Hands off!
Marcelo36, had a dream: to compete with his parent club Fluminense against his long-time employer Real Madrid at the 2025 Club World Cup in the USA. Nothing will come of it now. On Saturday, “Flu” terminated Marcelo’s contract “by mutual agreement” as a result of the left-back’s insubordination. “Flu” coach Mano Menezes wanted to substitute Marcelo in the Maracanã Stadium against Grêmio from Porto Alegre in the 90th minute to secure the 2-1 win; then he literally pushed him back onto the bench and brought in Kennedy. “I heard something I didn’t like,” Menezes would later say, without explaining details. According to unconfirmed but plausible reports, Marcelo is said to have disliked the boss’s warm behavior. He had his arm over Marcelo’s shoulder; The professional suspected that the coach had wanted to make the fans believe that there was no closeness. Either way: Gremio equalized to 2-2 – and Marcelo is looking for a new club, preferably with a Club World Cup ticket. But the fact that BVB needs a left-back is just a rumor. Javier Caceres
Make a point
There are supposed to be people, not even a few, who would rather see Hertha BSC against 1. FC Köln on a Saturday afternoon, a Bundesliga classic, right? On Saturday we played against each other again in the second league (0:1). Instead, in the so-called upper house, VfL Wolfsburg and FC Augsburg met for the 27th time, a not exactly enthusiastically loved factory club that was – yes, yes – once champion in the long ago Quälix era, and one that is somehow still there -Club that, apart from participating in the Europa League and a destroyed penalty spot (in Cologne!), has so far left little behind worth remembering. The game ended 1-1, Augsburg leads in this tough duel with nine wins to eight and now ten draws. FCA had previously lost seven times away from home, the last win coming in March – in Wolfsburg. This time too they led through the goal Phillip Tietzbefore VfL equalized shortly before the end. “Even if it feels really shitty, we still have to be happy,” said Tietz. Others would be happy if they were playing in the Bundesliga at all. Johannes Schnitzler
Revolution postponed
Rhinelanders and Prussians don’t agree with each other; Those have not forgotten the annexation of the cathedral city in 1815 and its impact on the carnival. Now there is likely to be new discontent: On Saturday, 15,000 fans of 1.FC Cologne traveled to the capital of the former Kingdom of Prussia; Quite a few of them were carried by the hope of Berlin’s help. They wage a battle against sports director Christian Keller and coach Gerhard Struber, which is reminiscent of rebellions against occupiers of all kinds. The opportunity seemed good: Hertha had recently strung together three wins in a row. But Hertha disappointed and lost to a solid but pale Cologne by a goal from Tim Lemperle. The FC fans were happy, at least on the surface. Because, according to an expression from a Berlin joke, you have to celebrate festivals as they come, because three points are three points and because, according to the Cologne constitution, it is always “kütt wie et kütt” – which for Struber and Keller must still mean “nothing jootes”. . Javier Caceres
Blue seats
Only those familiar with the area remember that the stadium was the TSG Hoffenheim was originally supposed to be built in Heidelberg. Things turned out differently because even a billionaire like Dietmar Hopp can despair of German building law, but no problem, they said at the time, the location in Sinsheim is much better for getting there anyway: its own motorway exit, S-Bahn station, that makes it easy for them many football enthusiasts from the metropolitan region to get to TSG. At the weekend, during the 2-0 defeat against St. Pauli, one repeatedly had the impression that there were even more guests than locals in the Pre-Zero Arena. Many fans now have fun buying tickets that no one in Sinsheim wants. The Hoffenheim stadium shows more plastic bowls every other weekend than any other location, an occupancy rate of 79 percent is by far the league’s lowest, all the remaining clubs have over 90, most over 99. In the past, however, only attractive football helped TSG – but it did it’s not in sight right now. Martin Schneider
Palatinate Kagawa
If Daisuke Yokota came to Kaiserslautern in the summer, it didn’t cause much excitement, which is remarkable because in the Palatinate everything about FCK actually causes a lot of excitement. But the Japanese came on loan from Ghent and mainly sat on the bench. People in the club forums at least researched that Yokota won the championship in Latvia and played together with Lukas Podolski in Poland. And: Yokota’s agency once placed Shinji Kagawa in Dortmund. This was interpreted as a good sign. Yokota played the first few games more as his previous career would suggest, but in the last four games he has discovered the Kagawa in him: he can hardly be stopped by second division defenders, and Stuttgart also had their problems in the DFB Cup. In FCK’s 2-2 draw against Magdeburg, he quickly took a penalty and was partly responsible for the opponent’s sending off. Only Lautern’s shaky defense is currently preventing the excitement from getting really big. Martin Schneider
