Germany, 15 Jul - 18 Jul

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16.07.2011 - Germany Bundesliga 2 - St. Pauli vs. Ingolstadt 04

St. Pauli - Ingolstadt Betting Odds, Soccer - 2. Bundesliga

Ingolstadt 04 (+0.5)
Odds: 1.87 (IBCBET)
Stake: 3/10

The line in this game is unrealistic and does not reflect the relative strength between these two teams. Both teams should roughly have the same quality. if I just look on the player's names. But Ingolstadt has the major advantage that they are much better attuned. Furthermore, we may not forget that this game will take place at a neutral venue in Lübeck. St. Pauli's home ground, the "Millertornstadion", is known for a brilliant atmosphere and St. Pauli is known for being a pretty strong home side. However, not so many fans will attend this game, so that a new all-time low of fans is expected. St. Paulis new manager Andre Schubert says: "Of course it is like an away match for us. We have to spend the night before the game in Lübeck, are not in our own stadium and we will have less supporters. It can't be helped." Besides this, I am very sure that this season will be difficult for St. Pauli and although they came down from 1. Bundesliga, they will have nothing to do with promotion because their squad is simply too weak. Atmosphere is not really good too, since club legend and former manager Holger Stanislawski left the club. St. Pauli will be without Moritz Volz, Marius Ebbers, Carlos Zambrano, Rouwen Hennings and Dennis Daube due to injury. All these players were important ones in the last season and these missings reduce the team's quality.

Ingolstadt played a more than decent second half of the last season and they ultimately displayed their qualities. For this season, they did not lose any mentionable player besides Markus Karl who went to Union Berlin. On the other hand, they signed some quality players, with Leo Haas leading the way. Haas came from Furth and he is a midfielder with an excellent technical ability and strong free kicks. The missing of strong defender Tobias Fink hurts, new signing Andreas Schäfer from KSC will replace him here. The back four of Ingolstadt makes a solid impression and is more or less very well attuned, only the wing defence positions might be weak points. The midfield has a good mix of technical skilled players (Leo Haas & Caiuby), a small and fast forward (Andreas Buchner) as well as physical strong backup (Malte Metzelder). Only Leo Hass is new here but he should acclimatize himself quickly since he is a very experienced player. Ingolstadt's captain and best player Stefan Leitl builds the strike duo together with Moritz Hartmann who lately improved a lot in the end stages of last season.

To sum up, we will see two mediocre and pretty even sides on a neutral venue. Ingolstadt has the advantage that they are much better attuned and that they have a very succesful second leg at the back, while St. Pauli comes back from a poor Bundesliga season with some horrible games like the 1:8 against Bayern Munich some weeks ago at the back of their mind. The very early start of this season and the shorter preparation should also be an advantage for Ingolstadt because they have not lost their rhythm while St. Pauli probably did not have enough time to fully recover. To cut a long story short, a +0.5 line on Ingolstadt is not justified here. However, only small stakes because I appreciate St. Pauli's new manager Andre Schubert a lot, because Ingolstadt had some pretty poor test results and due to the fact that early rounds in a season are always full of suprises.

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Germany Bundesliga 2 - 17.07.2011: Eintracht Braunschweig vs. TSV 1860 Munchen

Braunschweig - Munich 1860 Betting Odds, Soccer - 2. Bundesliga

TSV 1860 Munchen (+0)
Odds: 2.60 (PinnacleSports)
Stake: 3/10

Much as I would like to see my local team winning here, they are just completely overrated. Braunschweig is new from the 3. Bundesliga and they really played an amazing season. In the team, there are not so many changes but they gave away their best player Karim Bellarabi and the "replacement" Oliver Petersch (from RW Oberhausen) is just roughly two classes weaker. Petersch was one of the worst players of the last 2. Bundesliga season and I do not know what Braunschweig wants to achieve with this signing. Also, they signed Correira, someone who still has a big lack of experience. Both, Petersch and Correira are expected in the back four. Petersch was always a weak point when he defended for former 2. Bundesliga team Oberhausen, Correira is very unexperienced. Last year, Braunschweig's incredible strong defence was their key to success but I have no idea what they want to achieve with Correira and Petersch .. but manager Lieberknecht has no other choice since his regular defenders Dogan and Kessel will be both out due to injury (Kessel is at least highly doubtful). Their back four looks really poor now and will have big problems against 1860's fast and technical high skilled offensive players. Besides Petersch and Correira, there are no more mentionable signings, just a few players from lower divisions. Braunschweig is a very young team with a young manager and their key to success in the last season was fast, direct and pressurize play. But today, Braunschweig does not play against a plain vanilla team or something, in fact they just play against one of the strongest away teams of this league which has recently been great in form.

In the end of last season, 1860 showed the best football. Due to the bad first round of the season, it did not help them that much but the way how they played was simply impressing. The "magic square" with Daniel Halfar (who is definitely the strongest winger of this league), Stefan Aigner, Kevin Volland Benny Lauth was incredible strong. Especially their fastness and perfect counter ability was very important in away games. Today it will be the same, although Aigner is still doubtful but Daniel Bierofka is an equal replacement. I am sure that 1860's very strong wings will be able to exploit the rather weak wing defence positions of Braunschweig (Petersch and Reichel). 1860's defence still makes a very solid impression and should not have too big problems with defending against Braunschweig. Moreover, 1860 has high ambitions in this year anyway. Their new investor from Jordania said that he wants to bring 1860 at one level with Bayern and Barcelona sooner or later.

So what kind of game will we see? Braunschweig will play with euphoria and will push forward. 1860's defence should be strong enough to defend, although the slowness of 1860's central defenders could be a problem against Braunschweig's very small forwards. But 1860's whole defence made a very strong impression in the friendlies and if need be, there are still the strong "6ers" Bülow and Stahl. Both are in a perfect shape and both are great in winning balls. They both are nearly invisible on the pitch but they are so important because of their fantastic ball winning ability. Their physical play will be helpful against Braunschweig's small forwards like Kumbela, Boland and so on. Braunschweig's defence was always their biggest strength but without their best defender Dogan and without regular Kessel, it will be different. The poor replacements Petersch and Correira mean two big weak points in Braunschweig's defence. Manager Lieberknecht said a few days ago that every team will be clear favourite against his team. Of course that is some kind of understatement, but they can never be the favourite against promotion canidate 1860. Ultimately, still the most likely lineups:

Eintracht Braunschweig: Petkovic - Petersch, Henn, Correia, Reichel - Theuerkauf - Zimmermann, Vrancic, Kruppke, Boland - Kumbela

TSV 1860 München: Kiraly - Malura, Schindler, Buck, Feick - D. Stahl, Bülow - Aigner, D. Halfar - Volland, Lauth

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Germany Bundesliga 2 - Karlsruhe vs. Duisburg[/B]

Karlsruher - Duisburg Betting Odds, Soccer - 2. Bundesliga

MSV Duisburg (+0)
Odds: 1.86 (Ibcbet)
Stake: 5/10

The quality gap between Karlsruhe and Duisburg is massive in this season. This year, Karlsruhe will probably play against relegation while Duisburg is a hot promotion canidate. Due to the fact that Duisburg achieved the national cup final last year, they earned a lot of money. Therefore, they signed many considerable and expensive players with Bundesliga-level. For example, goalkeeper Florian Fromlowitz from Hannover 96 who is actually much, much too good for the 2. Bundesliga. Or Vasileios Pliastikas from Schalke 04, Valeri Domovchyski and Daniel Beichler from Hertha Berlin, from Cottbus free-kick expert Jiayo Shao as well as 15-goals striker Emil Jula, FSV Frankfurt's best midfielder Jürgen Gjasula, VfL Osnabrück's best player Flamur Kastrati and still a few other potential players from Bundesliga teams like Kevin Wolze, Sergej Karimov (VfL Wolfsburg) and Zvonko Pamic (Bayer Leverkusen). Hard to believe that this team will not be a hot promotion canidate in this year. Anyway, I am usually careful in such situations because many good individual players do not automatically mean a good harmonising team. But the reason why I believe that Duisburg will already be very strong on first matchday is called Milan Sasic (their manager). Milan Sasic's biggest skill is to build up great teams with good team spirit in a very short time. Last season, Duisburg also signed almost a dozen of new players but on first matchday, the team already chimed together perfectly. Milan Sasic's whole philosophy with long balls and rehearsed set pieces already worked perfectly on the first matchday back then. He is a really an expert in building new teams in a short time, as well as giving his team a fantastic team spirit. Hence, I think that this radical change will work again perfectly and with regard to the individual quality, Duisburg is nearly one class stronger than Karlsruhe. If I just look on Duisburg's expected lineup (they do not have any mentionable missings), I am just really impressed. That looks really very, very strong. Friendly game results were really good too, apart of a defeat against strong Bochum, they won everything.

Karlsruher also made a radical change this season but due to a big lack of money, they bought mainly players from lower leagues or from foreign countries. Hence, it is really difficult to say something about their quality but test game impressions were not really good. They signed players like Patrick Milchraum who came from Aue or Moses Lamidi who came from 2. Bundesliga relegated team Oberhausen. They both have been injured and were recently completely out of form for their former teams. Players like Kempe from Aalen or Piossek from Ahlen were only average players in the 3. Bundesliga. Or the signing Klemen Lavric, he is a big lack of fitness and is much too fat. Another big weakening for Karlsruher is the absence of their by far best striker Anton Cristea. He is really an amazing player and safed Karlsruher's ass in the last season when they closely avoided the relegation. But all in all it is hard to believe that this team will be strong enough to have a chance against Duisburg. Differences are just massive here. Therefore, I believe that this is by far the strongest bet from the first 2. Bundesliga round. Quality differences are just too huge here. Last but not least the expected lineups, but just copied from Kicker here because I do not have any reference points to predict the lineups:

Karlsruher SC: Orlishausen - Lechner, Hoheneder, Kempe, Milchraum - S. Haas, Staffeldt - Terrazzino, Iashvili, Buckley - Lavric

MSV Duisburg: Fromlowitz - B. Kern, Bollmann, Bajic, Wolze - Sukalo, Pliatsikas - Brosinski, Shao - Jula, Domovchiyski

[hotspur]

hi,thanks for your posts.
I was gonna have a bet on Brauns.only to find they were 3-1 up.
I think the other game-st Pauli-was always going to be trickier to call and you recognised that by advising small stakes.
I will def. be following your tips this season.
But what I wanted to ask right now was for your thoughts on the bundesliga antepost prices.
Dortmund are available at 5-1 with 1 bookie(last time I checked).
this seems pretty good to me?
also, whats your assessment of Leverkusen(at 9-1).
btw I must admit I am amused that reaching the German cup final provides a club with the cash to buy several good signings-how quaint!

[hotspur]

leverkusens price has gone up to 12-1(perhaps cos shalkes has come in slightly)

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I am on a horrible run .. original @2.10.

18.07.2011 - Germany Bundesliga 2 - Fortuna Dusseldorf vs. VfL Bochum

Fortuna Dusseldorf (-0.25)
Odds: 1.90 (PinnacleSports), 1.88 (SBO)
Stake: 5/10

Such a pretty huge price on Dusseldorf at home is something you do not see everyday. Dusseldorf is the strongest home team in Germany, there is no other team with such a big gap between home and away displays. At home, they show passionate and pressurize play in front of their fantastic home crowd. Last season, they did not lose any single home game apart from those games which were in the beginning of the season (for some reason, Dusseldorf started with 6 defeats last season). Without these 6 defeats in the beginning of the last season, Dusseldorf would now play Bundesliga. This year, they are the only team in Germany2 which did not lose any single important player. Due to this and a few good signings, they are one of my biggest favourites in this year. The only new fielder who will probably be in the lineup is Adriano Grimaldi. I am really a big fan of him and he should be better than Bröker last year. Moreover, they have Maximilian Beister, one of the biggest newcomers of last season and the Danish guy Ken Ilsö who came to Düsseldorf in the last winter. Ilsö scored several times, sometimes through free kicks - he is even a fantastic player. The defence from Düsseldorf at home has always been the best one of the league. It is really hard to score against them. A weak point of Düsseldorf in the last season was the goalkeeper position. Sometimes, Melka played, some other times Ratajcazk but no one could really convince at all. They now signed Robert Almer from Austria. I do not know him, thus I can not say if it was a smart decision to buy him or not. But to sum up, Düsseldorf still has all players from last season and bought a few senseful additions.

Bochum failed in the play offs against Gladbach last season, hence they have to play one more 2. Bundesliga year. They will definitely achieve again a top 6 position but we should keep in mind how lucky they have often been in the last season. Many lucky victories in the stoppage time, often benefitted by the referees - their rank in the table was definitely better than their performances were. Their key to success was their defensive minded thinking manager Friedhelm Funkel, as well as their pretty strong back four which did not allow anything. But they lost their best defender Antar Yahia who announced his transfer to Saudi Arabia yesterday. Lukas Sinkiewicz from Augsburg should replace him on his position. I really like Sinkiewicz but I rather see him as a DMID. Will be interesting to see him playing together with Marcel Maltritz in the central defence but I am sure that their defence won't be so perfect anymore without Antar Yahia. Besides them, they are also without three vital offensive players. Best striker Jong Tae-Se is still out due to his injury, but well, that should not be a big deal since Mirkan Aydin showed a great development. But Bochum's best midfielder Azouagh will not be available due to his injury. Last season, he came to the squad in winter and with him, they started their amazing winning streak. Besides, their strong midfielder Ümit Korkmaz went back to Eintracht Frankfurt. Korkmaz and Azouagh were the players who were responsible for the creating of goal chances due to their good technical ability. Last year, Bochum was a rather defensive minded team without technical good players. Korkmaz and Azouagh were the only silver linings in the last season. Now, they definitely have a lack of creativity due to the absences of them.

To sum up, Düsseldorf is the better team and they have a very huge home advantage. Moreover, Bochum's defence will be weaker without Antar Yahia. Düsseldorf should actually be stronger than last year, Bochum should be weaker. Hence, I do expect a victory of Düsseldorf at home. These odds are really very, very high for some reason, did expect -0.25 @1.80-1.85 here to be honest. -0.25 odds are at 2.11 at the moment, +0 ods at 1.76. I would actually prefer the safe DNB line but -0.25 has much more value.