28 replies to this topic

[ossie schreckengost]

so we´re back to europe, for the first time since ´96, when we did win at highbury, 3-2.


those days, they were the cup-winners-cup days of yore. gone, but not forgotten.

this time around we will have to play a playoff to make it to the "champions league" (we were not the champions. we came in 4th). if we fuck it up, it´s off to the "european league" (which i will embrace, gladly. it´s still europe. and it´s europe for the first time in more than fifteen years. after more than fifteen absence from playing in europe the prospect of playing in europe, anywhere in europe, becomes more powerful than any drug your mind may imagine).

--

we had to sell marko reus, the single most important IMPACT player we had since günther netzer. and i really don´t know where that will leave us, in the long, short, or any run.
we still have germany´s best goalie (i quite successfully pretend the swiss-game never happened), MATS, marc-andre ter stegen.

we lost dante, who not only was the most thourough pathfinder through death´kingdom, but also the glue that glued our defense together.

we lost them to our hated rivals dortmund and bayern, respectively. which is a testament to our status as a glorified farm club to the real powers of our bundesliga.

still, i´m really looking forward to next season. i always do, but somehow, magically, we´re still blessed with one of the best managers in the business, lucien favre, so i´m semi-optimistic.

if we won´t crash out of the dfb-cup in the first round at hated, hated aachen (somewhere on the old sosh-place there might be my rant about us losing at aachen in the semis, where a win would have brought us to europe, the outcome of the final be damned. alongside my germany´s defeat by argentina ´86 to this day my darkest moment in football), and won´t shit the porch to extremes, therby triggering the old mönchengladbacherian reaction of tarring&feathering the manager, i guess we will be fine.

after all those years happiness would be the group stage of the european league (when last bundesliga-season as the third-worst team we had to play off bochum, just to stay in the bundesliga...), a fighting quarterfinals-exit at a big club, and not having to fight relegation. that would be sheer happiness.

we are without marco reus, after all. who, for the last couple of seasons, WAS borussia mönchengladbach.

-------

to be continued, but i still have to get over the germany-blues

[bosox4283]

You've signed a young Spanish defender named Alvaro Dominguez for 8 million euros from Atletico de Madrid. He's a talented defender, though a bit inconsistent. Del Bosque, the Spanish national coach, has included him on various national teams lists (the first lists -- he has not made it to the World Cup or European Cup).

http://www.atleticof...onchengladbach/

[Tony the Pony]

Fuckin awesome European draw for Lech Poznan. They'll play Zhetysu Taldykorgan in the first qualifying round.

About 70 miles from the Chinese border. Would be an epic train trip: 4 days and 13 hours.

One way

With a bit of luck you can re-enact another 1996 match-up in the second qualifying leg, Carl

[Titans Bastard]

Fuckin awesome European draw for Lech Poznan. They'll play Zhetysu Taldykorgan in the first qualifying round.

About 70 miles from the Chinese border. Would be an epic train trip: 4 days and 13 hours.

One way

Let's hope for their sake that they win. In last season's Europa League, a Polish club went out to Irtysh Pavlodar.

I have actually attended a match of the Kazakhstani second division. I can only hope that the standard at the top of the first division is much better...

[MarkInLondon]

Zhetysu Taldykorgan to Sporting Lisbon - 8,522 kilometres, 99 hours by road.

And we moan about the trip to Carlisle!

[Titans Bastard]

Zhetysu Taldykorgan to Sporting Lisbon - 8,522 kilometres, 99 hours by road.

And we moan about the trip to Carlisle!

It's a shame that seeding and regional grouping prevented Zhetysu from being drawn with an Icelandic club.

"Fun" fact: Zhetysu means "seven rivers", which refers to the region where seven rivers flow north from the Tian-Shan to Lake Balkhash, where Taldykorgan is located. The former Soviet countries love teams named after industries and geographic features. My personal favorite for creative genius is "Tom Tomsk".

[Royal Reader]

It's a shame that seeding and regional grouping prevented Zhetysu from being drawn with an Icelandic club.

"Fun" fact: Zhetysu means "seven rivers", which refers to the region where seven rivers flow north from the Tian-Shan to Lake Balkhash, where Taldykorgan is located. The former Soviet countries love teams named after industries and geographic features. My personal favorite for creative genius is "Tom Tomsk".

Wait, they had regional grouping and teams from Kazakhstan and Portugal still ended up drawn together?

[Titans Bastard]

Wait, they had regional grouping and teams from Kazakhstan and Portugal still ended up drawn together?

No, they are playing a team from Poland. Mark added the Lisbon bit for effect.

[biollante]

It can't be all that bad for gladbach or is it over already ?

[ossie schreckengost]

It can't be all that bad for gladbach or is it over already ?

no. it hasn´t really begun.

it´s the champions league, which means right now it´s the real champions of europe´s respective league´s are forced to fight off the dregs of europes shit leagues, just to survive, and make you believe in the label "ecl", as you call ist.

last week, for example, the actual luxembourgian champion




dudelange, at home and away, did fuck, in the ass, no lubricant, the fascist austrian entity "red bull salzburg", thereby disposing the red bulls from international play.

those are the rare moments you think "GOd- maybe he´s really watching football from time to time, and he doesn´t rate those capitalist arscholes"

in germany it´s "red bull leipzig", und aus innerbetrieblichen gründen haben red bull leipzig den gleichen sportdirektor wie red bull salzburg - das dumme schwein ralf rangnick. and his death may come soon.

.....

i don´t know who will play whom, when all is said an done. a con-borussian of mine is keeping tabs, he´s copletely mad, the respective uefa-co-efficient included, or whaTever:

seeded:

SC Braga - KK 63,069
Spartak Moskau - KK 46,066
Panathinaikos Athen - KK 50,920
Fenerbahçe Istanbul - KK 41,310
Udinese Calcio - KK 38,996

not seeded:

OSC Lille - KK 38,835
FC Brügge - KK 35,480
FC Malaga - KK 16,837
Borussia Mönchengladbach - KK 15,036
Feyenoord Rotterdam - KK 12,603


he´s rooting for that moscow-fixture. he is a hool. an intellegent hool. cursing the day when the uefa did invent that coefficient-shit to prevent him from going to rotterdam. to avenge the last time, whe he&his folks were "schnauze voll gekriegt", kind of obliterated.

i just don´t get it. you´re sometimes basking in the glory of feyenoords hools, nils, but i still don´t get it. right now over here in europe it´s the neo-hoolies, the grand italian experiment "ultras", who are threatening the one thing we still have to our name, the terraces.

oh bugger.
---

whatever.

august tenth they will cast the lot. the champions-league´s last qiaöification round.

[ossie schreckengost]

[Tony the Pony]

no. it hasn´t really begun.



he´s rooting for that moscow-fixture. he is a hool. an intellegent hool. cursing the day when the uefa did invent that coefficient-shit to prevent him from going to rotterdam. to avenge the last time, whe he&his folks were "schnauze voll gekriegt", kind of obliterated.

i just don´t get it. you´re sometimes basking in the glory of feyenoords hools, nils, but i still don´t get it. right now over here in europe it´s the neo-hoolies, the grand italian experiment "ultras",

It starts tomorrow.

Kiev - Feijenoord. 20.00 local time.

And to answer your hool-thing - times have changed so much, Carl. I don't have to tell you that. Back in the day we didn't call ourselves hooligans. We were supporters. He had a lot of fun, lots of laughs and watched a lot of football. It started to all fall apart not so much when the media started to take the supporters seriously, but also when the self-proclaimed hools did take themselves too seriously.

Back then, you'd play away on a Sunday, roll into town on a Saturday, get some tickets somehow, got drunk, did an all-nighter filled with humor and barely remembered what happened after the final whistle blew around 16.20

Feyenoord will never be threatened by the ultra shit. It really is old school through and through. The only things that can (and very well may) bring it down is boneheaded (wannabe) hool behavior by coked-out kids and the influx in money and the parasites it attracts to the power seats.

A few months ago, a bunch of my friends started a foundation "De Feijenoorder". It's only goal is to make going to matched be more authentic again. Away-trips in a party-bus filled with house music, alcohol, ...., a bunch of 40+ years old that can tell you stories about the 1980s you wouldn't believe - and their kids.

As far as Gladbach goes - there hardly was anybody there from you in Rotterdam in 1995 (?). Over in Germany, though, a couple of weeks before, it was quite nuts. I had never seen so many hools from so many different teams unite to take on a single opponent (Feyenoord) at a club fixture. And still never have.

[biollante]

things change..............sometimes people pretend to be supporters just so they can be hooligans...........pure support and fun is ok but football seems to be a little too controlled....although no player should tweet............seems to be their end............I'm not sure why I am writing like this but I enjoy it..........................if I understand the pool right I guess Istanbul for Mgladbach

[ossie schreckengost]

today, first round of the german cup, ´russia @ aachen, where we so famously pissed it all away in the semifinal 2004.

today we won 2-0.

onwards and upwards to our "champions"-league-qualifier on tuesday, at home vs dynamo kiew.

[biollante]

Would like to see that game....not sure what it all means unless they win.

[biollante]

not a good game, Ossie might not be in here until he recovers

[ossie schreckengost]

not a good game, Ossie might not be in here until he recovers

i might be here, but that does not mean i have recoverd. at all. i still have not recovered from my germany´s loss vs an unanimously superior italian team at the euros. so who am i to recover from a proto-champions-league loss vs a kiev team that was just...better?
cleverer. to the 3rd degree.

anyway. i hope we will make not collective asses of ourselves next wednesday at kiew.

and then it´s off to the european league group stage. i´m longing for dudelange and feyenoord.

---------------

then again, our 1st bundesliga fixture we won today. hardly, and for the first time at home vs sap hoppenheim. the bloody fascists.

i wasn´t there ( i´ve never been much of a good luck charm anyway re games vs hoppe), i ve been at the auestadion, 4th league match, ksv vs elversberg (just another sponsor driven nonentity, the fucks). a great game of football, on the last great day of a late northhessian summer. sometimes this wonderful silly game transcends everything.

i was commissioned as the "resident football fan" by my best friend andrea, who is a wonderful girl, she wanted to break in her son alexander, footballwise, stadiumwise. "he´s 6 now, time to take him to the football" (she is the kind of girl you want to have by your side in war).
so we went, and so it was wonderful afternoon at the auestadion (ksv 1- elversberg 1, for those of you scoring at home. a fun but relative nondescript game, the onl player who really stood out was that elversberg number 9, some kosovarian (?) goal thief named krasniqi, who´s a brilliant technician and an an artist with the ball at the touch of his feed. he´s just, and to his detriment, an unfailing member to his race, sadly a schwalbenkönig, a guy who prefers to go down meekly watching the ref to blow him, a penalty, instead of doing what he can do like no other, play ball play ball and score the goal.
i hate that shit.
but that abedin krasniqi i´d take him in a heartbeat. he´s an unrepentant schwalbenkönig, but he´s such a great football player, so much fun to watch.

it was a great game of fottball, though. COMPLETELY meaningless, but great nonetheless.

in shitgermanyfootball the 4th leagues are nothing more than a training ground for the bundesligists reserves. it´s the 1 and only aspect of british foootball being superior to german: they have their dedicated reserveres-leagues.
it´s all we have not.

that´s why we are experiencing an unprecedented competetive death of what we call "traditionsvereine", football clubs who were around way before the current german league system was established.
the fourth-tier this year, the "regionaligen", are chock full of clubs who once were the core of german football.

whatever.

but the shite will rise again. we´re unrepentant.

viktoria köln or berlin ak 47. the football fan´s football teams.

---------------

this fucking game. i´m still bruised by our semifinallerian mishap way down east. this was supposed to be our year. kerlekerlekerle...

nils, just feast on the crying german, because 2 years from now i will be the one who laughs!

(in german this kind of misplaced optimism we call: "whistling in the deep dark forest")

[biollante]

....sometimes the meaningless games are the best...a nice day out just watching a match with no pretensions just a game.

[Tony the Pony]

and then it´s off to the european league group stage. i´m longing for dudelange and feyenoord.

Feyenoord is going to be tough, Carl. 2-2 at home to Sparta Praha, Away game is this Thursday. Feyenoord is about the only club where ultra's still do not exist, and to celebrate a partybus is leaving on Wednesday. 50 people in a bus, non-stop houseparty, unlimited beer (1.50 each) or mixed drinks (2.50). Not sure where they're buying tickets ;-)

I'm moving back to Europe a month too late....

[ossie schreckengost]

well, so in the cl-qualifiers we shat the bed vs dynamo kiew on aggregate 3-4, so it´s off to the cup of good hope/the loser´s cup/the european league. sadly, feyenoord didn´t make it.

borussia is in a group with olympique marseille, fenerbahce istanbul, and ael limassol.

i guess we´ll have a fighter´s chance to make the k.o.rounds.

..

today we drew scoreless with freshly promoted fortuna düsseldorf. we were abysmal. dreadful football.

it´s a long way to make up for marco reus.

----------------

Feyenoord is about the only club where ultra's still do not exist,

which might be THE sign of a "healthy fan culture" (i know it´s an idiotic expression, but bear with me).
ultra-ism, (and i don´t preach to you, tony) in the first place started as a resistance in the stands vs the ever growing culture of corporate football. an honourable resistance. which, like its origins in italy, soon descended into organised idiocy, at best.

maybe at rotterdam there never was the need for the common fan to take matters in his own hands. maybe with feyenoord the supporters still feel at home.

hihi, and the things you sometimes write about youse, it may be exactly that.

..

and, re: a feyenoord - russia match up, nil:

let´s adopt the sox´s motto of yore: wait till next year.

but we will have to improve to make even 2nd-class europe next year.

oh well...

[biollante]

Still in 8th after 11 games, will there be a downward spiral or will they rise to the occasion ?
Sadly, I have not seen them play this year.
I'm pretending to have a life and have been watching less soccer.

Stuttgart is 12th and I have been told not to expect much.

[biollante]

What happened to Ossie ?

 

He is grey. Did he get booted or something ?

[SoxFanInPdx]

What happened to Ossie ?

 

He is grey. Did he get booted or something ?

Good question...is anyone else a bit worried that something happened to him? 

[biollante]

Ossie is still grey...no answers ?

[Zomp]

I believe Ossie was banned because of postings in another section of the board, but I'm not sure.

 

He wasn't banned because of anything in this forum.

[biollante]

Ossie banned ?

 

Sad, sad day.

[Tony the Pony]

Free Ossie!

 

(came to check he wasn't one of the gladbach fans that ended up with a knife in the ass last night)

[biollante]

That sounds very painful. 

[biollante]

Why doesn't someone let Ossie back in ?

 

He made these football threads so much better.