Tim Walter's new VfB Stuttgart in a recent test game against FC Basel
@Toby Andrl Who do you expect to challenge Bayern the most this season? I'm excited to see Dortmund with all the new signings. My swedish sport package have lost the rights to Serie A and La Liga so think i will watch a bit of the Bundes this year! Any potential underdogs?
Giddy as **** for next season. Can't wait til Friday the 2. Bundesliga kicks off. In the stadium in the Kurve with lots of my mates, one of my brothers in law and his mates. It's going to be epic. Mislintat was on TV last sunday and was brilliant, today was the new manager's first press conference and he was brilliant. Likeable, chill and funny but very, very clear about his philosophy and what he wants from his team, especially in regards to performance and showing him they actually wanted to play. Really buzzing.
Have you picked up a season ticket? How is the Hype around the Club considering the Relegation? Who's your first game against?
I thought about getting a season ticket but then decided not to. Both of my sisters' boyfriends are in a fan club in which everyone has a season ticket. Most match days a few people in that club can't go, so there's always a couple of season tickets available from them and I can get one of them for 10 to 20 Euros. Another friend got 2 season tickets in a group of 3 people and there will be one available every now and then. Means I can go to most home games with a season ticket without having to buy one.
The hype has seriously grown over the last few days/last week. In the test game against FC Basel and now last Friday against SC Freiburg you could really see Walter's possession, positional interchanging and pressing based style. Some really beautiful football. And that the team was obviously on the coach's side and up to work with him and his ideas and is already able to realize a good part of them got a lot of people hyped.
We also haven't lost too many integral players. It was clear Kabak and Pavard would go, but we still got Kempf, Kaminski, Badstuber and brought in the young Awoudja who looks very promising. Ascacibar is on record saying he loves this club and won't leave for any random club enquiring about him - he said he turned down e.g. Zenit and that everything has to be perfect for him to think about leaving. Mangala has returned from his Hamburg loan and was one of the league's best players last season. All the new guys - Klement, Al Ghaddioui, Coulibaly, Klimowicz, Massimo, Kobel, Stenzel - look really good and up for it. Hitzlsperger and Mislintat have both emphasized that they want a coach and players here who want to work/play for this club, who show this in training and on the pitch and who will form a strong team unit and it really seems like they did a good job and Walter is forming a close unit.
Then finally the horrible president Dietrich is gone. About two weeks ago there was a catastrophic club assembly. More than 60 people had requested to put the deselction of Dietrich onto the agenda and the club actually did. After hours of discussion - any club member can request to talk before the assembly and then will get 5 minutes to speak - they decided to vote on stopping the discussion and getting to the actual voting points. But the wireless voting tech didn't work. So they decided to try and get it to work while listening to more speakers. After another couple of hours the atmosphere completely tipped against Dietrich - especially after reknowned ex-Stuttgart and ex-DFB youth coach Rainer Adrion held a speach criticizing Dietrich, who wanted to cut Adrion's speach short saying even he [Adrion] had to obey the rules - to which the ex youth coach responded "If you just played by the rules, Mr. Dietrich". Got massive applause and that was kind of what brought the assembly to boil - the shady president attacking an iconic ex-coach. After they couldn't get the voting tech to work, they ended the assembly without any voting done. The next day Dietrich luckily finally stepped down. And that's definitely pacified the fanbase, too, and took a lot of anger and resentment towards the club away.
Then last Sunday Mislintat was guest on the regions most famous sports TV format and presented himself top class. Spoke about their work, their goals, their philosophy and ideas and their whole concept what and how they were trying to do with VfB.
He btw said that the only difference to his past jobs at Arsenal and Dortmund was the public appearances he now has to do. And contrary to the legend of the enigmatic and eccentric lone wolf, he presented himself as very, very open and friendly, someone who loves to speak about his work, and has constantly emphasized how much he enjoyed working within the Dortmund group of Klopp, Watzke, Zorc and that he enjoys working with Hitzlsperger and that team work is the most important thing of all, that the persons had to be able to get along on a personal level, that you needed a positive discussion and contending culture, etc.
And then Tim Walter's first press conference dialed it up to 11. The guy's brilliant. I really really hope this works out.
Fair enough, good to hear things are promising and hope you bounce back up quickly. That club meeting you described sounds amazing, Imagine if the Arsenal fans could do something similar with Kroenke... I really wish England adopted the same fan-based setup as Germany but it will never happen.
Do you think you'll do any away matches this year?
No kidding, what a match! 1st half was pretty dull but really came alive in the second. Bochum hit the post twice in 10 seconds, Arminia head up the other end and score 2 in 2 minutes. Then Bochum scored 3 in 10 minutes to take the lead, I was in the standing area and it was total pandemonium! Pity about the equaliser.You watched a great game mate. 3-3 FT, with all the goals coming in the second half.
Yeah Dortmund played a great game against FC Bayern. It was a impressive performace.Dortmund won the German Super Cup against Bayern. 2-0 FT, with another wonderful display by Sancho.