There’s one thing my coach never tired of saying to me: “Hau den Ball ins Tor hinein!” – best translated with: “Just slam it into the back of the net!” What did yours used to say to you? What about this one: “The country’s going to the dogs! Everything was better back then!”
1958: In the old communist GDR, food rationing was finally ended, although East Germany had to wait for Helmut Kohl and the fall of communism to get their promised land. This was also the year in which Elvis Presley arrived in Germany to do his national service in the army; seemingly by chance, another music legend Michael Jackson was born. A 17-year old Brasilian named Pélé wrote World Championship history in Sweden and Schalke 04 won the German league for the seventh and last time.
1988: This is the year in which Mikhail Gorbachev declared that every socialist state should be free to develop its own societal model – if he’d only known what that would lead to… Enzo Ferrari, the greatest Italian racing driver ever died and Rihanna, the American R&B singer, was born. The Dutch won the European Championship, their only ever international title, in Germany of all places; and Bayer Leverkusen celebrated its greatest triumph as UEFA cup winners.
2008: In the US, Lehman Brothers reports bankruptcy and Barack Obama becomes the first ever Afro-American president. Even more importantly in some people’s eyes: Nicolas Sarkozy marries Carla Bruni. Spain become European Champions after beating Germany in the final and Bayern Munich take the German league title for the 21st time.
2010: Three teams, three aims – Schalke 04, Bayer Leverkusen, Bayern München, or “were champions an incredibly long time ago”, “were never champions” and “are record holders” – and the recent 28th day of play was decisive in deciding to which of these three contenders the championship might fall. Whilst Munich surprised everyone by losing their home game 1:2 to VfB Stuttgart, Schalke also surprised by winning in Leverkusen by 2:0 and taking the top-spot in the league table.
As recently as last week, Bayern were still able to pull off a convincing performance and look like they deserved to be in the cup final. Now, despite good play, they fell victim to an unlucky equaliser followed be a short but intense period of pressure from Stuttgart. This was the second league defeat in a row for Munich and as such gave Schalke and Leverkusen the chance they needed to conquer the heights of the table.

And oddly enough, it was Schalke that made the most of this opportunity. The “almost could-haves”, as Schalke are known, did not play like a top team in their cup match against Bayern, but in this championship game, they dominated the team in third place in the league, Leverkusen. Waiting to counter-attack, compact and good in one-to-ones, ready to run their opponents ragged and suffocate any signs of recovery – that’s how Magath likes to play. His team made a great show of implementing this strategy and won the game through two goals from Kuranyi. The 29th day of play will now see a duel with Bayern, and it will be interesting to see whether the lads from Schalke look better than in the cup match – if they win, it would be a sure sign that history is about to repeat itself, just as Schalke, by beating Wolfsburg, took a decisive game against Munich; and it would become even clearer than Magath has a very precise top-secret plan for exactly this sort of occasion. It doesn’t matter which team his takes the championship with – any team that follows his secret strategy is bound to win. Bochum, for example, will take the championship with him next year, and Bayern München will soon realise that everything really was better back then.
Kevin Kuranyi and his two goals have really put Germany’s coach Joachim Löw under pressure to cap him for the world championship in South Africa; then again, it was Kuranyi who left the national team by his own choice – but everything is different now. Kuranyi has scored 17 times and, compared with the lacklustre performance of players like Klose, Gomez, Podolski and Helmes, Löw is fast running out of reasons not to bring him in.
At the other end of the table, the five teams languishing at the bottom were all incapable of winning. Hannover96 were notable for a particularly poor performance, losing 1:4 to 1. FC Köln and thereby earning themselves a top spot: in the second division.
In recent years, the boys at Bremen were able to have a good laugh at the expense of their northern rivals Hamburg. And whilst HSV are, as ever, ruining their season and tearing themselves to shreds as players go public about leaving and the trainer has to take all kinds of criticism, Werder Bremen just keep on their steady course into the cup final, leaving their Nordic arch enemy standing. Quite symptomatic of this day of play: Bremen claimed a 4:2 victory against Nuremburg whilst Hamburg took a 0:1 loss to Mönchengladbach.

(Stefan Reichart / Brian Melican)

Results Matchday 28:
VfL Bochum – Eintracht Frankfurt 1:2
1. FSV Mainz 05 – VfL Wolfsburg 0:2
Bayern München – VfB Stuttgart 1:2
Hertha BSC Berlin – Borussia Dortmund 0:0
Hannover 96 – 1. FC Köln 1:4
Werder Bremen – 1. FC Nürnberg 4:2
Bayer Leverkusen – FC Schalke 04 0:2
1899 Hoffenheim – SC Freiburg 1:1
Borussia Mönchengladbach – Hamburger SV 1:0

Table
1 FC Schalke 04 58 P
2 Bayern München 56 P
3 Bayer Leverkusen 53 P
4 Borussia Dortmund 49 P
5 Werder Bremen 48 P
6 Hamburger SV 44 P
7 VfB Stuttgart 41 P
8 Eintracht Frankfurt 41 P
9 VfL Wolfsburg 40 P
10 1. FSV Mainz 05 38 P
11 1899 Hoffenheim 34 P
12 Borussia Mönchengladbach 34 P
13 1. FC Köln 31 P
14 VfL Bochum 27 P
15 1. FC Nürnberg 25 P
16 SC Freiburg 24 P
17 Hannover 96 23 P
18 Hertha BSC Berlin 19 P