With the new bundesliga season starting tomorrow, it is time to start the thread for discussions.

Notable fixtures on the opening weekend -

Bayern vs Schalke

Dortmund vs Monchengladback

Wolfsburg vs Leverkusen

My brief Bundesliga Preview (for the top five only) -

Bayern start off as the clear favorites but are definitively in a weaker position than they were just a month ago.
Thiago is going to be a massive loss for them and not going to be replaced easily.
Alaba's future is still in the limbo with the contract talks at an impasse. If he ends up departing, that would leave a gaping hole at the back imo.
Countinho and Perisic were not starters but certainly gave invaluable depth and experience off the bench.
It remains to be seen how Lucas Hernandez and Sane have recovered from their long term injuries.

Dortmund are in a stronger position than many expected them to be at the start of the transfer window.
They have kept hold off all their stars (at this moment) and should benefit from a settled starting XI.
Hakimi is a loss but I think they have signed an adequate replacement in Meunier.
The biggest question mark for me is how they overcome their defensive flakiness. They have dropped an insane amount points from winning positions in last two seasons and I think it boils down to the manager.
The other issue is finding an adequate replacement for Reus (when he inevitably gets injured). Expecting two teenagers (Reyna and Reinier) to replace his influence is suicidal in my opinion.

Leipzig have the biggest question mark for me (along with Leverkusen). I think they might struggle and have a fight on their hands for the champions league spots.
Timo Werner is going to be a massive loss and they may come to regret not making Schick's deal permanent.
Hwang has come in from Salzburg but his goalscoring output (in the Austrian league) is not very inspiring and Sorloth may struggle to match his Turkish league exploits when he signs.

Monchengladbach have had the best summer as they did not lose a single star. They have also added two players (Lazaro from Inter and Hannes Wolf from Leipzig) who manager, Marco Rose, knows very well from their RB Salzburg days.
The big issue for me is lack of a clear goalscorer in their team. Last season they benefited from having 4-5 players chip in with 10-15 goals each but you cant expect that to happen every year.

Leverkusen also have two massive holes in their starting XI from the departure of Volland and Havertz.
They have signed Schick who in an ideal scenario would be a good replacement for Havertz but they will certainly miss the industry, physicality and link up play of Volland unless they can get someone in before the deadline day.

Bayern have started the season opener in a relentless fashion which seems to be the norm under Hansi Flick.

2-0 up against Schalke within 30 mins. Gnabry with the opener and Goretzka with the second.

They don't seem to be significantly weakened at least. 8-0, Gnabry hattrick.

Fuck. Maybe I’ll watch this then. So painful to watch Gnabry.

True but they will face much tougher tests than Schalke as the season progresses.

Schalke are fucking abject, arguably one of the worst performing teams in Europe since January.

Jamal Musiala became the youngest goalscorer in Bundesliga for Bayern today.

He is a talented 17 year old winger who was poached from Chelsea's academy. Eligible to play for either England or Germany internationally.

Schalke 08

and i can't even watch goretzka w/out hearing gilbert gottfried saying "he's not natty."

Jude Bellingham comfortably a starter for Dortmund at the age of 17 already. And really dominating the midfield in a big match like this like a seasoned pro.

No wonder Ralf Ragnick say he is the biggest english talent he has seen for awhile.

Dortmund a great place for kids to develop as well. They’ll give you a chance and you’re playing at a relatively high level. Think it’s great English players are finally going abroad now and trying their luck out there. They’ll come back a lot more polished players. Be interesting to see how the American kid Reyna does as well.

Gladbach a good team as well, only finished a few points behind Dortmund last season from what I remember.

JazzG wrote:

Gladbach a good team as well, only finished a few points behind Dortmund last season from what I remember.

True, I did not expect Dortmund to win this comfortably.

Sancho looks leaner this year, tremendous pace for his assist today...only beat by Haaland who is a stallion.

What is the bullshit high and mighty/moral superiority attitude in the continental European football media ?

My comments are coming after reading the frankly ridiculous pieces criticizing Lewandowski after he decided to a rabona kick to assist Muller's goal.

Somehow the journos have decided that it was immoral and unsporting of him to do that as Bayern were already comfortably winning that match and belittling the Schalke team.

I have seen several similar pieces from Italy after Atalanta were destroying teams by 6-7 goals last season. The tone was that Gasperini was reveling the opponents misery and should have taken the foot off the gas after 3-0 or so.

Maybe someone like Jones can enlighten me.

The same criticisms were leveled at the US Women’s team when they crushed Thailand 13-0. Journalists thought they should’ve slowed down. The Us Women felt particularly aggrieved because when they don’t beat a team convincingly they also get criticized for not being dominant enough. They felt they can’t win. It’s an outcome of imbalances and people thinking it’s vulgar to beat up on visibly inferior teams. Particularly in a flamboyant way.

I thought it was pretty cringeworthy to celebrate the 12-0 and the 13-0 goals the same way you do when scoring for a 1-0 lead. That's not normal at all. By all means score as many as you can, but at one point a high five is enough.

mentalvortex wrote:

I have seen several similar pieces from Italy after Atalanta were destroying teams by 6-7 goals last season. The tone was that Gasperini was reveling the opponents misery and should have taken the foot off the gas after 3-0 or so.

In Italy it's a traditional thing, so it actually has precedence. It's always been a sign of respect. If you're three goals up and the game is won you don't humiliate your opponents more than necessary. The only times you're excused is when it's a derby, like when Roma destroyed Lazio 5-1.

Italians have always been big on that crap. Me, I'd kill to have more teams play like Atalanta every week. I also think these unspoken rules come from a time when a 3-0 advantage was something unusual. Nowadays it's what you'd expect from a third of the games every weekend.

I dunno, I had the kiddo scoring goals against me standing in a pop up net and she'd take off like she'd won the Olympics every time. Why not? If you don't want to lose 8-0, don't have stupid rules that allow rich clubs to beat up on every other team. High-horsing the players is ridiculous.

Coombs wrote:

If you don't want to lose 8-0, don't have stupid rules that allow rich clubs to beat up on every other team. High-horsing the players is ridiculous.

Exactly. Fix football instead of shaming the guys on the pitch for doing their best.

mentalvortex wrote:

What is the bullshit high and mighty/moral superiority attitude in the continental European football media ?

My comments are coming after reading the frankly ridiculous pieces criticizing Lewandowski after he decided to a rabona kick to assist Muller's goal.

Somehow the journos have decided that it was immoral and unsporting of him to do that as Bayern were already comfortably winning that match and belittling the Schalke team.

I have seen several similar pieces from Italy after Atalanta were destroying teams by 6-7 goals last season. The tone was that Gasperini was reveling the opponents misery and should have taken the foot off the gas after 3-0 or so.

Maybe someone like Jones can enlighten me.

I watched the highlights and the commentator completely ignored the rabona, which was rather odd considering how they usually react to the skill.

Furthermore, I was watching a documentary on Marcelo Bielsa and he talked about his Copa Del Rey defeat to Barcelona where the Catalans were gracious for taking it easy after leading 3-0. The subtext suggested it was unnecessary to continue scoring when the game was won. I understand the argument as the Germans appear to take pleasure from hammering home the win with Barcelona and Brazil being in the not too distant past.

On a different note, Bayern have quickly replaced Robbery with Gnabry and Sane who look destined to become just as good. City will definitely rue to the sale of the latter.