Bundesliga : Stock Report, Week 2

This is going to be a short report, I was only able to watch two Bundesliga games this week (Schalke 04-Hannover 96, and Stuttgart-Dortmund), only one of them with a team in the running.

Side note : I just flat out do not understand the German trend of having the name of the team on the back of the jersey. So many teams have the team name across the back where the player's name normally goes, and the players name under the number. I'm less annoyed when the player name is up top and the team name is down below, but I still don't understand the need for the team name.

Borussia Dortmund : UP. One of the games I was able to watch this week, won 3-1. Played well with the help of a nutty OG that started as a cross and deflected off Khalid Boulahrouz.

Werder Bremen : NO CHANGE. Beat FC Cologne 4-2 after getting stomped on by TSG Hoffenheim last week. I wish I could have watched this game since Marko Marin started, good to see them bounce back after a humiliating loss.

Bayer Leverkusen : DOWN. I may need to add Borussia Monchelgladbach after this week. Leverkusen was crushed by Monchengladbach 6-3, which is never a good thing. It might be better for Leverkusen that I didn't watch this game, but still, 6 goals is pretty bad.

Kaisersluatern : UP. Kaiserslautern is top of the league, and not just because of the alphabet. They beat FC Cologne in week 1, apparently not a difficult task, but they followed it up by knocking off Bundesliga juggernaut Bayern Munich 2-0 at home. I wish I had been able to watch this game, the highlights were pretty impressive. Kaisersluatern's first goal (Ilo Ilcevic) was awesome.

There was a Youtube video of Kaiserslautern's goals but the Bundesliga has pulled them.

VfL Wolfsburg : DOWN. Lose 3-4 to Mainz, oh and what a loss it was. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but Wolfsburg was up 3-0 at one point and managed to lose this game. Not a good sign.

Eintracht Frankfurt : NO CHANGE. Lost 1-3 to Hamburg SV. They led the game 1-0 and had a complete meltdown at the 60' mark when Hamburg drew even, eventually allowing two goals in a span of 7 minutes to close out the game.

Top Ten Best Club Kits Of 2010-2011

This was disturbingly difficult. There are so few good kits this year, it was basically impossible to narrow it down to 10 different teams. The designs being shat out by all involved are so awful that the best designs were pretty no frills. Sadly, the vast majority of the "Best" involve vertical red stripes which is very disappointing.

ARSENAL (Home) : These aren't really in any order, but Arsenal is definitely #1. The Gunners return to a classic red body with white sleeves, very clean and simple. Well done on Nike's part, sadly a rarity this year, too bad their away kit has the yellow-maroon color scheme.


PSV EINDHOVEN (Home) : Extremely close to their 09/10 kit with one huge change; the rear continues the the vertical striping. Last year they had solid red backs, solid backs on patterned kits is one of my biggest pet peeves (see Werder Bremen in our 10 Worst post) and they got rid of that for the 10/11 version. Simple, clean, very nice.


MANCHESTER CITY (All Three) : This is lame, I know, they are pretty much the same as last year. That is how bad the crop of kits is this year, all it takes is a solid jersey with collar accents to make our Top 10. Also, to be fair, their third kit is the same as last year. So Umbro strikes gold by doing nothing, hopefully Nike/Adidas are reading this...

RANGERS (Home) : Another simple throwback inspired jersey. Not much to say here, but I do think they get points for having a collar. It makes me sad the the collar has become an endangered design element, so its nice to see it... even if its from 1970.

RANGERS (Away) : Yes, this is how hard it was to find 10 great jerseys. Vertical red stripes, get used to it.

CELTIC (Home) : I thought it would be nice if Celtic were right next to Rangers. They have ditched the bumble bee look for their classic green and white, and I like it.
AC MILAN (Home) : Ok, try not to fall asleep here because the vertical red stripes continue their assault on our Top 10. Adidas manages not to completely mangle this one, bonus for the new sponsor logo as well. I know its out of their control, but the rectangle of black with the sponsor inside it looked horrible. Tangent : I hate the way the rectangle + sponsor looks on kits. Just hate it. It looks like someone just slapped it on, look at Bayern Munich's new home kit. I don't even think the rectangle is the same white as their stripes.
SUNDERLAND (Home) : Simple, nothing crazy here. I don't know why, but vertical red stripes seems to be the way to go. I don't know why nobody out there rocks a blue or green. The only non-red vertical stripes I can think of is Juventus and Newcastle, and Puma butchered Newcastle, not to mention the sadness of a non-Newcastle Brown Ale sponsored jersey. How could you kill the greatest Club-Sponsor pairing ever?!

OLYMPIQUE LYON (Home) : Another white kit, but I like the old school sash element. I wish the sponsor logo didn't cut it in half, but with the way things work we are lucky that the sponsors don't pick the 25 man roster.
ATHLETICO BILBAO (Home) : Yes, they look like an American flag. I don't care, they look good. Nice to see Umbro nailing the simple and clean designs, I know Nike owns them so I don't understand how the two can be so different on that front.

Top Ten Worst Club Kits Of 2010-2011

It is with much sadness that we make this list, mainly because this has to be the worst year for kits ever. It was shockingly difficult to cut this list down to 10, it could have easily been 100. I'm not joking at all, 100. Adidas alone could field 50 horrible kits, we would really like to know whats going on at Adidas HQ. Only one of them made it on this list, only because there were more questionable design decisions out there, but Nike has started a trend of jagged/blurry designs that confuses us. Maybe they were bored.

WERDER BREMEN (Home & Away) : So bad they could be two different entries, but lets save some space here. There is absolutely nothing I like about these, maybe their standard green, but that is about it. I have said this before, but it looks like Nike took Slovenia's World Cup Charlie Brown look and said "How can we make this worse?", and they nailed it. These jerseys hit on everything I hate; random jags, two shades of the same color, back panel doesn't match the front, shit font that makes the Netherlands' electrical tape look good. I'm half convinced Mesut Özil took one look at these and said "Fuck this, send me to Real Madrid!"or whatever the equivalent is in German.

Side Note : Go to Google and type in "Slovenia Jersey" but don't hit enter yet, the #2 and #4 search suggestions contain "Charlie Brown." Nike, you guys rock.

TOTTENHAM (Home) : Puma follows up the deuce they dropped in 09/10 with something equally horrible. This makes the Spurs look like a bunch of sailor boys, just a warning, don't look up "sailor boy" on Google images. Maybe Puma was inspired by Japanese school girls.


BORDEAUX (All) : Puma strikes again, this time its tripled. Bordeaux really pioneered the Sailor look last year, and its back with a vengeance. Just to make things worse, Puma threw in a purple and pink kit. I'm also staring to notice, maybe its a Spanish/German/French thing, but all of the crappiest kits get trotted out on girls. Either that or a player with no shirt flanked by girls wearing the kit, although Mainz's kit isn't all that bad. I imagine that players are so humiliated by these kits they refuse to model them.

I like the one in the middle, the girl, not the kit.

OLYMPIC LYON (Away & Third) : These two look like they were made in some ludicrous Project Runway challenge. Maybe they didn't want to be outdone by Bordeaux, or maybe the strategy is to blind opponents. It saddens me a bit because their home whites actually look pretty good, apparently they only had enough good design juice for one kit.
AJAX (Away) : On the surface these look harmless, but they land on this list for sporting the most idiotic jersey gimmick I can imagine. What is it you ask? These jerseys GLOW IN THE FUCKING DARK. When would this be used? Do they play games in pitch darkness in the Eredivisie? Is Ajax's fan base made up of ravers and potheads... oh, wait, Ajax is in Amsterdam. Well, I still think these are stupid, add in the Baby Bjorn pattern and these give me a headache.

CELTIC (Away) : Really? Really?! I demand to know who thought this was a good idea.

CHIVAS & CHIVAS USA (Home) : A rare cross-border collaboration between the Primera Division and the MLS. These both look like they were made with parts of an American flag used in random patterns. Bonus points here for some Adidas-Reebok teamwork.

TSG HOFFENHEIM (All) : I'm really hammering Puma, and they deserve it. We get the sailor boy, boomerang accents from last year, and the odd pattern popular with the African teams in the World Cup. Puma must really be fighting with Adidas for the Bundesliga's ugly dominance.


BARCELONA (Away) : I don't get this at all. Last year it was salmon, now foam green. Maybe they are going for a nurse/doctor scrubs look. Suddenly white isn't good enough, at least their 08/09 yellow kit matched their colors and looked decent.


VFL WOLFSBURG (Home & Away) : These are horrible and, of course, by Adidas. I love vertical stripes, but not with dark green and black. The terminating shoulder stripes, the odd expanse between them, these have been tormenting me for years now. I really like the away kit because the green section pushes the Adidas and Wolfsburg logo way up high, and you can't see very well but there are these tiny gray marks all around the chest that look like a giant fingerprint.

Bundesliga : Stock Report, Week 1

Well the first weekend of the Bundesliga has passed, and my plan has partially backfired. I thought all of the games would be on ESPN3, but it looks like only one game a week will be available and if I'm lucky one will be on cable when I'm watching EPL games. This blows, but I'll do my best to catch as much as possible.

Werder Bremen : DOWN. I was not impressed at all by Werder Bremen's 4-1 beating at the hands of TSG Hoffenheim. They were rescued from complete disgust by extenuating circumstances, and I hope they don't play like this every week. Bremen lost their best player (Mesut Özil) to Real Madrid, and they played in a Champions League game a few days ago. They looked very tired and once TSG went up 2-1 they looked like they completely checked out. I wasn't impressed by anything they did, they have some work to do. Also, hideous kits, I found myself looking away in disgust a number of times.

These are so ugly, it was really hard to watch.

Borussia Dortmund : NO CHANGE. I got lucky and Dortmund played Leverkusen today. I was able to watch while Man United gave me heartburn at Craven Cottage, and I was pleasantly surprised. Dortmund lost 2-0, but they played an attacking style of football I didn't think existed outside of Bayern Munich, I'm already seeing the Bundesliga in a different light.

Bayer Leverkusen : UP. Went up a little by beating Dortmund, but I mostly enjoyed their attacking style. They could have been better with the ball, EPL teams have spoiled me, but they weren't the plodding defense first team I expected. I still feel queasy at the idea of following a team with Michael Ballack, especially one with a Chelsea-esque blue kit.

VfL Wolfsburg : NO CHANGE. Lost to Bayern Munich in a close game, didn't get to watch this one.

Eintracht Frankfurt : NO CHANGE. Lost 2-1 to Hannover 96 and their freakishly horrible kits, didn't get to watch this game. No harm in losing, unless they do it every week.

Kaisersluatern : UP. Beat FC Cologne 3-1, good sign for a recently promoted team. I didn't get to watch this game so I can't really draw any conclusions. Just nice to see they are moving in the right direction.

Fantasy Baseball, 120 Games Down

With roughly 42 games left to go the season is basically over, at least for me it is. The league is down to two teams and I'm not one of them so I've basically checked out. The only thing left for Andrew and I is to maintain our teams and desperately try to make trades as the Sept 1st trade deadline approaches.

I'm about 75% checked out right now, and all I can do it hope that the injury bug is done with me. My offense, once a shining example of draft strategy, has been decimated by injuries. Losing two of my best players (Choo and Tulo) for over a month has caught up with me, and the loss of Youkilis is really paying off right now. I'm losing points in close categories that Youk gave me (HR, AVG, RBI) and I have no way to make up for it. My best hope is that Justin Upton and Billy Butler ascend to a higher level of Baseball Consciousness and completely destroy the league over the next 40 games. Add in my ability to add pitchers who quickly find the DL (Jeff Niemann, although I was able to add Jeremy Hellickson) and I'm done, see y'all next year.

Jeremy "Hell Boy" Hellickson, my only hope.

Andrew is still plugging away in 2nd, although he enjoyed a brief stint in 1st. He continues to ride baffling seasons by middling players (Kelly Johnson, Aubrey Huff) and is still in contention. He recently swapped Francisco Liriano for another closer, so he should be gaining in the saves category. I don't think he can win it, but with 42 games left alot of crazy things can happen. A single player on a tear could turn the chase.

Current Status
Bert - He fixes the cable?
Andrew - Shomor Shabbos!

2010-11 EPL Picks

Top Of The League

1 - Chelsea : I can imagine a scenario where Chelsea chokes down the stretch, but they have spent so much money and return most of the team that battered the league last year. I think they win the league by at least 4 points, pad their stats with a few 7-0 wins over Championship bound teams, and feature more than one insufferably arrogant jerk.

How dare you call me insufferably arrogant!

2 - Arsenal : They have all the talent to win the league, but they managed to get their teeth kicked in by Chelsea and Manchester United last year. They still have a small lineup and will probably get pushed around by bigger squads, but they have enough offense to ignore their fragile defending. If, and I know its a big if, they get a full season of van Persie and Fábregas they should have a shot at the title.

Fábregas to Barcalona?! Fábregas to Barcalona?!

3 - Manchester United : A tough pick for half of the Sports Optimator, but last year was their "How the hell did they win the league?" chance and they blew it. Lord Ferg added a few budget players, because you need 15 strikers, and missed out on the big marquee signing you expect of United. I think United is a solid third, and quite possibly tie Arsenal for points but fall to third based on goals scored and/or goal differential.

They aren't broken, I picked you to finish 3rd.

4 - Manchester City : Comfortably out of the Top 3 but firmly in fourth. City has spent and eye watering amount of money to improve their team and should make the Champions League just based on that. Adding Yaya Touré, David Silva, and Jerome Boateng (along with 40 other guys) should be enough to put them over Spurs and floundering Liverpool.

Bottom Of The League

18 - Wigan : Newcastle should stay up, so someone has to go down, why not Wigan?

19 - West Brom : Open the season with a brutal loss to Chelsea, welcome to the Premiership.*

20 - Blackpool : The EPL equivalent of a cup of coffee, or maybe its a cup of tea over there, thanks for coming.**

*I wrote this two days ago, and they were torched 6-0 this morning.
** Beat Wigan 4-0 today, maybe they should trade places.

Bundesliga? Ya Wohl!

July 11th at about 230pm was the worst possible moment I can think of. No, not because the World Cup ended in a Spanish victory, it was the longest possible time before the next World Cup. Luckily every single day brings us closer to 2014, and the Euro Cup is waiting for me in 2012. I managed to watch every single game, the vast majority live, and aside from being able to live out one of my lesser dreams I was shocked at what a grind it was. Getting up at 3am and sitting in a bar until 2pm was surprisingly exhausting, and I think I managed to carry the bar financially during the 6am to noon doldrums. With all of that in mind you would think that I'd like to take a break from football, but you couldn't possibly be more wrong. I'm actually planning on expanding the amount of time I spend watching a bunch of millionaires kick a ball around for 90 minutes.

I recently decided that I needed to give the German Bundesliga a shot since its apparently the most watched league in Europe. I'm not really clear what that means (attendance or TV viewers), but it was enough to get me thinking about choosing a Bundesliga team to follow. I was able to eliminate one immediately, Bayern Munich, but that left me with quite a few teams to choose from. I started following all of my current teams between the ages of 13 and 18, but I never really put much thought into it beyond "I like Player X" followed by staying with the team over time. I started by asking around for suggestions and just looking over team websites, and I managed to settle on a handful of teams and some criteria for making my final decision.

These are the criteria I decided on, they are by no means final and in no particular order, and are also quite stupid.

Young Talent / Franchise Future : I'd like at least one guy to look forward to seeing for a few years. The weird thing here is that most non-Bayern teams will most likely lose their super talented youth to Bayern eventually, so the best I can hope for is a very talented guy who won't get sold off. I'm also not interested in following a team that just buys all of their players in their prime with eye watering transfer fees.

Bundesliga Tenure : This is an unfortunate requirement since I have no access to the Zweite Bundesliga, and I'm going to be pissed if I settle on a team and they promptly get relegated. I would like my team to win titles, but Manchester United has spoiled me rotten so I'm not going to require my team to win the league regularly. I'm going to be watching everything on ESPN3, so I think setting the bar at "Don't get demoted" is pretty reasonable.

Great Kits : The most ludicrous of my criteria. Being in the design profession causes me to think about these things, so I can't help it. You may laugh, but I would be pissed if I was a Chelsea fan right now. This is also complicated because most Bundesliga teams are Adidas kits, and for some reason the brain trust at Adidas decided to drop a deuce on their teams. Yes, Chelsea is supplied by Adidas.

I've settled on a starting six that I'm going to "audition" this upcoming season, hopefully one of them wins me over.

1 - Werder Bremen. These guys have an unfair advantage right now: Mesut Özil. Özil was awesome for Germany during the World Cup, so they get a Man Crush bonus with a 21 year old guy that looks like a muppet. The problem is that I wouldn't be surprised if Bayern Munich bought him before or during the season. Werder Bremen also has an interesting team history and a habit of staying in the Bundesliga. I'm also happy that they use Nike kits and the Green-Orange color scheme isn't as bad as it sounds. Sadly, this year their kit looks like a complete disaster. It looks like Nike started with Slovakia's Charlie Brown lightning bolt theme and said "How can we make this look worse?", and they nailed it. Bonus : Champions League in 2010-11.

The unintentional comedy here is through the roof, I just wish I spoke German.

2 - Bayer Leverkusen. As soon as Andrew told me that people call them Neverkusen, because they never win the league no matter how good they are, I knew they needed to be included. I have a bad habit of choosing lovable failures without knowing, so why not join the Neverkusen bandwagon? Leverkusen features midfielder Toni Kroos and striker Stefan Kiessling (21 goals), both German nationals. They have a good history of staying up, but their kits (Adidas) aren't so great. Negative : Much to my dismay they have brought back Michael Ballack, and I don't know if I can root for a former Chelsea player that I have never liked.

Something tells me I'll need alot of this.

3 - VfL Wolfsburg. These guys were in the Champions League this year and won the Bundesliga in 2008-09, but their coach left the previous season and they had a bit of a meltdown this past season. They feature the league's top scorer in Edin Dzeko (22 goals), but the big budget vultures (Man City) are circling as I type. They also suffer from Adidas kits, but I like their Green-White colors. Bonus : Just hired Steve McClaren who just won the Erdevisie title with FC Twente.

4 - Borussia Dortmund. Recommended by a friend, second least familiar with them. Nevin Subotic is most recognizable player for me, there is some kit potential here with their Yellow-Black non-Adidas look, and a good history of avoiding relegation.

5 - Eintracht Frankfurt. Another recommendation and the biggest unknown for me. They don't have a history of getting relegated, but they don't have a history of finishing top of the table either. Their roster is a giant question mark, and their top scorer had 10 goals last year. They do get points for having a decent non-Adidas kit, and their Red-Black colors go nicely with my existing loyalties.

6 - FC Kaiserslautern. This is Andrew's team, so I'm giving them a fair shot. I have no idea who their players are, and they were just promoted from the Zweite Bundesliga. They have a history of moving between the leagues, so I'm not sure how I'm going to feel about them even if they do everything right but wind up bottom of the league. Andrew has nothing but great things to say about them, well he hates their uniforms, so I'm getting some good background on them. Plus, nice to see a team from a small town do well, nothing wrong with a loyal local fan base. Bonus : Andrew's lobbying.

There must be a Zoolander joke here somewhere.

All of the fun starts August 20th, and despite all of my considerations I don't really know who I'm going to wind up with after the season. All of my experience with the Bundesliga revolves around extreme profanities, for real events and video games (FIFA 98 & 99), right around 1998-2001. I'm very interested to see if my life can weather an additional league, something crazy could happen like fostering greater respect for Michael Bradley and ending up a Borussia Mönchengladbach fan. Even if I don't enjoy the Bundesliga at least I'll walk away with some German curse words, its the least I can hope for.

Fantasy Baseball, 110 Games Down

This will be, by far, the most apathetic update yet. As far as I'm concerned the league has pretty much been decided, barring some (additional) bad breaks, I can't see anyone seriously shaking up the standings. You may have guessed that I am not in first. Andrew isn't either, but I'm sure he thinks he still has a shot at the title.

My season ended this weekend when news went out that Kevin Youkilis' season was over due to a thumb injury. I've been missing one of my best players (Tulowitzki and/or Choo) for most of the season, and its hurt me, but this is probably the last straw. I built my team on guys that provide multiple stats, Tulo & Choo are six stat (HR/RBI/SB/BB/BA) studs and now I'm losing a 5 stat stud who gives me what I need most. I've been competitive in HR and king of BB for some reason, so losing those has pretty much doomed me. I've added James Loney since he has been driving a bunch of runs and hitting .300, so my only hope is that my offense lives up to its potential and Grienke/Sanchez go on a hot streak. As far as I'm concerned I'm just trying to stay in the money.

This pretty much sums up the rest of my season.

Andrew's team is stuck in championship limbo from what I can see. He is currently 2.5 behind the leader, but the team in first managed to counter his saves strategy. Andrew acquired a number of closers to gain on saves, but Andrew Bailey landed on the DL and the team he is chasing added Johnathan Papelbon in a trade (shipped out Jaime Garcia at the perfect time). I remain annoyed that Andrew is riding some great seasons from lame players (Kelly Johnson and Adam LaRoche come to mind), but its working for him. If Andrew can take some points away from the leader he has a chance, but right now it looks like both of us are finished.

Current Status
Bert - This is a league game, Smokey.
Andrew - Dude, nothing is fucked. Come on. You're being very unDude.

Fantasy Baseball, 100 Games Down

I'm running a little bit behind this week, probably because I've spent the last few weeks grinding my teeth and trying not to punch myself in the face (more on that later). The past few weeks saw the MLB trade deadline pass, and it should have quite an effect on the title race. The biggest names trading laundry were Cliff Lee (SEA to TEX), Dan Haren (ARZ to LAA, looks like they don't know about his epic 2nd half meltdowns), and Lance Berkman (HOU to NYY).

The trade of Cliff Lee has not helped me all that much aside from a recent outing where Lee went 9 innings and struck out 13 and Neftali Feliz came in and got the win in the 10th. I would love it if I could get those more often, but as it stands I'm getting killed all over. My offensive dominance has waned, but with Choo and Tulo coming back online and Rod "Do Nothing" Barajas in a pending DL move I may be headed for a strong recovery.

My biggest headache has been the Mike Pelfrey/Phil Hughes shit sandwich, and lets not forget my Nick Markakis/Franklin Gutierrez pre-season mancrush. This is where I start punching myself in the face, since I was all over Gutierrez as a potential 20-20 guy who could hit .300. I was wavering between Gutierrez and Colorado's Carlos Gonzalez, lets see how that worked out for me...

Gutierrez - 9HR 42RBI 15SB 42BB .247
Markakis - 7HR 36RBI 4SB 54BB .294
Gonzalez - 21HR 68RBI 15SB 18BB .321

The only bright side I see there is I'm #1 in BB, and dropping 24 would hurt. No, that doesn't help me sleep at night but its true. At least I managed to ditch Pelfrey for Barry Zito in a waiver move.

Hitting for the cycle is soooo overrated.

Andrew's team was somewhat up and down, mostly up. He managed to take a large lead in 2nd, but is now currently tied with me at 61 points. We are both well behind the leader (68.5), but the movement of Haren will improve his fortunes. Andrew has been borderline suicidal over Haren's odd 1st half meltdown, the guy has just not been himself all season, but moving to LA should give him a boost in wins and maybe keep a few fly balls in the park. The big downside of his move is going back to the AL, but Adrew is so far ahead in strikeouts that Haren doesn't need to strike out anyone else for the next three seasons. Andrew remains optimistic that we still have a chance at winning, me... not so much.

World of pain...

Current Status
Bert - No, Walter, it didn't look like Larry was about to crack. Well that's your perception...
Andrew - I believe in nothing!