Inspired in equal parts by a conversation on twitter, Dietmar Wischmayer and my sociology studies:
Each league has great fans, and it is the fooball fans that make that sport such an unforgettable experience. However, each league also has the fans that irritate the heck out of other fans. So, without further ado, here is my sociological break- down of the worst the Bundesliga and the Premier League has to offer.
The Bundesliga- Besserwisser: Since it is good form to start with your own league first, I give you the Bundesliga- Besserwisser. The direct translation of the beautiful German word "Besserwisser" is "better- knower", i.e. a know- it- all. In my opinion that describes the typical worst Bundesliga fan very well. He or she has an opinion on everything, even if it is not always supported by fact and can easily preach on the debts of La Liga clubs, matchfixing and empty stadia in Serie A, oligarchs and sheiks in the PL, etc and so on while at the same time going on about the great fans and fiscal sanitiy in the Bundesliga (even if this does not correspond with reality). This way, the Besserwisser does not try to talk up the Bundesliga but to put down the other leagues, thus making the Bundesliga the best league in Europe by default.
If I am honest with myself (and as a scholar of Platon I strife towards selfknowledge above else ;)), I find myself slipping into this Besserwisser mode from time to time. When Atletico Madrid won the Europaleague, I couldn't help snidely mentioning that they apparently have 150 Million Euro of outstanding tax not payed yet...
The PL- Fanboy: Next, there is the Premier League Fanboy. This species of fan can be identified that for him, the PL is everything and nothing exists apart from it. Other players and coaches are only discussed in terms of which PL team could use and sign them, even when there is NO indication that said player or coach has any interest coming to the PL. See Henry Winter commenting that Schweinsteiger would do well at Manchester United, or the way that Arsenal fans and the medie seem to be trying to offload Nikolas Bendtner on Dortmund, and want Kagawa in exchange (something that I find particularly galling as a Dortmund fan, we don't want or need the guy!). Aditionally, clubs that perform well against English clubs become the flavour of the month (Athletic Bilbao, Basel shortly before they were taken apart by Bayern Munich.
Samstag, 26. Mai 2012
Mittwoch, 9. Mai 2012
Dortmund and the difficult next step
So then, the second Bundesliga title has been bagged for Dortmund, and with reaching the final of the DFB- Pokal against Bayern, I think it's fair to say that it has been a more than successfull domestic season for Dortmund. Additionally, Dortmund finished the season with a whopping 81 points and played some really lovely football to boot at well.
This is in oppossition to our showings in Europe though, where we came fourth in a group containing Arsenal (in crisis at the time), Marseille (who generally were not that impressive) and Olympiakos Piräus (not very impressive either). I must admit that I was disappointed and emberassed by our weak showing. The early exit from the European competitions probably helped our league form, which really picked up after the winter break, i.e. when we were out of all European competitions. The question is, what does Dortmund do to reach that next step, the ability to compete on both the domestic and the European front, to represent the Bundesliga befitting of a German champion and to push into that circle of truly elite teams?
The first point, imho, is: experience. It was noticable, the way that our defense for example, that hardly set a foot wrong during the whole season (apart from one crazy 4-4 against Stuttgart perhaps) looked like Kreisklasse players on the international parquett. The way that Hummels was letting himself being duped by the Marseille strikers had my jaw dropping at times. Hopefully this will be better as our young key players continue to amass valuable experience, also with their national teams.
This leads me to point two: Keep the stars. We sold Nuri Sahin last season to go and sit in the stands at Real Madrid and struggled the first half of the season, especially since poor Sven Bender picked up one facial injury after the other and Ilkay Gündogan took until the second half of the season to really get going. Now, Barrios is already gone chasing the big bucks in China, which makes it imperative that we at least keep Lewandowski. He still has contract until 2014, and Watzke has already come out and pretty much said that he wont be sold. Kagawa however is a different story. Only one year left on the contract and with rumoured interest from big clubs from England. If the offer is right, he might well be off.
One of the problems is the wage structure. Dortmund so far have got by with paying roughly between 40 to 50 million Euro in wages annually. However, the truly big football clubs pay in excess of a 100 million Euro (even including such nominally financially moderate clubs such as Arsenal). Dortmund has already used the contract of extensions of players such as Götze to increase their salary, but the question of course is, how far can the club go? Especially since the spector of the 2005 near- insolvency still looms large. One positive sign is that the financial development continues to be very good, and Dortmund has managed to sign better sponsorship deals thanks to our success on the domestic level.
Well then, the next European season is certainly going to be interesting.
This is in oppossition to our showings in Europe though, where we came fourth in a group containing Arsenal (in crisis at the time), Marseille (who generally were not that impressive) and Olympiakos Piräus (not very impressive either). I must admit that I was disappointed and emberassed by our weak showing. The early exit from the European competitions probably helped our league form, which really picked up after the winter break, i.e. when we were out of all European competitions. The question is, what does Dortmund do to reach that next step, the ability to compete on both the domestic and the European front, to represent the Bundesliga befitting of a German champion and to push into that circle of truly elite teams?
The first point, imho, is: experience. It was noticable, the way that our defense for example, that hardly set a foot wrong during the whole season (apart from one crazy 4-4 against Stuttgart perhaps) looked like Kreisklasse players on the international parquett. The way that Hummels was letting himself being duped by the Marseille strikers had my jaw dropping at times. Hopefully this will be better as our young key players continue to amass valuable experience, also with their national teams.
This leads me to point two: Keep the stars. We sold Nuri Sahin last season to go and sit in the stands at Real Madrid and struggled the first half of the season, especially since poor Sven Bender picked up one facial injury after the other and Ilkay Gündogan took until the second half of the season to really get going. Now, Barrios is already gone chasing the big bucks in China, which makes it imperative that we at least keep Lewandowski. He still has contract until 2014, and Watzke has already come out and pretty much said that he wont be sold. Kagawa however is a different story. Only one year left on the contract and with rumoured interest from big clubs from England. If the offer is right, he might well be off.
One of the problems is the wage structure. Dortmund so far have got by with paying roughly between 40 to 50 million Euro in wages annually. However, the truly big football clubs pay in excess of a 100 million Euro (even including such nominally financially moderate clubs such as Arsenal). Dortmund has already used the contract of extensions of players such as Götze to increase their salary, but the question of course is, how far can the club go? Especially since the spector of the 2005 near- insolvency still looms large. One positive sign is that the financial development continues to be very good, and Dortmund has managed to sign better sponsorship deals thanks to our success on the domestic level.
Well then, the next European season is certainly going to be interesting.
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