Bundesliga Fanatic

European football’s biggest showcase and the most important game in German football in years is finally upon us.  Borussia Dortmund take on Bayern Munich in the first all-German Champions League final.  Although Bayern go into the game as favorites, games between them and Dortmund have always been close and extremely competitive over the years.  Circumstances [...]

It’s hard to put too much of a shine on this final week in the second league. Hertha Berlin are champions and on their way to the Bundesliga with fellow Aufsteiger Braunschweig. Kaiserslautern are locked into third and will play for the right to join the other two clubs in the top flight. Jahn Regensburg and Sandhausen [...]

So it’s here, the moment we’ve all been dreading since the first whistle blew back in August. The final matchday of the Bundesliga is upon us with some interesting things still to be sorted out. Many teams know where they’re heading next season and are playing for nothing on Saturday. Borussia Mönchengladbach, looking to finish in [...]

The Bundesliga has come to its last day of its thrilling 50th anniversary 2012/2013 season which has arguably been one of the most prosperous ones for German football yet. The title was rightfully and dominantly won by FC Bayern München and Bundesliga newcomers Greuther Fürth were relegated in Matchday 31 after an uneven season, becoming [...]

I’ve always just liked the word “penultimate.” You have to admit it’s a great word. With all four direct promotion and relegation spots now taken, all that remains for the taking are the playoff spots at either end of the table.  (All 2. Bundesliga matches these last two weekends of the season will be played [...]

And, really, what better way to follow last week’s jelly donuts? Braunschweiger, for the uninitiated, is a lightly smoked liverwurst named after the city that provided the Bundesliga with its second newcomer for the 2013-14 season last Friday. I grew up thinking of liverwurst as something hideous and to be avoided. First, just break down [...]

HA HO HE! John F. Kennedy! Among my favorite things in the history of everything has to be the in/famous John F. Kennedy quote “Ich bin ein Berliner” from a speech delivered near the Berlin Wall and the difference between what he meant and what a literal translation of the German said. I remember being [...]

There remains no greater journey in European football than that of Real Madrid’s to achieve the coveted La Decima. It quite simply possesses the club and until it’s exorcised with the 10th Champions League victory the halls of Bernabéu will continue to feel narrow, and incomplete. This is not greed on the part of Madrid, [...]

The two runaway leaders in for many, Europe’s best two leagues, face each other not in a sprint but a marathon. Barcelona’s passage to this stage has been anything but smooth despite many expecting them to walk over Milan and PSG, with fitness, haphazard defending and profligacy in front of goal – 56 shots on target, the [...]

We’re down to the lasts five match days of the season and none of the big questions we had coming into the season have been answered definitively, though we have a fairly good idea how many of them are going to bear out. Hertha Berlin had an opportunity to clinch their direct promotion with a [...]