Michael Rensing

I had a long con­ver­sa­tion with Mani Honig­stein, who is the brains behind the foot­ball social net­work­ing site Footbo. An avid Bay­ern Munich fan, I talked to him about the sum­mer trans­fers and his views on the sea­son ahead for the Bavar­ian giants. Tell us a lit­tle about Footbo, and what you are try­ing to […]

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You call this a for­ma­tion? Seven notes on Werder dis­man­tle­ment of FC Bay­ern at the Allianz. 1. Stereo­typ­ing A defen­sive player usu­ally makes an attack-minded coach and an attack­ing player usu­ally makes a defense-minded coach. Granted, there are excep­tions such as the Bruno Labbadia’s of this world, but the gen­eral rule of thumb holds enough […]

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Hav­ing had the time to digest Bayern’s 2–5 maul­ing by Bre­men (no need to rehash things here, if you need a refresher check out the excel­lent post at Deutsche Welle’s Ball­spiel or the video high­lights at 101 Great Goals), I wanted to know exactly how bad it was for the Bavar­i­ans. No mat­ter what your […]

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1st Schalke What You Know: If baseball’s Chicago Cubs had a baby with the Red Sox prior to 2004, Schalke would be the off­spring. What You Don’t: All things both good and bad must end. What to Expect: Yes, Campe­ones! I say that, buck­ing all trends, and know­ing full well that Schalke could be lead­ing the […]

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The new Bun­desliga sea­son is just days away, so Bun­desliga Talk writ­ers Mark Moll and Dou­ble Pivot decided to inter­view one of the pre­em­i­nent writ­ers and authors on the topic of Ger­man soc­cer, Raphael Honig­stein. Many read­ers may know Honig­stein best from his appear­ances on the Foot­ball Weekly Pod­cast by The Guardian. Here’s the transcript […]

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This week we make the short trip west on the A40 from Dort­mund past Bochum to Gelsenkirchen, home to Schalke 04 and their new coach, Fred Rut­ten. Much like his new Ruhr rival, Jür­gen Klopp, Rut­ten has been a one club man for almost his entire 30-year play­ing and coach­ing career, all with FC Twente […]

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