The Uefa coefficient was almost the same as Spain's (13.5 vs. 13.8) and much better than Italy's and France's (though Italy should be better this year). Even better, this was based on strength in depth (multiple clubs doing well in the Uefa Cup). Schalke would have been a good candidate for the last 16 of the CL this year as well.
That's pretty much based on beating up minnows though. Bundesliga clubs haven't beaten Spanish, Italian and English teams on a regular basis in ages. Werder Bremen: ok, two wins against Lazio and Real Madrid (the two only wins of German clubs against teams from the top 3 leagues the entire season). Still, first round exit in CL with 6 points. Stuttgart: I think we don't need to discuss this. Schalke: reached CL QF with a total of 3 wins, two of them against Rosenborg. HSV: wins against Honvéd, Litex Lovech, Brann, Stade Rennais, Zagreb, Zürich Leverkusen: wins against União de Leiria, Toulouse, Sparta Prague, FC Zürich, Galatasaray, Zenit (losing on aggregate) Bayern: wins against Belenenses, Red Star, Aris, Aberdeen, Anderlecht, no win against Getafe and Zenit in 1/4 and 1/2 finals Nürnberg: wins against AZ and Larisa Bremen: wins against Braga and Rangers (losing on aggregate)
If we define French teams as minnows it's quite a step up already. You might just as well accept that the current TV deal has changed things in the Bundesliga's favour to some extent compared to the post-Kirch years. It's looking like we'll go back to that level though.
Beating mid-table teams from another second-tier league is at least not exactly a sign of greatness in my book. I'll accept that things have changed if Bundesliga teams do anything comparabale to what they did until 2002. Which they surely didn't to last year, or the year before.
Urziceni has 17.000 inhabitants only. If they progress over Hamburg I'll want to have a closer look at the Romanian league.
urziceni play a good quality football they are now the 1st in the league they just beat rapid bucharest(who eliminate hamburg in past) urziceni have a very talented coach dan petrescu he was a good player also played for chelsea. if u need to be affraid of some player in particular i think u need to be affraid of the whole team cuz they dont have a player to make diference the whole team make diference.anyway they are first time in a competition like that so if hamburg will play well maybe they will win but will be a good game i hope. btw i heard maximilian nicu from hertha is a german with romanian grounds. is that right? did he play in any national team for germany?
I can still remember this small town (from my childhood), since we had often passed it by car on the way from Sibiu (Hermannstadt) to the Black Sea coast. Their stadium has not even half of the capacity of that from my local 2nd league club.
http://www.transfermarkt.de/de/spieler/2345/nicumaximilian/transferdaten.html Yep. He's born & grew up in Munich. I've had a nice conversation with him (in German, of course in front of the team bus last season, when he played in Fürth. I've never heard anything about this so far (although he owns the German citizenship).
According to a German newspaper it´s no a very rich club compared with Cluj (owner Paskany) or Steaua (owner Becali) and the article also stands, that Unirea has many sympatisants in Romania, that don´t want to see the big ones on top (but that´s normal).
Hamburg - Unirea will be a tough game, but IMO Hamburg will go through, if they concentrate on the first match. Unirea are very good in away matches, thwy play a good counter-attacking football. chances are Hamburg 70%, Unirea 30%. In the Wolfsburg - Rapid game i think chances are 45-55. i know Wolfsburg are a good team with great offense but i think Rapid are slight favourites because of their experience and because the second leg is in Giulesti.
I just saw that here in England, Skysports has raised pay-per-view prices for CL matches by a modest 40% from last season (5 to 7 Pounds, single match). Nice! The wonderful world of English football these days. I frankly wouldn't care if a German team could beat Famagusta if I couldn't (wouldn't want to) afford watching any of that travesty happen any more. Edit: Apparently the pay-per-view price per CL game is 10 Euros in Germany as well...but of course, in Germany the problem wouldn't arise as one could watch the matches in a bar or so.
To get a decent coefficiant, you need to beat minnows and mediocre teams. Strong teams are just a bonus. Let's go one season further back: 06/07. - HSV came out on top of Osasuna (2 draws, away goals rule) - Werder beat Chelsea and Celta de Vigo (twice) - Bayern beat Inter and Real Madrid - Leverkusen beat Blackburn Rovers In the end, the coefficiant was still much worse than last season, not so much because Leverkusen and Werder failed against Spanish teams and Bayern failed against Milan, but basically because Schalke and Hertha were thrown out in the first Round of UEFA Cup by minnows and Hamburg lost 3 of 4 matches against Porto and CSKA Moscow to end last in the group. Truth is, the top 4 teams in Italy are better than the top 4 teams in Germany, but for whatever reason, Italians fail early against minnows in the UEFA Cup on a regular basis. If we do better than they in that regard in the next 2-3 seasons, that might be enough to win back the 4th CL place. If someone forced me to bet, I'd still rather bet on Italy to stay ahead, but I think a chance is there.
And I found it to be that way in any "Soccer Bar" I could find in San Antonio, Texas too. I had to resort to programs like Sopcast to see any German teams in action.
That's why the coefficient isn't the best way to determine the strength of a league. It's just sad that beating Celta Vigo or Blackburn Rovers is an achievement for German teams these days. But as I said, the Bundesliga is a good second tier league, and there's no shame in that. I'd rather see the Bundesliga give up any chance for European success in exchange for my (unlikely) dream of a salary cap anyway.
Yeah it does. The situation on tv is ************ for "connoisseurs" like us though. edit : apparently you're not allowed to type s-h-i-t-t-y.