Quote from: laurenB7742 on December 07, 2023, 09:29:53 AM

Union Berlin topped the points table for a long time in the previous season. They played very well last season. Because of this, fans expected a better performance from Union Berlin this season. But their performance has been very disappointing this season. They are performing badly in every match. And Bundesliga qualification is unlikely to be achieved by this team. They have won only two out of 12 matches. I can't remember the last time this team won. It will be difficult for Union Berlin to win against Gladbach. The gladbach team can be considered as the favorite in this match.

That was just last season but for this season Union Berlin is pretty much a different team right now and I think they can not recover in this for a long time for sure as they have many departures and the different roster they have now I think Urs Fischer is having a hard time right now on what he can do to make this happen and snick in that for this season as for sure it is hard to get back from this but I might be wrong about this as we are still not in the half of the matchday so they might have a shot in evading the relegation,

Quote from: Velvet78 on December 07, 2023, 10:26:50 AM

We didn't see a big rotation from Leverkusen in their DFB Pokal game against Paderborn yesterday. The strongest rotation was in the defense line as the goalkeeper and defenders were all different than their previous league game. The rest of the lineup was pretty much the same. They got a decent win and moved on there.

Stuttgart played a much more difficult game against Dortmund on paper. However I was still expecting them to eliminate Dortmund and they really did it.

Stuttgart are in a better condition than Dortmund now and I expect them to be very ambitious in the DFB Pokal cup as well.

For sure Leverkusen didn't need to rotate their players to defeat Paderborn not because they underestimated Paderborn but I think it is because they really didn't need it, at all and this is just what Xabi Alonso needed, and if Leverkusen could get the DFB Pokal then that was OK if they didn't get the Bundesliga championship,

You can say that Stuttgart did a great job against Dortmund it was like Dortmund was not like themselves when they fought the Leverkusen team, they are not really consistent sometimes but they are still a great team to deal with as they are full of surprises sometimes,

Quote from: shogun47 on December 07, 2023, 05:35:45 PM

Sometimes it is only the surprise effect when a new coach comes to a team and then out of a sudden the team can win games again, but in the case of Xabi Alonso he obviously changed things fundamentally for the better. He didn't only save the last season when Leverkusen was going down all the way in the table until he jumped in, but he also built a team that plays some of the best soccer I have seen in a long time. I like their idea for the game a lot. It is all about pace and intensity and of course awareness to find these little rooms to give their fast wingers a deep pass. Alonso knows what he is doing and he also understands how to communicate it to his players. He is the next generation Real Madrid coach.

As in the last season, we thought that Leverkusen would not get into this kind of a team right now, but Xavi Alonso made that possible and you are right with your explanation about it Alonso revolutionized this team very differently and it worked, if he can do it with Leverkusen and he only needed 1 season then it is really working perfectly for Leverkusen right now, actually because of this I really want to see more of Xavi Alonso doing it with another team, if this is just a coincidence with the Leverkusen of Xavi Alonso was the real talent behind it all,