Bundesliga 2024/25 - Next season it will be bigger - This season it will be better

test match Hoffenheim vs. Barcelona



(looks like Ewa Pajor keeps scoring in Germany )

 

What can Hoffenheim expect form Dominika Grabowska

action/progress stopper
02:01
and follow-up
02:09

good at closing passing lanes
03:55
04:04

decent acceleration and above average technical skills allow her to draw a lot of fouls against her
04:18
12:22
38:15 (not given by the ref but clear foul made by follow-up slide)

interceptions/counter maker
11:06
16:35

good game management
21:11

loosing her mark and providing options upfront (look top of the box)
22:42

drawing her mark to provide an open lane for a teammate (finished in SoG action)
24:11

set piece taker
49:23

she was pro-active in defense on both goals lost by Hoffe in 1st half... while her teammates were mostly caught ball watching (despite she was out of the pitch for part of the build-up to Barca's equaliser and with fresh injury sustained minute before, she still gave a chase and almost caught Graham Hansen)

In Fleury her talents were partially wasted because French team was set to play more direct ball with little possesion in mind. Grabowska played there as AM, supporting striker or even a winger. Fleury coach relied only on her technical ability, postitioning and good progressive passing skills. Imo she is best set as deep playmaker or DM and with some team work involved she can be moved to win the ball higher on the pitch thus becoming an instant impact player.

 

Meanwhile DAZN has claimed copyright of the above video published on Hoffenheim official channel..

 

I lost count of Japanese players in Frauen-Bundesliga 1 and 2 (except Remina Chiba at Frankfurt; I suppose Momoko Tanikawa will remain on loan in Sweden? ).

 

Fi Frankfurt won't change their system this season, hopefully Chiba can help break up their current underwhelming front 3...

But to be honest... I never understood why Tanikawa would move to Straus-ball Bayern. She's another CAM (they have others too) who's signed a contract to be part of a team who's head coach doesn't incorporate CAM's into his system...

So maybe there's something we don't know here, with the club actually having plans beyond Straus..? But while he's the head coach, I've had a very difficult time correlating the football the team currently plays, with the long term planning transfers made by Bianca Rech...

 

Well they just lost a pre season friendly Vs Barcelona 1:5 (1:2 HT), where Kössler would open the scoring with a nice angled finish from her left foot.

Hoffenhiem in a 4-4-2...
--------------- Kössler (62. Alber) --- Cerci (46. Hickelsberger) -----------------
Grabowska (46. Corley) ------------------------------ Memeti (71. Delacauw)
----------- Feldkamp (71. Diehm) ----- Dongus (62. Harsch) --------------
Kaut (62. Rankin) ---- Doorn --------- Cazalla ---- Janssens (71. Weiß)
------------------------------------ Tufekovic (46. Dick) ---------------------------

I know we're used to seeing Hoffenheim be a strong transition team, which deploys good ball movement instead of focusing on long balls.

But in this system... yeah, their going to have some major problems competing for 3rd place this season...

 

I know why Hoffenheim have changed their system to try and fit Cerci and Kössler into the same starting 11. But to make a 4-4-2 work requires ELITE CM's; something I'm not seeing in this team right now...

Feldkamp - Doungus - Diehm - Harsch being the clubs current options, it's going to be a VERY rough season for Hoffenheim if they think they can deploy a 4-2-4/4-4-2 and win games with 3 DM's and a suspect box to box CM...

Looking at their options right now, surely this makes far more sense, no?
---------- Memeti/Corley ------------ Cerci/Steiner -------------- Kössler/Alber -------------
Janssens/Delacauw -- Feldkamp/Harsch --- Grabowska/Dongus -- Hahn/H-Füller
---------- Kau-t/Doorn -------------- Cazalla/Diehm ------------- Ritter/Rankin ---------------

Within a 3-4-3 there's a better shape to deploy a compact offense/defence with these particular players. Otherwise their coach is talking about his team having to constantly win contests of athleticism to win matches...

Playing 4-4-2 Vs Barcelona pretty dumb, but I don't even think this works Vs teams like Essen; being legitimately destroyed once they face off against Frankfurt's system.

 

LOL... Remember when the DFB blocked the proposed break away of 1.Bundesliga clubs trying to partner with The Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL). Well the English WSL just separated ways with it's own FA, to start a partnership with their own equivalent of the DFL called Women's Professional Leagues Limited (WPLL)...

People still pretending BVB wasting years climbing the football pyramid is a sign of their authenticity as a club lol, when the real truth here is like most of Germany's top clubs, BVB don't actually want anything to do with the DFB run 2.Bundesliga, and 1.Bundesliga.

If the DFB wasn't run by bureaucrats and activists, I'm convinced we would have seen all the biggest clubs in Germany jumping over the football pyramid, to place their various women's teams in to a new professional league system...

But here we are, watching clubs rather shut down their women's team, than have them play in 2.Bundesliga lol... well done DFB, your doing a fantastic job lol...

 

Anyway.... not a lot of footage online covering the friendlies of this seasons various 1.Bundesliga clubs, means it's hard to asses where many will stand this season... But if I'm looking at the top 6 from last season...

#1 Bayern appear to be the exact same team, meaning their true test this season surely about doing something more in the UWCL, than produce a few group stage victories before an eventual quarter final exit.

#2 Announced as the final season we'll be seeing Stroot at Wolfsburg, the club also losing some big players, making a lot of new signings. Wolfsburg's major test simply nothing more than trying to become a credible team again, no?

#3 Frankfurt's defence on paper looking like it's potentially stronger, as their already strong mid-field definitely set to see more improvement, only making it frustrating to think how everything they seek to do requires Prasnikar, Freigang, Anyomi, scoring all their goals.

#4 Essen likely to continue being the leagues biggest unknown factor, bringing in even more youth prospects to a team who'd only lose one important player from last seasons successful foundations. Meaning again... who knows what we'll actually see this season lol.

#5 Hoffenheim posses even more offensive talent, but retaining a mediocre mid-field, a suspect defence, being lead by a new coach, trying to establish a new system; not exactly presenting the vibes of a coming new period of success...?

#6 After years of doing absolutely nothing, Leverkusen learned how to finally leverage their clubs status to attract better players, surprising a lot of people through the season, and then maintain most of this squad headed into a new season....

I expect to see Wolfsburg with the leagues best attack again, Bayern with the leagues best defence again, but this time potentially Leverkusen the team with the leagues best young player (Bender)...

 

Only one team being relegated this season, the bottom 6 potentially even more obvious in it's final positions this season.

#7 Werder Bremen FINALLY discovering the process to create and score goals last season, would push themselves beyond being perennial relegation candidates. Making me wonder is this the moment Bremen start to establish themselves a mid-table status...?

#8 RB Leipzig the type of club you'd honestly expect to see behaving a little bit more aggressive when it comes to progressing their women's team up the league. But after losing one of their best players from last season, they'd waste the summer doing absolutely nothing to replace her lol..

#9 SC Freiburg has consistently been a home to a lot of good talent, but recently accomplished very little without a clear plan on how they intend to develop their team. And nothing appears to have changed this season, so...

#10 FC Köln seem to always sign experienced talent, but end up being the leagues biggest underachievers. Making it hard to see them being anything more than that again this season.

#11/12 Leaving the newly promoted clubs Carl Zeiss Jena, and Turbine Potsdam, as the clear choices to contest bottom two places all season.

SC Freiburg the one team here who I personally feel should be doing better, finding themselves stuck in a position much lower than the level of talent within the club.

Plus it's also interesting thinking one of these bottom 6 teams likely to feature a soon to be named senior wnt player...

 

Lots of new signings on display, but no Popp, Linder, Hegering, Hendrich, Brand apparently in the squad... my biggest question here is what's happened to Küver...

A young player who's constantly suffered with injury over recent years, seeing no sign of Küver during pre season has me thinking I've seen all these signs before, and Germany could be about to lose another strong youth talent....

Plus it needs to be said, after taking another of Wolfsburg's top foreign talents, with Arias it appears Barca have offloaded another of their underwhelming domestic prospects into one of their rivals squads...

Xhemaili randomly going on loan to PSV, probably comes from recognising SJJ, Brand, Popp, Endemann, Beerensteyn, Huth, all ahead of her as first choice forwards, with Blomqvist, and Sellner already training with the 1st team too.

Leaving Kalma, and Arias, both looking like complete outsiders right now. But again... with Dijkstra injured, not seeing any signs of Küver anywhere pre season feels very strange to me...

 

I've only seen 21 mins... I don't know the final score... but damn, I really hope this friendly match Vs Juve isn't the prototype vision of what Straus-ball looks like this season...

Stanway stepping into a back 3 playing a DM Pivot role, seeing the team with even less mid-field control, and a front 3 rotating positions forcing FB's to provide 95% of the width...

Again... this is only 21 mins, but if Oberdorf was meant to be a key part of this, Hmmmmm... I think was correct in speculating she was lied to about having a more offensive role...

 

So.... Straus is really planning on using Stanway in his team in the exact same way Nagelsmann would use Tony Kroos within Germany's team during the Euro's...


Again.. I'm still lost on this notion Straus is the best option to progress Bayern in to a European contender..

Vs Juve using Stanway as a deep lying DM Pivot for 90 mins, the best example of why I'll never take this man seriously lol.

Wolfsburg being a mess, Frankfurt unable to take the next step towards becoming a legitimate contender, while Hoffenheim continue to create more questions than answers. This league really NEEDS a strong Bayern right now.

But if what I saw Bayern produce Vs Juve an example of what we'll be seeing from Straus-ball in the UWCL this season... wow. This leagues UEFA coefficient status is about to start sliding...

 

@blissett i watched JUV take on the Scandinavian club known as Bayern in what was an rather lackadaisical match—-it’s like someone stole all your triple expresso machines out of Italy!(hmm…I wonder who the culprits could of been?, lol)

whats JUV going to do with all that massive roster of 30 players who are either senior or youth NT’s(for whoever respective countries their from)?

Does JUV have an 2nd division team to dumb its players on?—-which is basically what German clubs like what Bayern & WOB do with their over stuffed teams, but right now JUV squad is even bigger than those two!

@Lohmann , you could change your o to e and now gave someone to cheer about in the Italian league!

 

No, they normally loan their excess players to other Serie A or Serie B minor teams: this summer they have already given a dozen players on loan to Sampdoria and Napoli.

By the way, have you checked out their win in the Women's Cup in Louisville?

 

Players and coaches on both teams don't seem very happy about the DFB's scheduling for the Supercup. But seeing how it's going to happen regardless of what either clubs feels, I thought this would be a good time to look at the current squads of Germany's first and second placed clubs from last season....

Bayern Squad 2024/25...
---- Bühl/Dallmann/Zawistowska ---- Schüller/Damnjanovic ---- Harder/Kett/Lohmann -----
----------------- Zadrazil/Sehitler ------------- Stanway/Olme -------------- Kerr/Oberdorf -----------------
Naschenweng/Simon ------------------------------------------------------------- Gwinn/Hansen/Guzman
----------------------- Eriksson/Sembrant --------------------------- GPV/Tainara -----------------------------
----------------------------------------------------- Grohs/Mahmutovic ----------------------------------------------
[Injured]

Wolfsburg Squad 2024/25.....
Jonsdottir/Brand/Arias ------------- Popp/Kalma -------------- Endemann/Beerensteyn/Sellner
----------------------------------------------- Huth/Blomqvist ----------------------------------------------
-------------- Hagel/Lattwein/Papp --------------------- Kielland/Minge/Demann --------------------
Linder/Rabano/Nemeth - Küver/Hegering --- Hendrich/Dijkstra - Wedemeyer/Wilms/Brinkmann
------------------------------------------------ Frohms/Schmitz -------------------------------------------------
[Injured]

Wolfsburg seeing 8 of their players taking part at the Olympics, Bayern only 4. In this encounter I predict neither coach will select what they feel their strongest starting 11.

Plus I'm most interested to see if Straus continues with his next awful tactical experiment, this time using Stanway in the same role we saw Toni Kroos during the Euro's...
Hansen ------- Zadrazil ------------ Kerr --------- Gwinn
-------- Eriksson ------- Stanway -------- GPV ---------------
------------------------------ Grohs ---------------------------------