The Bundesliga Show Episode 42 - A mixed weekend of sadness and joy in the Bundesliga

This week on The Bundesliga Show, Terry Duffelen and Jon Hartley, talk about the big issues of Matchday 13 in the Bundesliga. It was a mixed weekend of emotions in the Bundesliga...sadness at the news of Referee Babak Rafati tried to take his own life before Cologne's game with Hannover.

Also in the show, author and journalist Uli Hesse talks about the big match of the week between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.

The Bundesliga Show Episode 42 - A mixed weekend of sadness and joy in the Bundesliga by soundoffootball

Fines A Sign of Bad Times for Wolfsburg?

There is an eerie calm during the two weeks international breaks intrude upon top flight league schedules. Pubs near stadiums likely find their trade less brisk on these weekends while fans entertain themselves with other leisurely activities typically omitted from their usual football rituals. Players not participating in their national squad fixtures are permitted more time to rest and recover, granted a brief reprieve from the weekly grind along with the incessant "Will he play?" type questions for those with nagging injuries.

When the break comes on the heels of a transfer window having just slammed shut, or closed softly, or simply concluded, it can be downright crickets. This is all well and good though for the club trainers, most of whom might appreciate the time to assess their squads after all the comings and goings during the transfer season without having to busily cobble together a plan of action in a matter of a couple days. For some, it might be a welcome break from the media glare, particularly if the season has not gone as swimmingly as planned. Of course, not a bit of that matters to Wolfsburg's trainer Felix Magath, for he is a slave to the rhythm.

And we all know rhythm is a dancer, don't we? It's our soul's companion, and all that nonsense.

No, not content with utilizing the time to evaluate his club's concluded player transactions along their rather recent woeful defensive record as a team--having conceded 7 goals over the last two matches--Magath appears to have singled out two of his more attack-minded players during this time off and shine the media spotlight on them (and himself) instead. Charging Patrick Helmes and Mario Mandzukic with being "lazy runners" during the side's 4-1 defeat to Borussia Mönchengladbach, the pair were fined € 10,0000 each by that noted lover of medicine balls over this internationals weekend. While this is not something unprecedented for that crazy cat Felix, it is rather odd, considering neither player has ever come across as being particularly consistent up and down the pitch ever nor have either been regularly considered defensive assets to their squads.

Honestly, if Magath is going to fine Helmes for not moving about that much, he might as well charge him for being, well, Patrick Helmes. He could pursue the matter retroactively and tell Patrick he owes Bayer Leverkusen a few thousand euros while he's at it.

The matter, though, might be rather amusing now to some Bundesliga observers, as this is Magath's modus operandi, but for Wolfsburg supporters, it could spell the continuation of a poor run of form. As the experiment under English manager Schtunning Schteve McClaren crashed and burned at the VW Arena near the close of last year's campaign, VfL returned to Magath, the only trainer to have taken die Wölfe to the Bundesliga summit, in an attempt to bring form to function. Most of the club McClaren had inherited fit Magath's championship-winning system, and try as they might, McClaren's tactics and his squad just could not get on the same page; thus, Magath picked up his poisoned chalice after having parted ways with Schalke 04 earlier in the season.

So, the cat is back, but will this type of old school encouragement work on his current Wolfsburg squad? Magath demonstrated last season during Schalke's woeful 2010/11 league campaign this sort of managerial style works only in the proper circumstances, and can often backfire with lacklustre results. Last season, Magath isolated players such as Jermaine Jones and Alex Baumjohann in a similar fashion, labeling them as lazy and opting for them to rot on the reserve squad of the Royal Blues during his tenure. This, of course, was the same Jones who was vital in Schalke's midfield just the previous 2009/10 season and impressive when he was finally able to escape the final days of Magath's reign while on loan to Blackburn earlier this year. As for Baumjohann, he was returned to the side when Ralf Rangnick took over, and looks to be a first choice substitute as Rangnick rotates his midfield during the Bundesliga and Europa League campaigns this season.

Also, ask Zvonomir Soldo how effective going old school can be. Anyone know where he is these days?

With Wolfsburg likely needing their goal scorers on quality form while players on the back line like the two-footed Sortirios Kyrgiakos get sorted following the departure of the lad Simon Kjaer, this might not be the best of moments to unsettle them via negative motivational tactics. Having observed Helmes at Bayer 04, he seems to be a player who needs more confidence spewing forth from the trainer's box than other strikers, he needs time on the pitch, and he needs to be allowed to sort out his own mistakes for positive results to take place. As for Mandzukic, his form has always been slightly spotty; in one match, he'll appear as active as a sea turtle beaching itself to lay eggs, the very next match, he can be found darting vertically all over the pitch like a hare with his ears pinned back.

In short, this is probably a decision waiting to backfire on Magath like an old Beetle.

The break, then, is ending. Players on international duty will soon be rejoining their respective clubs, with a new matchday approaching like a freight train of relief for league enthusiasts bored out of their gourds the past weekend. For Magath and Wolfsburg, whether his decision to fine VfL players for sleeping on the job proves motivational or detrimental can only be determined on the pitch, and what better way to find out than with a home match against Schalke, featuring many of the players Magath treated in a similar manner last season along with a few he loaned out completely for not fitting his style. It should be a right family get together, then. 

Company Picnic At The Pokal

Who doesn't love a big, shiny, golden cup? After all, before the winnings from competitions such as the Champions League went from being paid in plug nickels to enough money to fully fund most Third World countries, the big prize was just a cup.

Okay, there might have been some ribbons too. The point is that, at the end of cup competitions, there is a tangible object--often a great lump of a trophy that's been places you wish you could go--awarded to the triumphant side. One of the best cups out there to win, aesthetically speaking, is the DFB Pokal Cup. Just look at that lovely piece of silverware--it's a solid and divinely-wrought piece of metal from which Vikings should be drinking mead.

Wouldn't you want your club's captain to be hoisting something similar to the German Cup at the end of a title-winning campaign in 1.Bundesliga over a bloody hubcap? The best thing you can do with that is dine on salad--Bundesliga winners deserve a cup that can hold a liver-wilting amount of beer rather than an over-sized appetizer plate.

But that cup instead goes to the winner of Germany's domestic competition, and the opening round begins this weekend. The draw set up some interesting matches to begin, from a plucky club Terry's featured elsewhere hosting Bavarian behemoths Bayern to a few that see 2.Bundesliga sides squaring off in perhaps more competitive affairs. One of the most intriguing fixtures, however, might pique those curious in the Battle for the Mead Cup for what the two clubs embody rather than which side will emerge victorious. When RB Leipzig host VfL Wolfsburg on Friday evening, it sees two clubs take to the pitch in a contrast of the company club from yesteryear with one of the modern footballing age.

Die Wölfe, of course, is the post-World War II incarnation of the football club associated with the Volkswagen auto works factory in Wolfsburg. With the pre-war works team BSG Volkswagenwerk Stadt des KdF-Wagen having been disbanded, VfL was granted license to operate by the British occupation forces after so that town residents--Volkswagen employees-- could get a bit of exercise after having spent the week building VW Beetles. Playing in the shadows of Volkswagen's office buildings and near barracks that once housed foreign prisoners forced to work for the company during the war, VfL nearly went extinct as well when all but one of its players left to play for 1.FC Wolfsburg, a club still in operation today in the Northeast German Football Association (NOFV). While today we consider them a 1.Bundesliga regular--their current spell in the top flight beginning in the late 1990s--and having even stolen a Hubcap off Bayern Munich in 2009, for a long period of their existence Wolves were mainly a regional team supported by the town's employer in a scheme devised to let the employees blow off a little steam.

The story of RB Leipzig--that's SSV Markranstädt in old German--probably is well-known to those that have been foolish enough to have read down this far. If not, then, a quick refresher: fizzy energy drink company Red Bull made the fifth division German side its fourth football acquisition in 2009 after having purchased franchises in Salzburg, New York, and Sao Paolo. With Bundesliga having that pesky ownership rule that insists outside investors can retain no more than a 49% interest, the company only purchased a minority stake of the former East German club and was allowed to rebrand the club as "RB" rather than Red Bull Markranstädt to smudge up said rule. As for the Leipzig part, shortly after the organization bought SSV's playing license it moved the club from the cozy Stadion am Bad with a capacity of 5,500 a few miles away to play in Leipzig's 45,000 capacity Zentralstadion, a bit of a "white elephant" that had been left over from the 2006 World Cup.

Red Bull's goal is to have RB Leipzig competing in the 1.Bundesliga within the next eight years, which is the primary reason behind the move to what is now Red Bull Arena under a name that could easily be construed as being shorthand for "Rhapsodic Bohemian Leipzig," or something like that.

As an odd parallel, SSV's pre-fizzy drink history shows that, as Wolfsburg was being supported by an automaker in the west, rebranded RB Leipzig had spent portions of its own existence funded by manufacturing companies in the east. While the town of Markranstädt is known principally for brewing tasty beer, it also has been a home to automotive and machine factories. Company sponsorship of the club during the Cold War years was reflected in its name, from being known at various times as BSG Motor or BSG Turbine. Likely those sponsorships reflected the need for a local side to be able to survive financially during the difficulties of post-war German division and a company's desire to keep said club in operation for the sake of domestic tranquility. A prime contrast between its previous company associations and the current RB Leipzig formula, then, lies in ambition.

Surely the East German motor works company or those machine builders did not lend their financial support in hopes of turning a fifth or sixth division club into a future 1.Bundesliga powerhouse. Nor did they have a philosophy of incorporating a Markranstädt side into part of their global marketing strategy. That has, it seems, been what has become of the club. It appears to turn the origins of company sponsorship, like that of VfL Wolfsburg, on its head; rather than being an recreational outlet for locals tired from the rigors of a business day, it has instead made the club part of the business itself, detaching the team from its Markranstädt roots and plopping it down the road and labeling it with enough red bulls to potentially break all the china in the Bundesliga's shop.

Why say that? Red Bull's purchase of the club and stated aim to fund it through to the top flight presented another potential ally to Martin Kind's attempts at seeing out alterations to Bundesliga's 50 + 1 rule. The Hannover 96 president recently presented a new proposal to be decided by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that would expand the previous statute allowing commercially-owned clubs Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg to retain their majority owners to other clubs that have also received uninterrupted support from a similar group for a lengthy period of time. Uli Hesse provided a fantastic summation of the current proposal here in Part I and Part II. Should this be approved, it would set up quite nicely for RB Leipzig, as Red Bull would then be able to continue funding the club up the league tables with a move to full ownership once that period of time has been reached without having to legally challenge for the right to do so.

So, while this DFB Pokal Cup clash between Wolfsburg and RB Leipzig is a first for two clubs that owe their current existence to commercial endeavors, it might not be the last. The future of Bundesliga might see a bit more of this, as traveling supporters hop in their Passats and sip Red Bull on the way to a match at Red Bull Arena. Perhaps we might see RB Leipzig lift the Mead Cup someday, guzzling from it the latest sugar-free concoction designed to give you wings. And while this meeting represents a bit of a new relationship betwixt company and club versus the old, one thing remains a constant. Should Red Bull achieve its goal of having RB Leipzig promoted to 1.Bundesliga some day, it will still likely have to steal that Hubcap away from Bayern Munich much like Wolfsburg did a couple years ago.