Ruhr Pressure Cooker Ready to Boil Over
August 12, 2005
Ever since Germans first took a leather ball and started booting it into a net, the two Ruhr Valley clubs, Dortmund and Schalke from neighboring Gelsenkirchen have displayed their disdain for each other on the pitch. The two Ruhrpott rivals have met 126 times in total, 66 of those in the Bundesliga.
Fans in BVB yellow and Schalke royal blue live to see this game. And the passion always makes its way from the terraces to the pitch.
Schalke coach Ralf Rangnick's troop must play in the unfriendly confines of the Westfalen Stadium but their fortunes there have been particularly good in the recent past. Schalke have not lost in the last six encounters in front of a regularly sold out 70,000 capacity in Dortmund's cauldron arena.
"In the last few years we have looked pretty good in Dortmund. I am assuming that this time it will be the same," Schalke goalkeeper Frank Rost told Sport Bild.
In the Arena AufSchalke on May 14, Dortmund broke a 12-game winless streak, topping off a tremendous comeback in the second half of the season. Both clubs value the rivalry and use it as a catapult for success in the Bundesliga. BVB need the boost more than Schalke, coming away with a tie in their first match and having not reached the UEFA Cup after crashing out of the InterToto Cup in the summer.
Bayern meets Bayer
Coach Felix Magath probably has a bone to pick with Leverkusen. Last season in his first appearance as Munich coach in the BayArena, his team got pasted 4-1. Naturally, it was just a small hurdle in their march to the league championship.
Revenge may be on Magath's mind, but only far, far at the back. The big controversy for the team, and there is almost always one at Bayern Munich, is the storm surrounding midfielder Michael Ballack. There's no lack of column inches being devoted to the subject of whether the Germany captain is out of favor or not.
Magath, not a man of many words, has been quiet, saying that all 23 men on the squad are both starters and substitutes. Words that might confuse some soccer players -- but it's doubtful that Michael Ballack thinks he is a substitute.
Leverkusen started their campaign with an impressive effort against Frankfurt last week, cruising to a 4-1 victory. And could that be repeated?
"We have the quality," Bayer midfielder Bernd Schneider told Kicker magazine.
The contenders with easier assignments
One of the dark horses in the Bundesliga this season must be Hamburg. They have brought in quality personnel, most notably Dutch international Rafael van der Vaart and on Saturday, Thomas Doll's club gets the pleasure of travelling to Bielefeld, the one side they have had the most success against in their history.
The Bielefeld defense resembled a sieve in a 5-2 defeat against Bremen, holes that must be stopped soon or coach Thomas von Heesen will be battling against a rapdly sinking ship.
Hertha Berlin face the new boys from Frankfurt. Soccer followers always expect a lot from the capital city team, but Berlin has on the whole been disappointing. A home match against Frankfurt, where they score two goals on average, should be an easy assignment for Falko Götz' squad led by Brazilian extraordinaire Marcelinho.
In Mönchengladbach, another Brazilian, Giovane Elber is itching to score goals again. After a nominal appearance against Bayern in the first week, he wants to prove he can carry, or at least help carry, coach Horst Köppel to success. The coach should play him against Wolfsburg. The striker has scored 11 times in 11 matches against the northern German side. An even dozen would look nicer. Wolfsburg coach, Holger Fach, gets to return to the club that fired him last season.
Promoted-side Duisburg ruined the return of Giovanni Trapattoni to the Bundesliga as coach, pulling off a 1-1 draw against Stuttgart. This week, they can make Kaiserlautern's Michael Henke second game as a head coach as sour as the first one. Henke, longtime assistant to Ottmar Hitzfeld during his reign at Bayern Munich, has acquired a side in turmoil and watched in frustration as Lautern surrendered a 1-0 lead to Schalke, eventually losing 2-1.
In Hanover, Ewald Lienen led the squad to an outstanding 2004-05 campaign. Last week, they showed it wasn't a fluke coming down from 2-0 deficit to tie with Berlin. They must travel south to Nuremberg where they have had little success, only winning twice in ten matches. For Nuremberg, bad starts are the norm, having lost 3-0 to Hamburg. They have additional motivation this week with the 70th birthday of club president Michael A. Roth. Will that be enough though?
Sunday games feature top clubs against question marks
Current first-place side Bremen face a nemesis in Mainz. It hardly seems likely that Mainz, only in their second season ever in the Bundesliga, would present problems for the northern Germans, but last year Bremen lost once and tied once against Jürgen Klopp's "fun" soccer club.
Bremen gave a desolate performance against Basle in a Champions League qualifier this week.
"I expect that we'll come out much differently against Mainz," said team director Klaus Allofs.
Cologne started their campaign after a one-year absence from the top division with a victory at home. This week, they go on the road to Stuttgart. Coach Uwe Rapolder has player problems due to injuries.
"With some luck, we will be able to put 11 men on the pitch," he said sardonically.