Germany, 22 Jul - 25 Jul

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Germany Bundesliga 2 - 23.07.2011: Union Berlin - Greuther Furth

Union Berlin - Greuther Furth Betting Odds, Soccer - 2. Bundesliga

Greuther Furth (+0)
Odds: 1.88 (10bet), 1.80 (PinnacleSports)
Stake: 7/10

Liberal gift of the Asians in this match. On the second matchday of the last season, Union Berlin also played against Greuther Furth. Back then, we also had a bet on Greuther Furth at roughly the same price and the "Kleeblätter" deservedly won 2:1.

Union Berlin is a decent team, no doubt, but they disappointed me last week when they got a lucky draw from Frankfurt. They can count themselves lucky since Frankfurt's striker Babacar Gueye missed a penalty in the stoppage time. Union's new Brazilian guy Silvio showed that he is not accustomed to the physical play in the 2. Bundesliga, the new much-vaunted striker Simon Terrode did not show anything. Moreover, the missings of the by far most important midfielders Dominic Peitz and Thorsten Mattuschka affected Union's play negatively. Peitz left the club and Mattuschka was unavailable due to injury. Not sure yet, if he will return for the game against Furth, however his injury will still affect his performance level. Peitz and Mattuschka have been very important pillars in Union's play during the past years. Making up for their missings is a not really easy task. And there is still the same problem of last year: the defenders, especially central defender Christian Stuff who stands six foot seven inches tall, are much too slow. They may be good in defending high balls but they have problems against short passing play and fast, small forwards. And it is a matter of common knowledge, that Greuther Furth is a team which only rarely uses long and high balls. Furth's speciality are their very fast forwards, named Felix Klaus, Sercan Sararer, Christopher Nöthe and so on. Last year, Union had problems with defending against them (they lost twice against Furth last season) and since the Union defence is still mainly the same, it should be still the same problem.

Furth comes back from an unlucky and undeserved defeat against championship favourite Eintracht Frankfurt. Furth took the lead through two goals of Christopher Nöthe who finally returns after his injury. His returning is so important and if he would not have been injured the whole last season, I am pretty sure that Greuther Furth would now play Bundesliga. He is really vital for them. But to come back to Furth's first game, they really did not deserve to lose. They were clearly better and had chances to score half a dozen goals but they were simply unlucky with hitting the post respectively the bar. Frankfurt still won 3:2 but Furth was the better team in every aspect and proved that they are a hot promotion favourite. Furth's problem is just their inexperience in many situations. They usually give away too many points in games against top teams, but against mediocre teams like Union Berlin, they are always superior. An important factor could also be the returning of Sercan Sararer who was the best newcomer of the last season together with Felix Klaus. If I just look on the player's names, it is impressing. They are still much more stronger than last year. Best striker Christopher Nöthe is finally back after injury, as well as starter Stefan Schröck who showed a decent performance last week. Also, the best goalkeeper of this league Max Grün is finally back after his broken leg although he showed a really bad performance last week. But he should come back to old good form sooner or later, in fact he is just one of the biggest goalkeeper talents we have in Germany.

Greuther Furth is the better team in every aspect, they have always been a team which isn't worse on the road than at home, motivation should be great after the undeserved defeat last week and the fast forwards will have an easy job against Union's too slow defence. Union has vital missings in the midfield, new players like Karl and Silvio are still not good enough to replace Peitz and Mattuschka and Union did not convince last week. Should be an easy game for Greuther Furth, the line is just a joke and does not have anything to do with the relative strength of these two sides. Hence, a bet with very large confidence and therefore high staking. Furth will definitely not lose this game, unless they will be very, very unlucky but among normal circumstances, they will come back to Furth with a victory.

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Germany Bundesliga 2 - 24.07.2011: Dynamo Dresden - Hansa Rostock

http://www.oddsportal.com/soccer/ger...k-806212/#ah;2

Dynamo Dresden (-0.25)
Odds: 1.97 (SBOBET)
Stake: 3/10

To be honest, since both teams are newly promoted, it is difficult for me to say how the teams work and what are their strengths and weaknesses. But for today, I do not need that because I have enough impressions of the teams to say that these odds are unreal. These odds actually indicate that Hansa Rostock is the better team but Dresden is the slightly favourite due to the home factor. But this can not be true. In fact, Dresden showed a really strong display in Cottbus last week. In the first half, they dominated completely and the new players Heller (from Eintracht Frankfurt) and Trojan (Duisburg) showed very strong displays. In the beginning of the season, I was not sure about Dynamo because they lost many players from last season and in return they bought indeed many good players. However, many good individual players do not mean succesful play, see Duisburg. But manager Ralf Loose probably did a really good job because the procedures, etc in the team worked really good. Another advantage could be that the new signing and highly praised French central back Bregerie seems to be finally ready to play since he was not able to play last week. He is even expected to make the starting lineup.

Hansa Rostock disappointed me totally last week. They played at home against Paderborn and we should keep in mind that Paderborn in this season is not really a strong side but Rostock showed a weak display and lost deservedly. Especially their new and highly praised striker Marek Mintal showed nothing. He seems to have a big lack of match fitness. If I compare Hansa to all other teams which I have seen before in this season, they were by far the weakest team. Especially the defence did not really do a good job. They allowed far too much space to Paderborn's attackers and all in all it just seems that this team is not strong enough für 2. Bundesliga.

Nevertheless, I have only seen a couple of games of both sides in the last season and only one match in this season but I collected enough impressions to say that this line is not fair. Dresden has many new signings in the team but all the procedures worked really great last week. Mind you, I know almost every new player from Dresden and I can assure you that players like Heller, Trojan or the new goalkeeper Eilhoff have very big quality. Furthermore, their great midfielder Fiel and the new French signing Bregerie. This team has definitely enough quality to avoid the relegation. And now, they play at home against such a weak team which did not show anything last week. The line is absolutely unjustified because Dresden should be a much stronger favourite in front of their fantastic home crowd.

Lineups:

Dresden: Eilhoff - Leistner, Bregerie, Stoll, Schuppan - Heller, Fiel, Jungwirth, Koch - Trojan - Fort

Rostock: K. Müller - Schyrba, Wiemann, Kostal, Pelzer - R. Müller - Jänicke, Mintal, Perthel - Lartey, Semmer

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Germany Bundesliga 2 - 25.07.2011: Eintracht Frankfurt - St. Pauli

Eintracht Frankfurt - St. Pauli Betting Odds, Soccer - 2. Bundesliga

St. Pauli (+0.75)
Odds: 1.82 (Sbobet)
Stake: 6/10

First of all, this game will be a bit different from others because only 15.000 fans are allowed here and the Ultras Frankfurt as well as the Ultras Sankt Pauli announced that they will not support their team to demonstrate against this decision by the German football association. To be honest, I did not take this fact into account but it should rather be an advantage for the guest team from Hamburg. But the reason why I bet on Sankt Pauli are my impressions of the first round and the fact that these odds are unreal and do not reflect the relative team strengths between these two teams. At first view, Eintracht Frankfurt had a brilliant start into this season when they got a 3:2 victory away against Greuther Furth. But the result was completely undeserved and Frankfurt actually showed a rather bad display. Greuther Furth was 2:0 in front 40 minutes and Frankfurt's defence showed a very poor display. Afterwards, Furth missed goal chances in tons, hit the post, etc and Frankfurt got one back out of blue air. The second goal from Frankfurt was immediately after the first one and again due to a bad error of Furth's goalkeeper. The young team from Furth was completely shocked and Frankfurt scored in the stoppage time through a lucky flipper ball. In the end, I think that even Frankfurt's players did not know how they got the 3 points from Furth. However, Frankfurt lost their best defender Marco Russ who announced his transfer to Wolfsburg during the past week. Ricardo Clark will replace him on this position and Russ is definite much stronger in every aspect. Thus, Frankfurt lost a key player and I doubt that the central defence will work well with Clark instead of Russ. Moreover, their best scorer of the last season - Theofanis Gekas - will probably be not able to play due to a cold. Meier, who scored two goals in Furth, still suffers from a calf injury and striker Jimmy Hoffer has a foot contusion. However, both should be back to the squad for the game against Sankt Pauli, however the injuries could still affect their performance level in a negative way. But itt is really funny to see that everybody now thinks that Eintracht Frankfurt will be the new Hertha but this will definitely not be the case since Frankfurt has less quality, a worse manager and a bad atmosphere in the club. The victory in Furth was completely undeserved and among normal circumstances, they would have lost this game 4:1 or 5:1.

Sankt Pauli showed an impressing performance against Ingolstadt last week. To be honest, I really rated them completely wrong. Their team looks really fine and is strong enough to be a promotion canidate in this season. At the moment, I really do not see them being weaker as compared with Frankfurt. Especially the defence made a good impression (in contrast to Frankfurt's one) with the new goalkeeper Philipp Tschauner who made a few great saves against Ingolstadt. New defender Lasse Sobiech who came from Dortmund showed that he has very high qualities, the other central back Markus Thorandt did a good job too, although I do not really like him due to his slowness. Left back Kalla is in the best form of his life and the biggest winner of the season preparation and best midfielder Boll showed an amazing display last week when he also scored 2 goals. In other ways as well, Sankt Pauli made a positive impression. I must admit that I have a very high opinion of their new manager Andre Schubert who formerly was manager in Paderborn for a longer time. His philosophy is fast shifting and reversing based on a very solid defence. Last season, his team Paderborn scored 30 goals in 34 games or something and anyway they avoided the relegation without bigger problems because they conceded hardly any goal. Schubert is really a great guy and it is always difficult to beat his team because he exactly knows how his team has to play if they want to get something from Frankfurt. The offensive players Naki and Takyi are fantastic 2. Bundesliga players and together with Boll, Thorandt, Kruse, Kalla, Bruns, etc those who achieved promotion 2 years ago. Another vital player in this season could be Mahir Saglik who is an excellent counter striker (he scored 15 teams 2 years ago among Schubert in Paderborn). Games like this one against Frankfurt are perfect for him.

In fact, I think that quality wise both teams are roughly at the same level. But Sankt Pauli made the much better impression last week, has a brilliant manager as compared with Frankfurt, their players are perfect for away matches since players like Naki, Takyi, Saglik, etc are excellent counter players and the fact that their won't be any support in the stadium should rather be an advantage for St Pauli. Odds are unreal here, therefore a bet with high confidence on Sankt Pauli.