The title is slightly misleading of course since unlike the English league the Germans don’t play over Christmas, though their winter break is considerably shorter this year due to the world cup. It’s only three weeks but it’ll feel like forever, it always does. And I’m not the only who’ll be missing it whilst it’s gone, sky made this cute but very sad little video about the mascots. But it’s the only title I could come up with so it’s staying. This year is my fourth Bundesliga Christmas. Ironically enough before my first Bundesliga Christmas I saw Hannover play on a Sunday then too, against Freiburg. It was not fun, thankfully today was. Amusingly enough this game ended in a draw just like that one with a lot more goals but no less drama. All in all today saw thirteen goals with Leipzig losing 3-2 to Hertha Berlin and Leverkusen drawing 4-4 with Hannover. I love getting match predictions right but I love it even more when I’m right about Leipzig losing. The football was fun but I didn’t get any Jogi videos, not from the games or the award ceremony tonight. So it’s lucky then that Stefan popped up at Sandhausen’s game against Holstein Kiel. I’d like to think he brought Sandhausen some luck as they beat Kiel 3-1, which means the latter missed the opportunity to be winter champions.
Despite getting out of bed whilst it was actually still morning today didn’t go as I wanted it to. Even though I was out of bed and doing what I was supposed to be doing it didn’t feel right, half the time I felt like I was still asleep and the rest of the time I was wishing I were. It was only late in the evening that I actually felt awake, something which doesn’t bode well for my efforts at straightening out my sleeping patterns. I’m doing everything I can to resist a nocturnal schedule but evidently the rest of me does not agree. Come night time that old familiar feeling returns, a feeling of invincibility almost. Like I can do anything and I have a million and one ideas. Which of course I don’t actually do anything about, that’s all anything is these days, ideas and thoughts. Hardly anything is real anymore, most things don’t get beyond my head. I plot stories, come up with ideas for posts and projects. Yet I don’t do any of it. When it comes to writing stuff down the words aren’t there anymore. And when they are it’s not right, the stories are more complete when they’re in my head. Like something gets lost when I try to put them down on paper.
Things aren’t happening as they’re meant to and these posts are no exception. I thought I might use them to get back on track. And of course I had plenty of ideas, like digging some stuff out from my archives and making videos for the players whose cards and stickers I got on that day. Something which never materialized, not because I forgot about the idea. It was just the thought of all that work, what is usually fun felt like a chore. Almost everything feels that way these days. Forget about actually getting anything done by the time you’re out of bed, showered and dressed it feels like that’s half of your energy gone already. Yesterday was a lot of fun, maybe too much fun.
Not a lot happened today, other than what seems to be the now mandatory Playstation marathon (the game of choice being Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood this time) the main event today was the Champions League draw. Bayern have got what on paper is a not so difficult draw, having been drawn with Turkish team Besiktas. I find it funny myself, because Besiktas are from RB Leipzig’s group. The best of the bunch though is obviously Real Madrid v PSG. I don’t care about the Ronaldo v Neymar competition though. What I care about is German being pitted against German, well Germans since PSG have two in the form of Julian Draxler and Kevin Trapp. And of course Real Madrid have Toni Kroos. I can’t really root for either, I don’t like PSG because of where their money comes from yet I can’t root for Real Madrid because I can’t stand Ronaldo. As for picking who I like better, I don’t know if I can do that. My first instinct is to say Julian, though I think that might be Matze’s fault. Either way it’ll be brilliant to watch, I just hope that Julian actually gets to play. On the subject of Germans being pitted against one another the draw of Chelsea and Barcelona does just that. This time it’s Antonio Rüdiger against Marc-Andre ter Stegen. And this is the point where I say I’m staying neutral. Between those two I really can’t pick.
Despite the excitement of the Champions League draw the highlight of today was a new video for my collection, not Jogi of course (I’ve never gotten one of him from a 2.Bundesliga game – besides they’re in Abu Dhabi for the Club World Cup) but Stefan instead.
I love watching draws no matter what competition they’re for but there were three very important reasons why today’s draw for the second round of the DFB Pokal would be extra fun. Firstly Freiburg are still in the competition, secondly the team I want them to avoid in the second round (Sandhausen) are out and thirdly Stefan Kuntz did the draw today. The latter gave me the excuse to take some nice screenshots and to add them into this post.
As far as who I wanted Freiburg to get there wasn’t any team in particular, it was more a question of who I wanted them to avoid. The aforementioned Sandhausen are no longer a concern after having being knocked out in the first round by Schweinfurt. Sandhausen knocked Freiburg out in the second round last season, hence my happiness at them losing in the previous round. In a twist of fate Freiburg have been drawn with Dynamo Dresden who funnily enough lost 4-0 to Sandhausen on Saturday. I wouldn’t count on Dresden being an easy team to beat but given the other options I’m relieved.
There were four teams left in the pot, Freiburg, Bayern, Dynamo Dresden and RBL. I prayed for it be Dresden and was duly rewarded, maybe Stefan proved to be good luck. Either way I don’t care, Dresden it is. And thank god because today has been cruel enough without getting drawn with Bayern or RBL in the cup. Today saw Tim Kleindienst score his first ever Bundesliga goal, what might have been the winner against Eintracht Frankfurt. At least it was his goal until the new video review system took it away. The first and only 0-0 draw of match-day one and it had to be Freiburg. Next week won’t be a 0-0 draw, you can guarantee that, playing Leipzig is a guarantee that won’t be the case. It’s not a game I’m looking forward to if I’m completely honest but then I’m trying not to think about it. I should think about Stefan instead and how funny and adorable he was today. He’s especially adorable when his old team Kaiserslautern get drawn and he can’t bear to look at who their opposition are, the presenter teases him by saying they might get Bayern. Luckily they avoided that fate, getting drawn with VfB Stuttgart instead which if nothing else will be interesting. By rights Stuttgart shouldn’t be in the second round, Zieler has never saved a penalty, why did now have to the time he finally does it. I so badly wanted Energie Cottbus to beat them and they came close, but it just didn’t work out. It would have been so perfect too, twenty years after they played each other in the final, almost too perfect it seems.
There’s quite a few games in the list I want to see, chief among them Paderborn v Bochum, Wiesbaden v Schalke, Leverkusen v Union Berlin and of course Bremen v Hoffenheim. As for Matze he and Gladbach will be meeting Fortuna Düsseldorf. On paper Gladbach are the obvious favourites but they only just got through the previous round with a narrow 2-1 victory over fourth tier Rot-Weiss Essen. Fortuna have gotten off to a good start this season so I wouldn’t be so quick to make any predictions. It’s ironic given who they knocked out, what fun that would have been, a little bit of history repeating itself. Fortuna knocked out Arminia Bielefeld who in the 2014/15 season actually knocked Gladbach out themselves and went all the way to the semi-finals where they were beaten 4-0 by VfL Wolfsburg. Their goalkeeper at the time was none other than Alexander Schwolow, who was on loan from Freiburg.
