first pen from our goalgetter Patrik Schick but Andrich scored from the resulting corner. No Gladbach response. Then Schick scores the second and the visitors relax a little. Gladbach score from lazy defending on a set-piece and that should have been that only for Sommer to save another penalty (how often does a keeper stop 2 pens in one game, let alone one half?) from Demirbay (who didn't shoot on the same side as Schick btw). Sommer really should be playing with better teamates. Not saying Gladbach have a terrible squad but from open play they really are terrible. van Bommel got the sack from Wolfsburg and I can see things getting squeaky bummy for ex-Eintracht gaffer Hütter. They were really terrible last night.
Leverkusen weren't much better but being the away side you can make excuses.

 

I only saw the second half tbf.

 

We're "concentrating on the league"