The Stretch Run

The Bun­desliga Sea­son 2008/09, a few words come to mind: Excit­ing, Dra­matic and Close. The first half had newly pro­moted Hof­fen­heim get­ting a fast start and ulti­mately claim­ing the Herb­st­meis­ter Title. Now we have a team at the top that has never been there this late in the sea­son: Hertha BSC.

Hertha is far from a safe bet as between them and the 7th Place team VfB Stuttgart there is a grand total of seven Points dif­fer­ence. The other teams in the pack Ham­burger SV, Hof­fen­heim, FC Bay­ern München, VfL Wolfs­burg and Bayer Lev­erkusen also still have a good shot at becom­ing Deutscher Meister.

Since it appears that every­one can beat any­one at any given time, the lead­ers Hertha have amassed just 43 Points. The last time the lead­ing team had less points was in the 2000/01 Sea­son when FC Bay­ern had 42 Points. The 3 Point Rule was insti­tuted into the Bun­desliga with the 1995/96 Sea­son and the dif­fer­ence between the top 7 teams after 22 Match days has never been closer than now. The pre­vi­ous low was 8 Points which hap­pened twice, 2004/05 between Bay­ern and Hertha and 2000/01 between Bay­ern and SC Freiburg.

Under the old 2 Point rule one of the clos­est races after 22 games was the 1993/94 Sea­son, when the sur­pris­ing Leader MSV Duis­burg had a two point lead on 7th Place Werder Bre­men. The “Zebras” would have had 37 Points under the 3 Point rule. The pre­vi­ous 22 match days have given us five dif­fer­ent teams at the top: Hertha BSC, HSV, Hof­fen­heim, Lev­erkusen and even FC Schalke 04 (more on them in a minute). Hof­fen­heim held the lead longest with 11 Match days. So where is Bay­ern you ask? The Reko­rd­meis­ter has not led the Bun­desliga at any time so far this sea­son and with a 4 point deficit on Hertha the ear­li­est they could take the lead would be after Match Day 24. The last time that Bay­ern did not have the lead at least once by Match Day 22 was dur­ing the 2003/04 Sea­son when Werder Bre­men was crowned as Champions.

So all of the Con­tenders can hope to be at the top at the final whistle…

Schalke 04 can­cels sched­uled Fan Party.

It was a great idea and 9000 Tick­ets had already been sold, but the Schalker Fan Club Ver­band (SFCV) after talk­ing it over with FC Schalke 04 front office, has decided to can­cel the planned 30 Year Anniver­sary party sched­uled for the 4th of April. “We would have loved to have a party with the Fans and the Team” said SFCV Chair­man Rolf Rojek. “But in the last few days many of the Fans have can­celled their reser­va­tions and also asked us if this is an appro­pri­ate time to have a party. The frus­tra­tions of a dis­ap­point­ing sea­son, that every­one from Fans to Team to Man­age­ment did not see com­ing, is really hit­ting home” accord­ing to Rojek. “None of us is in the mood to cel­e­brate which is bit­ter and sad, but it is the real­ity of the sit­u­a­tion. After talk­ing it over with the Club we decided to can­cel the fes­tiv­i­ties for now.” All those that pur­chased tick­ets to the event will receive a full refund.
Schalke had high hopes for the sea­son but is cur­rently sit­ting in 8th Place and 5 points out of 5th Place (UEFA Cup spot) and the team has also crashed out of all other com­pe­ti­tions as well, the lat­est set­back being the defeat to Mainz this week in the DFB Pokal.