Oh. My. Goodness.

What else is there to say?

Well, there is a lot to say, to be honest. When die Blauen Blog went into its own Winter Break I was chewing on the idea of the hiring of Michael Frontzeck as manager, as the last time we saw him in the Bundesliga his Allemania Aachen were packing their bags for the 2. Bundesliga after a memorable collapse saw them lose seven of their final eight matches to end the season. Despite this I was bullish on Arminia's chances as I would expect Frontzeck to splash some cash in the Transfer Window to repair the, er, nonexistant back line. Unfortunately, Arminia's transfers went as follows:

In: None

Out: Abdelaziz Ahanfouf (F) to SV Wehen

Granted, Ahanfouf was surplus to demands, but come on, it never came to Frontzeck's mind that perhaps a defender or twenty may help the worst defence in the Bundesliga?

Before I blow a gasket over that, let's move right along. Right before the Winter Break ended Arminia went to Jena to take on 2. Bundesliga Carl Zeiss Jena in a DFB-Pokal clash. The result was of course a 2-1 victory for the little guys in extra time, mainly because the defence coughed up a late goal (ugh) and a goal in extra time. Where have we seen that before? The league returned as Arminia lost 1-0 to Wolfsburg through a display of anemic offence and lost points because of a defencive lapse (Schuler). The same was in store as the Martin Fenin Show showed up and his carving up of the back line enabled the first goal, and he was unmarked for his second goal. At least Artur Wichniarek showed some bottle by putting away a chance to make it 2-1, albeit from an offside position. I'll be fair and state that the second half in the Frankfurt match Arminia came out looking to score, but were unlucky when Sibusiso Zuma's chance went just wide.

And this brings us to today, where Arminia went to eternally-middling Hertha Berlin, which, according to Wichniarek, middles because of their manager Dieter Hoeness. What can I say? I'll take Koenig Artur's word over almost anyone. After all, he was there and rotted for almost four years and not me. Apparently some other blogs digress, but given Hertha Berlin's history, who wouldn't complain about them?

Anyway, the match today started out as boring as Herr Frontzeck wanted, as both sides wandered about the pitch for the first half without much in the way of action. The second half was the same until Raffael put a shot on goal only to be saved by Mathias Hain. The pressure began to build, but the line held and the score remained at 0-0. In the 88th minute, Sibusiso Zuma came off for Tobias Rau in an obvious attempt to hold onto the precious point. I scribbled a note on my notepad "A Striker off for a Defender this late in the match? Why? Unless he wants to lose the game..."

Me and my mouth almost got away with it as in the dying seconds of the match Berlin had a throw-in deep in Arminia territory. The throw went into the box, above all Arminia defenders, and right to Raffael who won the game at the death to take all three points. I'm never one to shout or anything at the TV or computer (Complain? Definitely), but this instance got a "GOTT IN HIMMEL! YOU'RE A BLOODY IDIOT FRONTZECK!" out of me. About the only positive out of the match was that the three in the drop zone below Arminia are equally putrid, so Arminia remain two points clear, but it's far too close for my sake.

Going back to the sacking of Ernst Middendorp, the Germanocentric part of the Soccer-writing Anglosphere (How's that for some fancy wording?) did some writing to say the least. The best was the (always good) The Offside's take on the firing with the requisite comment about the club's love affair with Herr Middendorp (In their league table summary for last weekend, their comment about Bielefeld went to the tune of "At this point, I am starting to believe they only fired Ernst Middendorp so that they could rehire him for the umpteenth time to save them".) The best was from Ernst's old stomping grounds in South Africa where Johannesburg's Business Day tore Middendorp apart in a laughably-sad-but-true piece about the state of the club.

Finally,  World Soccer Daily interviewed Arminia Bielefeld's most famous support, journalist Johannes Berendt in the first hour of Thursday's show. When asked about Bielefeld, his response was that perhaps all of this was a bid to break the record for managers for a club in a single season in the Bundesliga (They've matched last year's total of three already) and finished the discussion with a quite funny comment of "So if you ever lose, you'll have a job in Bielefeld!" and guaranteed a loss against Berlin, leading up to a do-or-die match against Duisburg. Yikes. You can download the podcast off of iTunes by following this link.

I should be back into the swing of blogging things now, but I'm not sure about what. Fun times via Arminia aren't that plentiful here at die Blauen Blog HQ, as I'm having to resort to my PSV fandom to tide me over, which is helpful, though not a true fix. Here's to three points against Duisburg next Saturday!

As everyone across the OleOle community leaps with delight with the beginning of the season across Europe, I too am caught up in the excitement. Arsenal may or may not challenge for the title, I just finished my fantasy draft for my UEFA Fantasy League (more on that in another post), but most importantly Arminia Bielefeld's campaign opened up today against fellow wallflower VfL Wolfsburg.

It's rather lonely to be a Bielefeld supporter, as a recent poll among Bundesliga supporters showed only 12% of Germans support the club (Link auf Deutsch) , and in all likelihood few if any folks outside of Germany have even heard of them. But that's OK, as the Internet has shown through the prevalence of numpties on fan message boards everywhere, it may be better off being a fan by yourself. But this season offers some sort of promise. Despite not winning a match for half of the season and going through three coaches, Bielefeld won 4 of their last 5, and in the processed finished 12th, the highest they've finished in the top flight since 1983-84. With the squad mostly intact, there's even talk of a UEFA Cup spot from some supporters, which would have been theirs if they would have bothered to win a game or two between November and March, but that's last year. But others see the club as relegation fodder , so the law of averages say a midtable finish.

VfL Wolfsburg, the sporting arm of automaker Volkswagen is a fellow anonymous member of the Bundesliga, but splashed the cash this season for new coach/sporting director Felix Magath in a bid to make the side a Champions League contender. For Magath, the opener against Bielefeld was all-important. So important, in fact, that he sent a spy to watch Bielefeld practice. In a scene that wouldn't look out of place from a Pink Panther movie, Bielefeld manager Ernst Middendrop "noticed someone with an umbrella, a camera and a football magazine" at the practice facility. Obviously bemused, Middendrop "gave him the line-ups and sent [his] best wishes to Felix." Oh so clever of the Bug builders.

Evidently the spying and Middendrop's gift still couldn't help them, as Bielefeld crushed Wolfsburg 1-3, with goals by Artur Wichniarek, Christian Eigler, both set up by Jorg Bohme, and subsitute Oliver Kirch made the lead unreachable before Wolfsburg put one in in the 84th minute to finish up the score line. Bielefeld controlled play from almost the beginning, and repeatedly threatened the Wolfsburg defence, who didn't bother to show up until they were down 3 goals.

All in all a great start for die Blauen. Here's to them keeping it up next week in their home opener against Eintracht Frankfurt.