Another season. Another coach. Another blogger.

By: Scott | July 23rd, 2009

With two weeks to go before the Werkself kicks off their push for glory in the 47th Bundesliga season, this space stirs to life. And as the newest scribe on the block here, I’ll politely nod to my fellow Offside Bundesliga bloggers and secretly wish them the worst for 09/10. Surely bad luck can’t belong to us alone.

With time enough to mourn and move on from last season’s losses, the squad has stayed unbeaten in their summer friendlies, and new coach Jupp Heynckes seems to be scrubbing that FCB stink off himself with good results.

Having replaced Labbadia (who, in retrospect, may have been trying to get fired,) Jupp looks to still be testing his way of thinking with the new signings and familiar players, and not just relying on “this is our season” rhetoric. Almost all their friendlies have been followed by the coach commenting that he would have liked to have seen more goals. This won’t be a season of resting on laurels or free-flowing pats on the back so much as one where the entire squad will be driven, challenged and forced to immediately deal with the sort of lacklustre performances that marred most of last season’s Rückrunde.

$\"And also, easy on the red cards.\"$

Along with the bitter memories, we bid farewell to Henrique, Charisteas, Domaschke, Gresko, Schwegler, Haggui and Djakpa. Nothing to weep one’s self to sleep over there, although I quite liked Djakpa’s on-pitch performances, as scarce as they were. The biggest loss from the bench is Bernd Schneider, who, despite having been spared 08/09’s cruelties due to a herniated disc, has had to hang up his boots for good. Schnix played 263 Bundesliga matches and brought an element of class and style that won’t be forgotten by any Bayer04 or Germany supporter.

Joining the squad are a couple honed in our youth leagues; Burak Kaplan and Fabian Giefer (third-keeper, poor bastard.) Also on-board is Sami Hyypiä, bringing in experience and strengths that’ll help bolster the youth and energy we’ve no shortage of, as well as Eren Derdiyok, Daniel Schwaab, Pierre de Wit, Assimiou Touré and Stefan Reinartz. We also get the benefits of a returning Theo Gekas, whose experiment in Portsmouth won’t be among the longer chapters in his autobiography.

And then there’s me, who you can feel free to loathe or love with much the same effect at this end. For the sake of preventing any angry accusations of fraud down the road, I’ll lay it all out right now.

I am writing from thousands of miles and an ocean away from BayArena. My ability to see our matches live wax and wane depending on what technology and rights-holders allow. When I miss a match it’s not because I wasn’t trying.

If you see predictions here, assume they’re wrong. If you see mean-spirited comments, assume they’re right. If you see typos, assume I was writing very late at night and accept my apologies in advance.