Dortmund win LIGAtotal! Cup 2011

Defending Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund won the four team LIGAtotal! Cup in Mainz on Wednesday night with a 2-0 win against Hamburger SV. The BVB are ready for the new season to begin with the German Super Cup on Saturday against archrivals FC Schalke 04, the German Cup winners.

The final wasn't the best of matches with both sides facing each other on equal terms until the 50th minute when Brazilian Felipe Santana scored Dortmund's lead with a header off a perfect cross from Ivan Perisic. Just over a minute later Egyptian Mohamed Zidan would double the lead of a rebound to seal the title for the yellow-blacks.

In the third place playoff earlier in the day FC Bayern Munich won 7-6 on penalties against hosts 1.FSV Mainz 05. The match had ended 2-2 after the regular 2x30 minutes in which the tournament was played and a direct penalty shootout followed.

In an open game Nikolce Noveski gave Mainz an 11th minute lead through a header, but on the stroke of half-time Austrian teenager David Alaba equalised for the Bavarians. Three minutes from time it looked Bayern Munich had won the game when Nils Pedersen scored of a penalty but Anthony Ujah would equalise for Mainz a minute from time.

In the penalty shootout Mainz looked like the clear winners as they scored their first four penalties, but Bayern turned a 2-4 deficit into a 5-4 win as the regular time goalscorers Noveski and Ujah couldn't score. It meant Bayern Munich did finish third in the tournament, but a lot of work remains for Jupp Heynckes and his men.

A day earlier in the semifinals Borussia Dortmund played an impressive match against FSV Mainz 05, but only won 1-0; while Bayern Munich were stunned 2-1 by Hamburger SV where South Korean teenager Heung-Min Son scored a brace.

LIGAtotal! Cup 2011 in Mainz

The German Bundesliga season kick-off is still more then two weeks away, but four clubs - FC Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Hamburger SV, FSV Mainz 05 - will be testing how well prepared their are for the season ahead in the LIGAtotal! Cup in Mainz tonight and tomorrow.

The new 33,500 seater Coface Arena will be hosting its first major football tournament with hosts FSV Mainz 05 taking on defending Bundesliga champions Borussia Dortmund, while in the second game record champions FC Bayern Munich take on Bundesliga founding member Hamburger SV.

The winners of the two matches will play each other in tomorrow's final, while the two other sides will face each other in the third place playoffs to be played just ahead of the big final. All matches will be of 2x30 minutes duration with a straight penalty shootout if matches are drawn.

The biggest interest is in how the new look FC Bayern Munich team will perform. German international goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, Brazilian right back Rafinha and young striker Nils Pedersen are set to start while recent additions Jerome Boateng and Takashi Usami are to sit on the bench.

Bundesliga: Heading for an interesting finish

The 2010/11 German Bundesliga season is heading for an interesting finale at the top and bottom with three rounds to go. Match day 31 had some interesting surprises in store, which has opened up the table even more and things seem to be changing week by week.

A couple of weeks back Borussia Dortmund seemed to be losing the plot and Bayer 04 Leverkusen closing in to snatch the title away from them, then last week Leverkusen got trashed 5-1 by Bayern Munich and it seemed all over. This is how fast things can change in football.

Now this Saturday Dortmund lost the battles of the Borussia's against bottom placed Moenchengladbach to stay on 69 points and Leverkusen meanwhile had to work their way through to a 2-1 win against 1899 Hoffenheim to move to 64 points. And suddenly the gap has come down to only five points with nine points still to be played for. And some see the young Dortmund side feeling the pressure, while Leverkusen who are known as Vize-kusen (always finish second, but never first) could be in with a late chance.

The race for the third and final UEFA Champions League spot is even tighter. Last week FC Bayern Munich after the win against Leverkusen were a point ahead of Hannover 96 on 55 points, but a draw against Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday after Hannover had won 3-1 at SC Freiburg on Thursday left the Bavarian giants one point behind their northern rivals.

There is also a fight for the fifth spot which would guarantee Europa League next season. And the two clubs fighting over the spot met earlier today in Nuremberg with 1.FC Nuremberg playing a goalless draw against FSV Mainz 05. Mainz now on 49 points stay two points clear of Nuremberg.

Down in the relegation zone things are slower getting clearer. It is now a matter of five and not eight/nine clubs who could get relegated. Currently FC St. Pauli and Borussia Moenchengladbach are at the back of the pack with 29 points, while VfL Wolfsburg with their first win under old-and-new coach Felix Magath by beating FC Cologne 4-1 are now on 32 points in the 16th playoff spot. Above them are Eintracht Frankfurt on 34 points, while FC Cologne are on 35 points.

All this guarantees an interesting three weeks until the Bundesliga season ends on May 14, but it will be interesting to see who wins the title, qualifies for Europe and gets relegated.

Bundesliga 2010: Tops & Flops

The German Bundesliga after 17 of its 34 rounds is having its usual winter break with no games over a four week period. And it has been an interesting, sometimes crazy first half of the season with Borussia Dortmund as the surprise league leaders and other smaller clubs like Mainz 05, Hannover 96 and SC Freiburg in the top six of the league. Meanwhile league giants Bayern Munich are only fifth, but other clubs like VfL Wolfsburg, Werder Bremen could be fighting relegation while VfB Stuttgart are in the relegation zone. Their club managements will have something to ponder over the holiday break.

Here are the tops and flops of the first half of the 2010/11 Bundesliga season.


TOPS

1. Borussia Dortmund - The Juergen Klopp coached side are one of the youngest teams in the league, but have had an incredible run with 14 wins from 15 matches ater losing their first and then the last match. 43 Points from 17 matches is the second best ever record in the Bundesliga and the youngsters proved their class. Turkish midfielder Nuri Sahin is the man in the middle with captain Roman Weidenfeller the oldest and most experienced player at the back. Young central defenders Mats Hummels and Nevin Subotic have been playing together for a while though still in their early twenties and then there are teenage sensation Mario Goetze and Japanese surprise Shinji Kagawa plus striker Lucas Barrios, who have all played their part. Klopp over the last two and a half years has wisely put together a squad with talent and now they are proving what they can achieve.

2. FSV Mainz 05 - The early league leaders and the biggest of all surprises. Mainz was expected to fight relegation, but from the start they have been on top with great attacking football and a rotation within the team, which allowed coach Thomas Tuchel to keep his young bunch on course. Mainz did have a few bad games towards the end, but still they recovered and are second in the league. And 37 year old Tuchel is the architect of this surprise success. Tuchel is said to be thorough in his match preparations and that has so far paid off.

3. Hannover 96 - Last season after the suicide of goalkeeper Robert Enke the club was totally out of sorts and the team nearly got relegated. This season a number of new players came in, the club has been able to shrug off last seasons events, but coach Mirko Slomka was a top candidate to be fired first. Slomka was able to form a unit and Hannover have stayed amongst the top clubs through the first half of the season. But the question remains if they can retain their form after the break.


FLOPS

1. Werder Bremen - They have been the most consistent German club after Bayern Munich over the last decade, but somehow this season things haven't been going right for the Thomas Schaaf coached side. The club sold Mesut Özil to Real Madrid in the summer, they thought no replacement was needed as they generally have a good squad, but after these five months they have had a rethink and look to strengthen their squad over the winter.

2. VfL Wolfsburg - They took a gamble by signing Steve McClaren as the first English coach in the Bundesliga. So far the experiment has failed, but McClaren wasn't fired as had been expected and has been given more time to turn things around. The Volkswagen backed club has spend millions on players over the years, build infrastructure and now expects the Wolves to be playing in European competitions year in and year out. A tough ask for coach McClaren, who said he doesn't have a team but a group of individuals. He has a few weeks to sort it out otherwise someone else will be given a chance.

3. VfB Stuttgart - In Stuttgart history seems to repeat itself each winter, but it hasn't been as bad as this season. The club is 17th and fighting to stay in the Bundesliga. They fired their coach in autumn like in the last two years, but only named an interim coach in Jens Keller and then brought in Bruno Labbadia before the two matches against Bayern Munich, which the club lost. Like Bremen they lost a player in Sami Khedira to Real Madrid plus Jens Lehmann retired and the club suddenly seemed to lack a leader on the pitch. In the last three years the club has been amongst the best in the second half of the league, in 2007 they actually went on to win the Bundesliga title. But this season it is different and difficult too.

Bundesliga: The Mainz 05 miracle

Have you heard about German Bundesliga side FSV Mainz 05? If you aren't a regular follower of the German league then most likely you will not have heard about them. And then you would be surprised to see them top of the Bundesliga with 18 points from six matches, six wins out of six games. It's a rare achievement for any club, but a special one for the club from southwest Germany.

And being top of the Bundesliga was made even sweeter over the weekend with a 2-1 away victory against champions FC Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena on Saturday. It just wasn't a rare win against the record league champions, but a demonstration of Mainz's current form. In the end even Bayern coach Louis van Gaal said at the post match press conference that Mainz deserved to win and if they continue like this they could be a contender for the title.

But small little Mainz 05, which calls itself a carnival club as Mainz happens to be one of the home towns of the German carnival, can judge their own high flight realistically. But slowly the series of wins is getting scary, a couple of more wins and then Mainz would create a new Bundesliga record. It seems all is now possible.

And who are the main architects behind this unbelievable success? Coach Thomas Tuchel and sports manager Christian Heidel besides long time president Harald Strutz. Heidel and Strutz have take Mainz from a small second division club, always on the bring of relegation, to being amongst the top 25 clubs in Germany. This is a phrase often used by clubs who tend to be amongst the clubs fighting relegation in the Bundesliga and are amongst the top clubs in 2.Bundesliga. But now the club is working to establish itself a little higher in the hierarchy of German football. A new 35,000 seater stadium is being build and the club has in recent years cleverly bought young, talented players cheaply and invested in the Academy before selling them on for a high price. The most recent example is that of André Schürrle, an own Mainz Academy product who has been sold on to Bayer 04 Leverkusen for 8,5 Million Euros for summer 2011.

The other factor is coach Thomas Tuchel, a 37 year old greenhorn, who coached Mainz's Under-19 to the Youth Bundesliga title before the club gambled in giving him the job of chief coach in August 2009, just days before the league started. The gamble has paid off as Tuchel has been sensational with the club and players. Though still young he is a tactical mastermind and has formed a young side which he can rotate to keep the physical burden low. Tuchel has already used 19 players in his starting eleven with Lewis Holtby, André Schürrle and Ádám Szalai the star performers.

It is a great football miracle happening in Mainz at the moment. Some are already comparing it to 1.FC Kaiserslautern in 1998 when they won the Bundesliga title as a promoted side. But one will have to wait and see for how long it will continue...

The crazy German Bundesliga

The 2010/11 German Bundesliga season is only four rounds old, but the league has once more started with numerous surprises that the current standings towards the end of the season would be a major upset. The leagues only team without dropping points are Bundesliga minnows FSV Mainz 05, 12 points from four matches; while last seasons runners-up FC Schalke 04 are the leagues only team without any points with four defeats from four matches.

The Bundesliga is one of the most competitive amongst Europe's top football leagues where on their day small sides can beat top teams. On most occasions the league is won by the bigger sides, but at least at the start of the season especially after World Cup's and European Championships the smaller sides who have a strong start can surprise the established one's.

This year it is FSV Mainz 05's turn who have taken the league by storm. But behind Mainz's success there is a system which is continued growth over the last decade and a half from a small 2.Bundesliga which reached its climax for the moment by topping the Bundesliga for the first time in the history of the club. And under young coach Thomas Tuchel the club has transformed itself with a self belief in their potential.

On the other side of the table are FC Schalke 04 who have disappointed in a big way so far. Coach Felix Magath has changed most of his first eleven by sending away costly performers and has brought in other big names, but so far stars like Raul, Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Christoph Metzelder haven't been able to convince in the Bundesliga. And the disastrous campaign reached a negative climax today when Schalke also lost the Ruhr derby 1-3 against Borussia Dortmund.

The most shocking result of Round 4 was the 7-0 win of VfB Stuttgart against Borussia Moenchengladbach. Only two rounds ago Gladbach were riding high after 6-3 away win against Bayer 04 Leverkusen, but since then the team has conceded 11 goals in two games, a 0-4 defeat against Eintracht Frankfurt in-between.

And to round it off a peculiar piece of statistic. Current champions FC Bayern Munich has the worst attack in the whole league having only scored two goals in their four matches, both scored on the opening match day against Wolfsburg; but on the other side Bayern also happens to have the best defence in the league along with 1899 Hoffenheim having conceded only three goals so far.