Deutschland Blog

There’s one thing my coach never tired of saying to me: “Hau den Ball ins Tor hinein!” – best translated with: “Just slam it into the back of the net!” What did yours used to say to you? What about this one: “The country’s going to the dogs! Everything was better back then!”
1958: In the old communist GDR, food rationing was finally ended, although East Germany had to wait for Helmut Kohl and the fall of communism to get their promised land. This was also the year in which Elvis Presley arrived in Germany to do his national service in the army; seemingly by chance, another music legend Michael Jackson was born. A 17-year old Brasilian named Pélé wrote World Championship history in Sweden and Schalke 04 won the German league for the seventh and last time.
1988: This is the year in which Mikhail Gorbachev declared that every socialist state should be free to develop its own societal model – if he’d only known what that would lead to… Enzo Ferrari, the greatest Italian racing driver ever died and Rihanna, the American R&B singer, was born. The Dutch won the European Championship, their only ever international title, in Germany of all places; and Bayer Leverkusen celebrated its greatest triumph as UEFA cup winners.
2008: In the US, Lehman Brothers reports bankruptcy and Barack Obama becomes the first ever Afro-American president. Even more importantly in some people’s eyes: Nicolas Sarkozy marries Carla Bruni. Spain become European Champions after beating Germany in the final and Bayern Munich take the German league title for the 21st time.
2010: Three teams, three aims – Schalke 04, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern München, or “were champions an incredibly long time ago”, “were never champions” and “are record holders” – and the recent 28th day of play was decisive in deciding to which of these three contenders the championship might fall. Whilst Munich surprised everyone by losing their home game 1:2 to VfB Stuttgart, Schalke also surprised by winning in Leverkusen by 2:0 and taking the top-spot in the league table.
As recently as last week, Bayern were still able to pull off a convincing performance and look like they deserved to be in the cup final. Now, despite good play, they fell victim to an unlucky equaliser followed be a short but intense period of pressure from Stuttgart. This was the second league defeat in a row for Munich and as such gave Schalke and Leverkusen the chance they needed to conquer the heights of the table.

And oddly enough, it was Schalke that made the most of this opportunity. The “almost could-haves”, as Schalke are known, did not play like a top team in their cup match against Bayern, but in this championship game, they dominated the team in third place in the league, Leverkusen. Waiting to counter-attack, compact and good in one-to-ones, ready to run their opponents ragged and suffocate any signs of recovery – that’s how Magath likes to play. His team made a great show of implementing this strategy and won the game through two goals from Kuranyi. The 29th day of play will now see a duel with Bayern, and it will be interesting to see whether the lads from Schalke look better than in the cup match – if they win, it would be a sure sign that history is about to repeat itself, just as Schalke, by beating Wolfsburg, took a decisive game against Munich; and it would become even clearer than Magath has a very precise top-secret plan for exactly this sort of occasion. It doesn’t matter which team his takes the championship with – any team that follows his secret strategy is bound to win. Bochum, for example, will take the championship with him next year, and Bayern München will soon realise that everything really was better back then.
Kevin Kuranyi and his two goals have really put Germany’s coach Joachim Löw under pressure to cap him for the world championship in South Africa; then again, it was Kuranyi who left the national team by his own choice – but everything is different now. Kuranyi has scored 17 times and, compared with the lacklustre performance of players like Klose, Gomez, Podolski and Helmes, Löw is fast running out of reasons not to bring him in.
At the other end of the table, the five teams languishing at the bottom were all incapable of winning. Hannover96 were notable for a particularly poor performance, losing 1:4 to 1. FC Köln and thereby earning themselves a top spot: in the second division.
In recent years, the boys at Bremen were able to have a good laugh at the expense of their northern rivals Hamburg. And whilst HSV are, as ever, ruining their season and tearing themselves to shreds as players go public about leaving and the trainer has to take all kinds of criticism, Werder Bremen just keep on their steady course into the cup final, leaving their Nordic arch enemy standing. Quite symptomatic of this day of play: Bremen claimed a 4:2 victory against Nuremburg whilst Hamburg took a 0:1 loss to Mönchengladbach.

„Haach de Klicker ins Goal enei!“, hat mein Trainer immer zu mir gesagt. So einfach ist Fußball. „Hau den Ball ins Tor hinein!“ Oder hat Ihrer statt dessen gesagt: „Früher war alles besser.“? Wer hat das noch nicht gehört?

1958: In der DDR werden die Lebensmittelkarten abgeschafft. Doch erst mit Helmut Kohl werden die blühenden Landschaften kommen. Elvis Presley trifft in der Bundesrepublik ein, um seinen US-Wehrdienst abzuleisten. Genau in dem Jahr, in dem Michael Jackson geboren wird. Ein Zufall? Ein 17-jähriger Brasilianer namens Pelé schreibt in Schweden WM-Geschichte. Und der FC Schalke 04 wird zum siebten und letzten Mal deutscher Fußballmeister.

After four successful days of the latest in literature, comics, and audio productions, the Leipzig Book Fair opened its doors one last time on Sunday. With the most visitors to date, the organizers of the book fair can look back on a delightful event. Europe’s largest literary festival “Leipzig Liest” (“Leipzig reads”) took place parallel to the book fair. One of my fist stops in this festival was at the Moritzbastei, an old bastion that was built in the 16th century.

There’s one thing my coach never tired of saying to me: “Hau den Ball ins Tor hinein!” – best translated with: “Just slam it into the back of the net!” What did yours used to say to you? What about this one: “If we want to win the championship, we need to win away games!”? If you’ve ever played at the top of a league, then you’ve probably heard that one before.

Teams in the Bundesliga don’t appear see things that way, though. Neither record-holders Bayern München, nor the gutsy Schalke 04, nor even title contenders Bayer Leverkusen were able to win their away games on match day 27.

„Haach de Klicker ins Goal enei!“, hat mein Trainer immer zu mir gesagt. So einfach ist Fußball. „Hau den Ball ins Tor hinein!“ Oder hat Ihrer statt dessen gesagt: „Wenn wir Meister werden wollen, müssen wir auswärts gewinnen!“? Wenn Sie um den Titel mitgespielt haben, dann bestimmt.

Die Vereine in der Fußball-Bundesliga sehen das nicht so. Weder Rekordmeister Bayern München, noch Meister der Herzen Schalke 04 oder Titelkandidat Bayer Leverkusen konnten ihre Begegnungen des 27. Spieltags gewinnen.
Dabei wusste früher bei der Anreise des Millionenensembles aus München zu einem Auswärtsspiel jeder Gegner: „Gegen DIE gibt es nichts zu holen.“ Doch weit gefehlt. Die Bayern sind auswärts in dieser Saison auf Kuschelkurs. Vorbei die Zeiten des gefährlich zielstrebigen Punkte-Beutezugs. Siehe Champions League: Während Viertelfinalgegner Manchester United schon beim Gastspiel in Mailand das Weiterkommen klar macht, schummeln sich die Münchener zu einer knappen Niederlage in Florenz und haben es nur Arjen Robben zu verdanken, noch im Wettbewerb zu verbleiben. Nicht besser in der Bundesliga: 1:1 in Köln, 1:1 in Nürnberg, jetzt 1:2 in Frankfurt – gegen dieses vereinigte Bundesliga-Mittelmaß hilft auch EIN Arjen Robben alleine nicht mehr. „Rumpelfußball“ hat das die Bild-Zeitung mal genannt. Völlig zu Recht unterlag Bayern überlegenen Frankfurtern 1:2, die in den letzten Minuten des Spiels die Partie mit zwei Toren drehten. Manchester 1999 lässt grüßen. So eine Leistung müsste mit dem Verlust des Spitzenplatzes bestraft werden. Doch nicht in der Bundesliga.
Bayer Leverkusen nutzte die Steilvorlage aus München nicht. Wie schon vor zwei Wochen bei der Niederlage in Nürnberg konnten die Rheinländer aus dem Ausrutscher der Konkurrenz kein Kapital schlagen. Zugegeben, Leverkusen spielte in der ersten Halbzeit stark in Dortmund. Kießling und Derdiyok hätten die Partie entscheiden müssen. Doch noch immer hat ein Spiel zwei Halbzeiten – und da drehten die Dortmunder auf. Der Argentinier Lucas Barrios war mit zwei Toren der gefeierte Mann in Deutschlands größtem Stadion und Leverkusen trat frustriert die Heimreise an. Im Gepäck ein 0:3.
Na jetzt aber, Schalke. Irgendwann müssen die Schalker doch mal die Tabellenspitze an sich reißen, wenn sie am Ende Meister werden wollen. Doch auch diesmal wurde es nichts. Kuranyi trifft zwar mittlerweile wahrscheinlich sogar nachts, mit verbundenen Augen jedes Tor – Saisontreffer 15, dritter Treffer im dritten Spiel in Folge – aber in einer spannenden Partie mit Chancen auf beiden Seiten, gab es am Ende ein 2:2 beim HSV.
So wollen es also die drei Topteams untereinander ausmachen. Nächste Woche geht es los: Schalke zu Gast in Leverkusen. Danach dann Bayern München „auf“ Schalke und wiederum eine Woche später Bayern in Leverkusen. Hoffentlich wissen wir in drei Wochen wer Meister wird…
Die Sensation des Spieltags fand in Wolfsburg statt. Die Hoffnungslosen aus Berlin machen es vor und gewinnen auswärts. Hertha siegte in Wolfsburg 5:1. Dabei war klar, dass Berlin dort gewinnen würde: die eine Hälfte der Berliner Mannschaft wollte beim Ex-Hertha- und heutigen Wolfsburg-Manager Dieter Hoeneß für einen Vertrag vorspielen. Die andere Hälfte wollte es dem Ex-Vorgesetzten noch mal so richtig beweisen. Sollte mich nicht wundern, wenn das 5-Tore-Sturmduo Gekas-Ramos bald Dzeko-Grafite in Wolfsburg ersetzt.

At the stand of the "Japanfreaxx"

The first day of the Leipzig Book Fair came to an end with an anticipated award ceremony, honoring authors in three categories with a prize endowed in total with € 45,000. Amongst the nominees was 18 year-old Helene Hegemann with her highly debatted debut novel, that first caused an outcry of astonishment, which later turned to loud groans of dissapproval because parts of it were found to be plagiarised.

Girl showing the boys how to play Pokemon

Copyright: Leipziger Buchmesse

This morning at 9 AM the annual Leipzig Book Fair successfully kicked off four days dedicated solely to literature, new book arrivals, and other book-related events. More than 2000 publishers from 39 countries are here in Leipzig to present not only their newest publications, but also to take a look at the journey a book undergoes before it lands in our hands.