Bundesliga 08/09 review: a remarkable season

The 2008/09 season was, by general consensus, one of the most exciting since the Bundesliga was set up in 1963. At the top of the table, there were three teams in with a chance of winning the title on the last day of the season. And the winner, Wolfsburg, was a club which had never won the title before. At the bottom, the drama also continued to the final game, with no team yet doomed to relegation. In the end, all three teams promoted at the end of the previous season managed to stay up (Borussia Mönchengladbach, Köln and Hoffenheim). But on top of that there was any number of other interesting developments in the course of the season...

New kid on the block

To start with, there was TSG 1899 Hoffenheim – an unknown team from an unknown small town in the middle of Germany, which got promoted to the Bundesliga on the final day of the 2007/08 season, having been promoted from the Third Division (South) the previous season. In fact, they only moved up from the regional league of Baden Württemberg in 2000/01. Their rise was linked to the investment of a billionaire businessman called Dietmar Hopp – founder of the software company SAP – who played for Hoffenheim as a teenager. When he bought them in 1990, they were at the eighth level of German football, i.e. they had to get promoted a few times before they even reached the Baden Württemberg regional league! In June 2006, Hopp hired Ralf Rangnick (ex-Schalke and Stuttgart) as trainer, who managed to pick up a number of young talents from other German clubs and form a particularly attacking team. When the Bundesliga reached its winter break in December, Hoffenheim had taken the country by storm and were top of the league – and deservedly so, broadly acknowledged as the team that played the most attractive football. And that, having played all their home games in Mannheim because their new "Dietmar Hopp Stadium" was still under construction. Unfortunately for them, the winter break in Germany meant that the momentum was lost, and having got 35 points before Christmas, they got just 20 points in the second half of the season, and finished seventh – some 6 points away from a Europa League spot. Their first problem was the cruciate knee injury to top (Bosnian) striker Vedad Ibisevic, who had managed to score 18 goals (and provide 7 assists) in those first 17 matches. But then they had further injury problems, and also a few discipline problems as the negative run took over. Nevertheless, some of the one-touch stuff that they played was breath-taking – and their 5-4 loss against Werder Bremen was felt by many to be the game of the season.

Wolfsburg triumph

As mentioned, the winter break really means that the German season is one of two halves. And while Hoffenheim won the first half, it was Vfl Wolfsburg that set the league alight in the second half of the season. And again, it was the attacking flair that made all the difference. Wolfsburg, sponsored by Volkswagen, had invested substantial amounts in the past couple of years – appointing, in July 2007, Felix Magath (ex-Bayern Munich coach) as "manager" in a role similar to those of English club managers. Until then, German clubs had always made a distinction between the "trainer" and the "general manager" who is in charge of transfers and all other off-the-pitch activity. Anyway, the key to Wolfburg’s success was a competent defence, a good midfield and an absolutely outstanding attack led by Brazilian Grafite (28 goals and 11 assists) and Bosnian Edin Dzeko (26 goals, 10 assists) – and frequently supported by midfielder (also Bosnian) Zvjezdan Misimovic (7 goals, 20 assists). The combined goal tally of the two strikers broke the 36-year-old record of Gerd Müller & Uli Hoeness. Starting the second half of the season in ninth place, Wolfsburg won 14 of the remaining 17 games, scoring 45 goals. Magath played down his team’s chance of taking the title, but the media soon noted that they were on an unstoppable roll – especially after the 5-1 drubbing of Bayern Munich in Wolfsburg on April 4. The fifth goal – an outrageous backheel from Grafite - was voted goal of the season. (That was not the only remarkable goal in Germany this season - with one particularly bizarre goal coming from a slide tackle 45 yards out). In total, Wolfsburg won 16 out of 17 home games during the season - the exception being a draw with Eintracht Frankfurt back in August. Needing just a point on the final day to be certain of the title, Wolfsburg won 5-1.

Bayern troubles

The defensive display for that Grafite goal was perhaps symptomatic of Bayern Munich’s season. Jürgen Klinsmann’s appointment as trainer at the start of the season had been a surprise for many – and there was always going to be an off-the-pitch battle between "outsider" Klinsmann and the Bayern establishment (Manager Uli Hoeness, President Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and ever-present overlord Franz Beckenbauer). Although the team spent most of the year in the top 5, Bayern was never top of the table, and they had all kinds of problems on the field. Philip Lahm and Frank Ribery were the only players to show consistent form. Despite outstanding performances as Oliver Kahn’s understudy, Michael Rensing was simply not an adequate replacement for the retired goalkeeping legend. The defence was often careless, and the midfield and forwards frequently underperformed (notably Bastian Schweinsteiger, Luca Toni, Miroslav Klose and Lukas Podolski). In fact, one of the strangest moments of the season was when Podolski scored a last minute tap-in against his beloved 1 FC Köln (in Cologne) – and was then cheered by the home supporters. This led to the astonishing situation where Köln managed to get sufficient money together at Christmas to announce that they were buying back Podolski from Bayern Munich at the end of the season. Anyway, with the media strongly against him, Klinsmann finally got the sack five games from the end – and former trainer Jupp Heynckes took over until the end of the season. Finishing second would be a successful season for most teams, but not for Bayern – especially as their traditional rivals Werder Bremen, Schalke 04, and Bayer Leverkusen all had particularly disappointing seasons. (Bremen’s season was saved by reaching two Cup Finals – UEFA Cup and German DFB Cup. A goal by 21-year-old rising star Mesut Özil in the German Cup Final enabled them to secure a Europa League place for the season ahead – having finished a desperately disappointing tenth in the League.)

For the record, Klinsmann was not the last sacking of the season. Arminia Bielefeld took the amazing step of firing their coach (former German international left back Michael Frontzeck) after the penultimate game of the season, bringing in Jörg Berger for the last game in the hopes of securing the win that might help them stay up. Instead they lost – and finished bottom.

The best of the rest...

Elsewhere in the league, Vfb Stuttgart did a Wolfsburg (winning 12 out of the 17 games since Christmas) to finish third, driven almost single-handedly by striker Mario Gomez (24 goals, including all four in the 4-1 win over Wolfsburg). Hertha Berlin had their best season for many years – with crowd favourite, Liverpool’s Andrej Voronin – and had a chance of the title up to three games from the end. Hamburger SV also had a good season, with Martin Jol in charge, but things nearly fell apart at the end - losing to local rivals Werder Bremen in the semi-finals of BOTH the UEFA Cup and the German DFB Cup, and then just managing to cling onto fifth place (and the last Europa League spot) with an injury time goal in the last match of the season. Without that last minute goal by Piotr Trochowski (who was in fact offside when the ball was played!), the Europa League place would have gone to another sleeping giant of German football, Borussia Dortmund, which had its best year since 2002/3 under new trainer Jürgen Klopp.

... and the battle to beat the drop

At the bottom, going into the last day of the season, any three teams out of four could have gone down. Arminia Bielefeld and Karlsruhe were relegated directly, with Energie Cottbus facing a two-leg relegation play off with the team that finished third in Division 2. The concept was re-introduced some 15 years after it was previously dropped. In the end, it was the Second Division team, 1 FC Nürnberg, that beat Cottbus 5-0 on aggregate.

The end of the football did not signal the end of the drama, however. Within two weeks of the final whistle 10 of the 18 Bundesliga clubs announced a change in Trainer. Another record! Most astonishing of all was the decision by Champion Manager Felix Magath, leaked to the press two games before the end of the season, not to extend his contract at Wolfsburg – but to go off and join Schalke 04 (who hadn’t even qualified for the Europa League). A remarkable climax to a remarkable season.

Bundesliga 2008/2009 final standings

69pts VfL Wolfsburg (C)
67 Bayern München
64 VfB Stuttgart
63 Hertha BSC
61 Hamburger
59 Borussia Dortmund
55 1899 Hoffenheim
50 FC Schalke
49 Bayer Leverkusen
45 Werder Bremen
40 Hannover 96
39 1. FC Köln
33 Eintracht Frankfurt
32 VfL Bochum 1848
31 Borussia Mönchengladbach
30 Energie Cottbus (R)
29 Karlsruher SC (R)
28 Arminia Bielefeld (R)

Comments

[R. Mexico]

Berlin has only recently emerged as a real city in Germany when you think about it....what with most of it part of East Germany and the rest of it IN East Germany I can't imagine it was easy getting quality players with competition from Munich, Hamburg etc.
As one of 2 foreign legion fans of the TSG Hoffenheim fanclub (the other being the missus!) and having seen a game I can say this season was a classic example of a team that has romantically swept all before it, along with the region's potential fans and then due to unfortunate circumstance and dressing room issues, the wheels fall off. The sad part of this all, is that the locals have started to turn on the team and there was even talk of how they were failing to produce the goods etc etc......when 3 of their star players were out for most of the second half of the season!!!
I was a wee bit shocked by this glory hunting attitude and kind of expected a little more (yes even as a United fan!) from a bunch of down to earth (did I nearly say dour?) Germanians. Was sat in the stands berating them for their fickleness and explaining how bloody happy they should be for a finish in the mid-table.
No pleasing some people, least of all Germans with a sense of expectation.
Glad to see the wheels come off at Munich - though it won't last long, it was also great to see Der Kaiser (aka Beckenbauer) taken down a peg or two.

[Dupin]

Cheers 4-3-3! Nice nugget re: Hertha's sponsors. On a similar note, I've always had the feeling that 10% of every Spaniards's wage eventually goes into funding Real Madrid.

[4-3-3]

Quick reply to Dupin questions.
1) Good question. I've never quite understood why the footie tradition is not there in Berlin. For many years there was no Berlin team in the top division. They have a fantastic stadium (architecturally) but the only time it's ever sold out if for the Cup Final, Am also surprised that Hertha's main sponsor is the German Railways (i.e. the German taxpayer!). Probably an issue for a separate article in itself.

2) Much easier. Slovak hero Marek Mintal got promoted (again) with 1FC Nürnberg finishing (again) equal top scorer in the 2nd Division. Curiously, just as the national team has had a good run of results and has a chance of qualifying for the World Cup, Mintal (probably the best Slovak of his generation) finds himself frustrated on the bench and is talking of retiring from the national team. (Slovakia & N.Ireland head Group 3 ahead of the under-performing Poles & Czechs.)

[Dupin]

Really informative, thanks.

That slide-tackle goal seems to defy physics?!
Why are Hertha Berlin traditionally so weak given the pre-eminence of the city?
Where is Mintal these days?