It's that time again. Post your final standings predictions and we'll tally everyone up at the end to determine who was the closest. Feel free to add predictions on top goal scorer, assists, top transfers, top trainers, etc. Also, justify your picks if you want to generate a discussion. Have fun! The Title Contenders 1.Bayern – Yawn. Won’t be as big a point gap as last year, but it won’t come down to last day either. 2.Dortmund – Team might be weaker losing Gotze, but the teams behind them haven’t gotten better. The roster is still too strong and Klopp too great a trainer to concede 2nd. The European Contenders 3.Schalke – Not a confident pick and a boring one. They have the 3rd best roster. As long as they begin decently their superior squad should take over. But their beginning fixtures are not easy with Hamburg, Wolfsburg, Hannover, Leverkusen, Mainz and Bayern their first 6. 4.Wolfsburg – Hecking and Allofs will finally provide stability and this plastic club with their huge budget will reach their potential. That said, I hope to high hell Wolfsburg doesn’t finish 4th! They represent the evil part of the league. 5.Leverkusen – Losing Carvajal, Schurrle and Lewandowski as trainer will hurt. 6.Monchengladbach – Favre and Eberl added the missing pieces in attack: Kruse and Raffael. No Europa league matches will also help. The huge mid table 7) Stuttgart – A lot of depth has been added with Leitner, Serarer, Rojas, Rausch, Schwaab, Abdellaoue. Despite Labbadia, they should do better than last season. 8. Hannover – Smart signings of Prib and Bittencourt. Relieving their bloated striking core also wise. No Europa League helps too but losing Sergio Pinto is an issue. 9.Hoffenheim – Severely underperformed with that roster last season. Gisdol was the needed change. Will be a much improved side reaching their truer spot in the table given the roster. 10. Eintracht Frankfurt – They kept their team together, but overachieved last season and have extra Europa League matches. 11. Hamburg – What a circus of a club. Expect an average finish. Their horrible goal differential of last year shows their true colors. 12. Hertha Berlin – Jos Luhukay is a great trainer. He will guide this team to mid table safety. Relegation Candidates 13. Mainz – Tuchel is good enough to keep this club clear of relegation fears, but not much more. It’s an old, pretty bad roster. 14. Nurnberg – Wiesinger did well in ruckrunde but Der Club sells all their best players every season. Klose is a big loss and Simons going back to Belgium to retire. Ginczek might be the striker they have been missing though. 15. Freiburg – Will enjoy the ride in Europe and just hope to avoid relegation. Absolutely gutted roster. Streich will have to continue to work his magic. 16. Eintracht Braunschweig – Don't underestimate this side. I could see them finishing higher than this. 17. Augsburg - This is a really hard year to pick relegation sides. Don't feel great about this pick. 18. Werder Bremen – Lost their two best players in De Bruyne and Sokratis. Replaced them with no one. The trainer is not an upgrade. This is a really terrible roster. They barely escaped relegation last year and lost their best players, why should they do better this season? They don't even have young talent on the books.
BL Standings as predicted by MatthausSammer: 1. Bayern München 2. Borussia Dortmund 3. Schalke 04 4. Borussia Mönchengladbach 5. Bayer Leverkusen 6. Vfl Wolfsburg 7. Vfb Stuttgart 8. Eintracht Frankfurt 9. 1899 Hoffenheim 10. Eintracht Brauschweig 11. SC Freiburg 12. Mainz 05 13. Hanover 96 14. Hamburg SV 15. Hertha Berlin 16. FC Nürnberg 17. Werder Bremen 18. FC Augsburg The BL midtable complexion is horrifically difficult to predict. And also just for kicks: Top Scorer: Robert Lewandowski Top Trainer: Lucien Favre Best Transfer: Kruse to Mönchengladbach
I will take a stab at this and hopefully won't look like a fool come May 2014: 1. Bayern Munchen 2. Leverkusen 3. BVB 4. Gladbach 5. Schalke 6. 96 7. Wolfsburg 8. Hoffenheim 9. Eintracht Frankfurt 10. Stuttgart 11. Mainz 12. Freiburg 13. Werder 14. HSV 15. Hertha 16. Braunschweig 17. Nurnberg 18. Augsburg
1. Borussia Dortmund 2. Bayern München 3. Schalke 04 4. Bayer Leverkusen 5. VFL Wolfsburg 6. Borussia M`gladbach 7. Eintracht Frankfurt 8. VFB Stuttgart 9. Hamburger SV 10. Hannover 96 11. SC Freiburg 12. 1 FC Nürnberg 13. Werder Bremen 14. Mainz 05 15. 1899 Hoffenheim 16. Hertha BSC 17. FC Augsburg 18. Eintracht Braunschweig Top Goalscorer: Lewandowski Top Assists: Ribery Top Coach: Klopp Top transfer: Mkhitaryan
Because they will concentrate more on the league again and in contrast to Bayern won´t change so much of their playing style. In the CL I expect Bayern to have a better chance at winning again. In the league I doubt it a bit, as long as Dortmund won´t have to many injuries.
I don't have time to do the whole thing, but - Champ: Bayern (duh) Top Goalscorer: Lewandowski Top Assists: Reus (I know, I know...but bear with him) Top Coach: Klopp Top transfer: Goetze
1 Bayern München 2 Borussia Dortmund 3 FC Schalke 04 4 Bayer Leverkusen 5 VfL Wolfsburg 6 VfB Stuttgart 7 Hannover 96 8 1. FSV Mainz 05 9 Bor. Mönchengladbach 10 Hertha BSC 11 1899 Hoffenheim 12 Eintracht Braunschweig 13 SC Freiburg 14 Hamburger SV 15 1. FC Nürnberg 16 Werder Bremen 17 Eintracht Frankfurt 18 FC Augsburg This is based on a statistical approach to judge the players' quality. Details see here: http://www.goalimpact.com/2013/08/prediction-final-standings-of.html
Bild quoting my predictions already: http://www.bild.de/sport/fussball/lothar-matthaeus/lothar-tippt-auf-dortmund-als-meister-31650036.bild.html
1. Bayern München 2. Borussia Dortmund 3. Schalke 04 4. Bayer Leverkusen 5. Vfb Stuttgart 6. Borussia Mönchengladbach 7. Hamburg SV 8. Hannover 96 9. 1899 Hoffenheim 10. Werder Bremen 11. Vfl Wolfsburg 12. SC Freiburg 13. Mainz 05 14. Eintracht Frankfurt 15. Hertha Berlin 16. Eintracht Brauschweig 17. FC Nürnberg 18. FC Augsburg
1. FC Bayern München 2. Borussia Dortmund 3. Schalke 04 4. Bayer Leverkusen 5. Vfl Wolfsburg 6. Borussia Mönchengladbach 7. HSV 8. Eintracht Frankfurt 9. Mainz 05 10. Vfb Stuttgart 11. Hannover 96 12. Hertha Berlin 13. FC Nürenburg 14. SC Freiburg 15. 1899 Hoffenheim 16. Werder Bremen 17. FC Augsburg 18. Eintracht Brauschweig Top Goalscorer: Huntelaar Assists: Müller Coach: Pep Transfer: Mkhitaryan
1. Bayern München 2. Borussia Dortmund 3. Bayer Leverkusen 4. Hamburg SV 5. Vfb Stuttgart 6. Schalke 04 7. Werder Bremen 8. Hannover 96 9 .Eintracht Frankfurt 10. Borussia Mönchengladbach 11. Vfl Wolfsburg 12.Hertha Berlin 13. Mainz 05 14. FC Nürnberg 15. SC Freiburg 16. 1899 Hoffenheim 17. FC Augsburg 18.Eintracht Brauschweig
As much as it kills me... -------------Championship Race----------- 1. Borussia Dortmund 2. FC Bayern München -----Competition for European Spots----- 3. Schalke 04 4. Bayer Leverkusen 5. Vfl Wolfsburg 6. Borussia Mönchengladbach 7. HSV 8. Vfb Stuttgart ----------------Mid Table---------------- 9. Eintracht Frankfurt 10. Hannover 96 11. 1899 Hoffenheim 12. Mainz 05 -----------Relegation Battle------------- 13. Hertha Berlin 14. SC Freiburg 15. FC Nürenburg 16. Werder Bremen 17. FC Augsburg 18. Eintracht Brauschweig I'm not sold on Pep. Unless he learns from the mistakes he could open the door for Dortmund. I'm more worried about Pep than I am about Keller.
Great, can you create a topic for it so we don't bother these nice people while they all list Augsburg as a relegation team even though it's not?
At least I completed what the thread asked of me: a prediction for each team's position in the table in the final day.
I fear we are in for a very boring season. Let's face it, the championship is already decided, the other teams might as well not show up. Bayern have a decent team, though, so I predict them to finish second behind Braunschweig.
I find it really hard to make a prediction given that apart from Bayern and Dortmund the playing field is rather level. The quality and depth of Bayern should prove too great for Dortmund to overcome - they should end up retaining the BL. Leverkusen and Schalke have great rosters, yet as in tradition every then and now they will self-implode, but they have enough quality to take up the remaining CL spots. I can never afford to count out the likes of Gladbach, Stuttgart, Wolfsburg, Hamburg and Hannover to an extent - solid on paper but you cannot predict their performances. 1 Bayern 2 Dortmund 3 Schalke 4 Leverkusen 5 Stuttgart 6 Gladbach 7 Wolfsburg 8 Hannover 9 Hamburg 10 Hoffenheim 11 Freiburg 12 Frankfurt 13 Bremen 14 Mainz 15 Hertha 16 Augsburg 17 Nurnberg 18 Braunschweig
Werder will most likely not become champion in the real league, but they are in terms of clubs website quality. article: Spiegel.de
Bayer Leverkusen Bayern München Borussia Dortmund Vfl Wolfsburg VfB Stuttgart Schalke 04 Mainz 05 Borussia Mönchengladbach Hamburger SV Eintracht Frankfurt Hoffenheim Hannover 96 Hertha BSC SC Freiburg Werder Bremen Eintracht Braunschweig 1. FCNürnberg FC Augsburg
1. Bayern (It will be close, as Pep coughs up some points early, but Bayern gets the edge) 2. Dortmund (They will make it interesting) 3. Schalke (Slow start because of CL, strong finish) 4. Gladbach (I like this team to do better than what many think) 5. Leverkusen (Seems like they are up and down, but too good to fall lower) 6. Hoffenheim (Surprise team) 7. Wolfsburg (Much improved, but still dealing with Magath's mess) 8. Stuttgart (Meh, too many good players to pick much lower, but no reason to go higher) 9. Hannover (Just not sure about this team, so they are right in the middle) 10. Frankfurt (Ditto) 11. Hamburg (Not impressed) 12. Mainz (Safe; everyone else below is a relegation candidate) 13. Nuremberg (not going to be as good as last year) 14. Freiburg (Picked clean) 15. Hertha (They survive, barely) 16. Bremen (They'll win the relegation playoff) 17. Augsburg (I like these guys, but it's time) 18. Braunschweig (Just don't look very good; this season's Fuerth)