Bundesliga Fanatic

In honor of Michael Ballack’s official retirement from football yesterday we journey through the illustrious career of one of German football’s greatest ever players and some of the more memorable moments of his career.  We start at the very beginning of his burgeoning career in which he won the Bundesliga title with surprise side Kaiserslautern at the ripe age [...]

May 16, 2010. It was the FA Cup final between Chelsea and Portsmouth. Kevin Prince Boateng had just lunged into his opponent’s ankle and delivered what many thought was Germany’s death blow ahead of the upcoming World Cup. Their captain and most influential player, Michael Ballack, had just sustained an injury that was going to [...]

When the Bundesliga draws its curtains for the season this weekend, it will also signal the end of the road for a number of famous players of the past. Chief among them would probably be Michael Ballack, a man whose playing talent has sadly been overshadowed by events off the pitch over the past two [...]

Michael Ballack is likely to start on the bench against Werder Bremen this weekend. The question on most Leverkusen fans mind at the moment is, will he ever make the first team again? When Michael Ballack signed for Leverkusen one and a half years ago most Leverkusen fans were overjoyed, claiming that the long-lost son [...]

Adrian Sertl takes you through Leverkusen’s Hinrunde. A 3-0 home defeat at the hands of lowly Nürnberg on the last match day of the 2011-2012 Hinrunde appears to speak volumes about how Bayer Leverkusen’s season has gone thus far.  The loss meant that after 17 matches their record stood at 7-5-5, good for 6th position [...]

As if the game did not have high enough stakes already just by virtue of being played under the midweek floodlights of the Champions League. For Bayer Leverkusen, a win at the BayArena against Chelsea would mean a ticket punched for the knockout stage of club football’s most prestigious competition. To compound the pressure, both [...]

A capacity crowd at the Betzenberg were on hand to cheer on the Red Devils of Kaiserslautern as they hosted Bayer 04 Leverkusen in the Bundesliga re-start Friday following the international break. Robin Dutt’s visiting Werkself club featured goals by former Kaiserslautern players Michael Ballack and Sidney Sam to disappoint the Fritz-Walter Stadion crowd, 2-0 and take home all three points. [...]

Bayer 04 Leverkusen scored a remarkable 2-1 comeback win over Valencia Wednesday in Champions League action at the BayArena.  Remarkable?  A team coming back from only a 1-0 halftime deficit? The victory was remarkable considering the absolutely abysmal performance of Leverkusen during the first half.  Rarely does a team with the talent of Die Werkself exhibit [...]

Eric Bruehl makes his Bundesliga fanatic debut, previewing his favorite team’s season. It’s difficult to know where to begin with a preview for Bayer Leverkusen.  All summer long the team seems to have been caught up in a media storm the likes of which I’ve never seen surround B04.  That type of attention is usually reserved [...]

Gerry Wittmann welcomes Cris and Niklas to the podcast. The three of them take on all the action of Match day 30 as well as discuss the 2. Bundesliga. Patrick from the Mundilev blog, his blog about Leverkusen, makes his pod debut and he, Cris and Niklas take on this Sunday’s big match between Bayern [...]