Bundesliga review part 2. the new one :)

[Maldeika]

Wolfsburg comes out of a bad year. They did not have the best start but since then it works. The first 8 matches were 3 wins and 5 losses - 9 points - the next 8 matches were 6 wins and 2 draws. If they win tomorrow against Gladbach they could equalize with Dortmund.

Dortmund had six win, one draw and one loss in the first 8 matches. 4 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses the next 9. As they did their losses against the first six of the table you see that they started with an easy schedule.
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Rugby and Cricket ain't played here. Basketball, Handball, Icehockey as team sports are there next to football. And then all kind of individual sports. Basketball, Handball and Volleyball are the team sports you play in school, too - more than football as the most schools do not have a football pitch.

 

[Rotweiss]

It will be very entertaining if Wolfsburg managed to get a win today at Gladbach as that will leave three teams on 32 points. It will be a very good game that, Gladbach are incredibly strong at home and won't give the 3 points easily.

 

[Ruhr]

This Bundesliga season is as boring as the last one. And there is a further loss in quality. Teams, that have improved: Mönchengladbach, Wolfsburg, Augsburg, Leverkusen, Hertha BSC. The rest is worse than last year.

 

[supercrystal7]

Wolfsburg comes out of a bad year. They did not have the best start but since then it works. The first 8 matches were 3 wins and 5 losses - 9 points - the next 8 matches were 6 wins and 2 draws. If they win tomorrow against Gladbach they could equalize with Dortmund.

Dortmund had six win, one draw and one loss in the first 8 matches. 4 wins, 1 draw and 4 losses the next 9. As they did their losses against the first six of the table you see that they started with an easy schedule.
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Rugby and Cricket ain't played here. Basketball, Handball, Icehockey as team sports are there next to football. And then all kind of individual sports. Basketball, Handball and Volleyball are the team sports you play in school, too - more than football as the most schools do not have a football pitch.

Wolfsburg made a very good signing in Gustavo and the emergence of Arnold has helped.


Things have changed now, but back in my time we played football at primary school ages 7-11, but when we went to secondary school ages 11-18 we stopped. I grew up in the outskirts of London and there were plenty of rugby/football pitches. Lots of schools had 3-5 pitches and the ones that did not had parks with pitches near by. We also are lucky here with great sporting weather all year around. However, schools at that time did not like football and rugby/hockey/cricket were the main sports. I played Basketball as part of fitness training and that's it. Handball and volleyball were not played at all. Girls played hockey, lacrosse and netball. I am surprised German schools did not have pitches. Even in London there were so many pitches about.

This Bundesliga season is as boring as the last one. And there is a further loss in quality. Teams, that have improved: Mönchengladbach, Wolfsburg, Augsburg, Leverkusen, Hertha BSC. The rest is worse than last year.

Boring in terms of the league, but the race to fourth can be exciting. Dortmund are in a critical moment. Next year they lose Lewandowski, Gundogan and Sahin (unless they buy him). The decision to keep Lewandowski was one of the stupidest in recent football. They need to sell Gundogan in the summer for at least 25 million pounds and try to hold out for 30 million pounds. They are likely to get to the quarters of the CL so that should bring some money. I guess they will buy Sahin, but as Dortmund fans found out with him, he is not the player they remembered. They would be foolish to go and buy Kagawa.

For me it's astonishing how Dortmund fans still love Kagawa, but give a far superior player like Reus so much abuse. It's like they don't remember Kagawa ran down his contract and left for a reduced fee or realise Reus is a far superior player. United would swap Kagawa and 25 million pounds for Reus and consider it a good deal.

Schalke are in a good position except their terrible coach. Papadopoulos is back. Sidney Sam is joining at the end of the year, will get around 30 million pounds for Draxler, Meyer and Goreztka will be a bit older.

 

[Ruhr]

Only the last three years in school i was able to choose my sport and the days of the horrible gymnastics were over. I took football and handball. Football was often played indoor, but also on a public football pitch. But not on grass, that pitch was for the local 5th division side.

 

[Maldeika]

Only the last three years in school i was able to choose my sport and the days of the horrible gymnastics were over. I took football and handball. Football was often played indoor, but also on a public football pitch. But not on grass, that pitch was for the local 5th division side.

It changed a little but school in Germany meant 8 to 13 o'clock. When we got older there was one or two additional afternoons with school. And only 1.5 hours of school sports. My primary school had a little gymnastics hall (smaller than e.g. than a normal handball pitch), the local public swimming pool and on the outside a 50m running track, a sand box and a little zone were you could throw balls etc.

In my first two years at grammar school I visited a school with about 1500 pupils and there was a big gym that was usually parted in three parts as there was so much classes who had sports education - and the normal multi-purpose track and field round with a football pitch inside and a multifunctional handball-volleyball etc. field. That was in a small bavarian city in the Rhine-Main-Area

The next years I was in a boarding school in Würzburg. My school had a small gymnastic hall that had to serve to a grammar school and a middle school. Additionally we used the municipal swimming hall or in spring and summer a little sports stadium for outside sports. Both were used by all the other secondary schools in the vicinity, too. But you can imagine that there is not much time left for sports when there is only a 90-minute-period and you have an additonal 15 minute walking distance to get there.

School sports in Germany is not that important. Sports mainly happens in the clubs. In the little town I live (about 8000 inhabitants) there is two football clubs that have teams for all ages, handball, basketball, volleyball are big, wrestling (I did not find another translation - I mean the greek-roman stuff not that kind of show wrestling you can see on TV), tabletennis, tennis, gymnastics, track-and-field... About every kid is in one or two sports clubs.

 

[supercrystal7]

I am surprised at how poor the facilities are in Germany. Sport was a big part of my team at School.

Lots of schools had gyms where kids could work out. It was not unheard of for a school to have 4-6 pitches and indoor halls for basketball etc. Some schools even had an athletics track in the summer and a swimming pool. Before the age of 14 we would have 35 minutes a week for swimming, 35 minutes a week for athletics and 2-4 on a Wednesday dedicated to rugby/cricket/hockey depending on the time of year. Then if you were in a school team you were expected to train for an 1 hour on Tuesdays and Thursday for Rugby. A match was held on Saturday. In between that you would have a basketball game on the Monday after 4pm and basketball training at Friday during the lunch break. Football training would usually be on a Thursday during lunch for an 1hour. This was just school sport.

Outside of this sporty children would either play for a rugby or football club on Sunday. They would then have training for this club around 7pm for an 1 hour and half some time during the week. So there would be some kind of training or match nearly every day.

 

[Maldeika]

I am surprised at how poor the facilities are in Germany. Sport was a big part of my team at School.

Lots of schools had gyms where kids could work out. It was not unheard of for a school to have 4-6 pitches and indoor halls for basketball etc. Some schools even had an athletics track in the summer and a swimming pool. Before the age of 14 we would have 35 minutes a week for swimming, 35 minutes a week for athletics and 2-4 on a Wednesday dedicated to rugby/cricket/hockey depending on the time of year. Then if you were in a school team you were expected to train for an 1 hour on Tuesdays and Thursday for Rugby. A match was held on Saturday. In between that you would have a basketball game on the Monday after 4pm and basketball training at Friday during the lunch break. Football training would usually be on a Thursday during lunch for an 1hour. This was just school sport.

Outside of this sporty children would either play for a rugby or football club on Sunday. They would then have training for this club around 7pm for an 1 hour and half some time during the week. So there would be some kind of training or match nearly every day.

As I already have told - sports in Germany mainly means clubs and not school. My son played tennis and football. He had once or twice one or two hours of tennis training at the afternoon every week and matches on Saturday or sometimes in the week. Football meant once 90 minutes training on weekdays (twice after the age of 10) and matches on Saturday and sometimes in the week. He had difficulties to combine that with homeworks and friends as a teenager so he skipped first tennis then football.

There is probably schools with better sports facilities than the schools around here. And schools offer sports activities in the afternoon, too. But I has much less importance than it has in a lot other countries.

 

[Ruhr]

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There is probably schools with better sports facilities than the schools around here.

The schools in Gelsenkirchen had no better facilities than those you described. And i can´t remember that there was much money for school sport. I don´t think, that has changed since my school days. I´m spending some money for my old school each year, but i never heard that they had invested donations like this in sport facilities.
The success of germans in sport surely does not come from the quality of school sport.

 

[supercrystal7]

I am surprised at how poor the facilities are in Germany. Sport was a big part of my team at School.

Lots of schools had gyms where kids could work out. It was not unheard of for a school to have 4-6 pitches and indoor halls for basketball etc. Some schools even had an athletics track in the summer and a swimming pool. Before the age of 14 we would have 35 minutes a week for swimming, 35 minutes a week for athletics and 2-4 on a Wednesday dedicated to rugby/cricket/hockey depending on the time of year. Then if you were in a school team you were expected to train for an 1 hour on Tuesdays and Thursday for Rugby. A match was held on Saturday. In between that you would have a basketball game on the Monday after 4pm and basketball training at Friday during the lunch break. Football training would usually be on a Thursday during lunch for an 1hour. This was just school sport.

Outside of this sporty children would either play for a rugby or football club on Sunday. They would then have training for this club around 7pm for an 1 hour and half some time during the week. So there would be some kind of training or match nearly every day.

As I already have told - sports in Germany mainly means clubs and not school. My son played tennis and football. He had once or twice one or two hours of tennis training at the afternoon every week and matches on Saturday or sometimes in the week. Football meant once 90 minutes training on weekdays (twice after the age of 10) and matches on Saturday and sometimes in the week. He had difficulties to combine that with homeworks and friends as a teenager so he skipped first tennis then football.

There is probably schools with better sports facilities than the schools around here. And schools offer sports activities in the afternoon, too. But I has much less importance than it has in a lot other countries.

Personally I think the club system is better, because you are allowed to put the effort in sports you enjoy rather than being forced to do a sport you don't like. Lots of people would much rather have put that time and training in football than say rugby, but you have no choice. It also left you tired for your club or academy.