Some fun stats: Ranking of the whole year 2002: 1 Bayern (9 points ahead) 2 Dortmund 3 Schalke 4 Bremen 5 Berlin 6 Stuttgart 7 Leverkusen 8 1860 9 Hamburg 10 Wolfsburg 11 Nürnberg 12 Gladbach 13 Rostock 14 Lautern 15 Cottbus (others just had 16/17 games) Top strikers 2002: 1 Ailton 21 2 Elber 19 3 Romeo 16 4 Max 15 4 Koller 15 4 Klimowicz 15 4 Ballack 15 8 Pizarro 12 8 Ewerthon 12 Top rated players 2002: Goalies 1 Jentzsch 1 Rost 1 Stiel 4 Lehmann 5 Kampa 5 Kahn 7 Kiraly 8 Butt 9 Reitmaier 9 Reck Field players: 1 Frings 2 Lucio 3 Metzelder 4 Ballack 5 Rosicky 6 Linke 6 Ernst Simon Jentzsch and Martin Pieckenhagen are the only players who played all games from the first to the last minute. Stats on the first 17 games of this season: Team of the 2002 season part (deciding are kicker nominations for the Team of the Day only) Simon Jentzsch (1860) – Markus Münch (Mönchengladbach), Bastian Reinhardt (Arminia Bielefeld), Marco van Hoogdalem (Schalke) – Michael Ballack (Bayern), Fabian Ernst (Bremen), Dariusz Wosz (Bochum), Jens Jeremies (Bayern) – Ailton (Bremen), Benjamin Lauth (1860), Ewerthon (Dortmund) Top rated players: Goalies: 1 Jentzsch 2 Kampa 3 Lehmann 4 Rost 5 Stiel 6 Reitmaier 7 Hildebrand 8 Kahn 8 Schober 10 Butt Field players: 1 Linke 2 Münch 3 Verlaat 4 Metzelder 5 Ballack 6 Frings 7 Ewerthon 8 Ailton Players, who didn’t miss a single second so far: Tomas Ujfalusi (Hamburg), Lars Müller (Nürnberg), Jentzsch, Pieckenhagen, Reitmaier, Schober Top joker: 1 Ganea, Stuttgart – 5 goals in 5 substitutions 2 Amoroso, Dortmund – 4 in 6 3 Diabang, Bielefeld – 4 in 10 4 Hashemian, Bochum – 4 in 13 5 Ewerthon, Dortmund – 3 in 3 Funny is that there hardly would be any change in the ranking according to the old 2-point system. Just Rostock and Leverkusen would be ahead of Nürnberg. Ranking of the first half: 1 Nürnberg !!! 2 Dortmund 3 Bayern 4 1860 5 Bremen 6 Stuttgart 7 Gladbach 8 Leverkusen 9 Schalke 10 Hannover 11 Bielefeld 12 Wolfsburg 13 Lautern 14 Rostock 15 Bochum 16 Berlin !!! 17 Hamburg !!! 18 Cottbus Ranking of the second half 1 Bayern 2 Bremen 3 Dortmund 4 Wolfsburg 5 Hamburg 6 Berlin 7 Schalke 8 Rostock 9 Stuttgart 10 1860 11 Bochum 12 Bielefeld 13 Leverkusen 14 Gladbach 15 Lautern 16 Nürnberg 17 Hannover 18 Cottbus Top assistants so far: 1 Schneider 7 2 Jarolim, Ailton, Freier, Ricken 6 6 Schroth, Mahdavikia, Ze Roberto, Neuville, Krupnikovic, Lisztes 5