This Week in The Bundesliga: The Rise of the Bridesmaid!

Another week, another vic­tory! This week was a 4–0 route of Nurem­burg. Bayer 04 have become, along with HSV, one of the dom­i­nant teams in the Bun­desliga. But it was only a year ago that Bayer, under Bruno Lab­ba­dia had a blis­ter­ing start. But it wasn’t any­thing com­pa­ra­ble to this start, because the Werk­self aren’t just win­ning, their win­ning with panache and style. They are also play­ing defense (five shutouts already). The ques­tion will be whether they will fal­ter late this sea­son, much like they did last year. It doesn’t seem to be on the cards. Let’s look at seven rea­sons that the Bundesliga’s 2nd place spe­cial­ists might be on course for their first title.

1. Home Sweet Home

   They are back home at the BayArena after a 20 months project to expand and cover the almost 90 year old sta­dium drove them away for the sec­ond half of last sea­son. With an increase in 8,000 seats to take BayArena over 30,000, they are no longer a Zweite level club when it comes to atten­dance. There is also the unique­ness of the ground, which is now the world’s largest Makrolon roofed sta­di­ums. This new roof cov­ers almost the entirety of the pitch and has proven to be much bet­ter at cap­tur­ing noise than the more repressed awnings of the 1986 addi­tions. With a loud impos­ing sta­dium, Bayer are unde­feated this year. This is a direct con­trast to the home form they had last sea­son when they moved to the LDU in Dus­sel­dorf. With their own home, they shouldn’t suf­fer through a seven game win­less streak at home at any point. Undoubt­edly they will do bet­ter than the seven points they mus­tered in Dusseldorf.

2. Kid’s Can’t Finnish First

   It was a sim­ple change, and one that FM gamers would kick a puppy over, but when Rudi Voller swapped the future super­star Hen­riquie for the old warhorse Sami Hyypia, it would be one of the smartest moves he ever made. Hyypia has lost a step, but phys­i­cally can han­dle the big for­wards that dom­i­nate the league. There is no bet­ter reader of the game in the league and his abil­ity to com­mand and orga­nize the back gives Lev­erkusen a stronger spine than any of their com­peti­tors, per­haps for Hof­fen­heim. He has also shown the abil­ity to start play with a long pass out of the back. But really where he will be worth his weight in gold, will be his influ­ence on Rene Adler. Always a shot-stopper with few peers, he is learn­ing the most keeper’s most impor­tant skill set under the vet­eran – command.

3. Germany’s #1

   Adler looked off-the-boil last year. There was no doubt about it. A kid that had been one of the few keep­ers that could make you watch a game, seemed dis­in­ter­ested. We chalked it up to his back, but sud­denly he’s look­ing nim­ble again. Could it be that the pres­sure of being Germany’s #1 along with try­ing to lead a young defense for his club was weigh­ing too heav­ily on the emerg­ing super­star? It seems very plau­si­ble now. With Hyypia as the leader, Adler seems to be unbur­dened a lit­tle bit. Does Bayer now have the best keeper in the league after a year of hav­ing its biggest enigma? And with Schalke des­per­ate for cash, Bayer should be able to hold onto the keeper through the win­ter break. How long they can avoid Adler’s inevitable move to Old Traf­ford is another story.

4. Finally!

   Ste­fan Kiessling was once called the next Jur­gen Klins­mann. I’m not fond of these “next” labels. But what Kiessling is doing this sea­son is liv­ing up to the poten­tial that every­one saw in him. He has become a fan­tas­tic link man, who can fin­ish and is good in the air. He is also will­ing to start the defense by his press­ing oppo­nents in their own third. In many respects, he is quickly catch­ing up to Ediz Dzeko in abil­ity to link and fin­ish. He has 7 goals in the first 8 games and has become piv­otal in the buildup play for this high octane attack.

5. Mid­field Dom­i­nance

   Simon Rofles is per­haps Europe’s most cul­tured defen­sive mid­fielder. He doesn’t tackle reck­lessly, he doesn’t foul unnec­es­sar­ily and he doesn’t panic. But he gets the job done. He is able to break up play, dis­trib­ute the ball, bring the ball out from deep and fin­ish when needed. Renato Augusto is the best #10 in the league, now that Diego has departed. Arturo Vidal is a highly skilled Jack-of-all-Trades, who can bomb down the right or play deep with Rofles in a dou­ble pivot. Bar­netta is a great left wing, and is bru­tal on the counter. As a unit, they force teams wide and they attack and defend in equal mea­sures. While Bay­ern has the big­ger names, the rea­son that Bayer and HSV are at the top of the league is because they have bet­ter all-around midfields.

6. Depth
   Bayer was recently a team that could look to per­haps the 12th man at best. Voller has begun to build a squad that has over­all depth to deal with the inevitable injury. In fact, it already has. When Augusto went down, Toni Kroos was able to slot in on the right, push­ing Vidal into the cen­ter. They haven’t even started using wun­derkind Lars Ben­der. And with Kladec, Schwaab and Cas­tro as full­backs, they have depth in an always ten­u­ous posi­tion, but also the abil­ity to bring Cas­tro to the mid­field if needed. Up front, they have four for­wards with the afore­men­tioned Kiessling, new­comer Erin Derdiyok, vet­eran Gekas and last year’s top scorer Patrick Helmes, when he returns from injury. In the back, Hans Sarpei pro­vides cover for Hyypia and Frei­drich. It’s not Man­ches­ter United depth, but they are only com­pet­ing in the league.

7. It’s Always the Coach

   Rafael Honig­stein cov­ered Juup Hyneckes’ con­tri­bu­tions in his col­umn this week at the Guardian. Need­less to say, the man that almost won Bay­ern the title last year, when all look lost, is a much bet­ter match for such a young squad. A team built on youth needs a father fig­ure and Hyneckes is much bet­ter at the role than Lab­ba­dia could ever be. His calm demeanor seems to be the per­fect match for the laid-back Voller and squad too. It’s not that Lab­ba­dia isn’t as good as Hyneckes (although only time will tell), but Hyneckes is the bet­ter fit at Leverkusen.

   GD Star Rat­ing
   load­ing…
   This Week in The Bun­desliga: The Rise of the Brides­maid!, 5.0 out of 5 based on 2 ratings