Season 2006/07: Bayern stumble fatally under coach Felix Magath and offer two other clubs the chance to win the championship. But FC Schalke 04 fails tragically in the end. And then there is the Bochum bard Herbert Grönemeyer, who really brings no luck to his club!
"My dream was actually always to be a footballer, not a pop star. Being substituted on once in front of 50,000, then a good trick. I still dream of that today," Herbert Grönemeyer once said at the age of 36 and now Bochum's bard was in October of that year 2006 at the age of 50 in front of the east stand of his club in the Ruhr stadium and kept looking devoutly up into the wide circle. Herbert Grönemeyer was proudly presented to the audience on the day before the game on the pitch by manager Stefan Kuntz. The musician got a jersey with his membership number 4630 (old Bochum zip code
The song has been playing before every VfL game in the Ruhr Stadium since 1992. Only recently could Cologne coach Steffen Baumgart be seen shouting the famous line "... who lives in Düsseldorf?" agreed as he just left the catacombs of VfL. On this day sixteen years ago, the blue-and-white-voted visitors sang the lyrics particularly fervently among the 31,328 spectators: "You make every opponent wet with the one-two, you and your VfL! Bochum, I come from you...". But nothing helped. But on the contrary. SV Werder Bremen - who are again guests at the Ruhr Stadium this Saturday - were not impressed by Herbert Grönemeyer and the chorus of a thousand throats. VfL received a sensitive smack that afternoon. In the end it was 0:6. And it took a long, long time before the popular Bochum bard was able to attend another VfL game in the Ruhr Stadium after this traumatic home debacle.
The 2006/07 season was surprisingly bad for Bayern too. After a bit of boredom in the upper regions of the table in previous years due to the dominance of Munich, this season made up for a lot. Bayern themselves completed their worst round since the 1994/95 season. Ten defeats this season weighed heavily. In the end, despite the change of coach from Felix Magath to Ottmar Hitzfeld, the record champions only finished fourth in the table after two games in the second half of the season and did not qualify for the Champions League for the first time in ten years.
The new signing from 1. FC Köln, Lukas Podolski, transferred for a transfer fee of ten million euros, had promised “title, title, title” before the season. In the end, however, VfB Stuttgart and FC Schalke 04 played for him completely surprisingly. Before the season, the Royal Blues had no experts on their bill except for one, Lothar Matthäus: "For me there is no doubt: Schalke 04 will be the most stubborn competitor by champions Bayern. Because of the quality of the players, Schalke 04 should even become champions."
And for a long time Schalke actually looked like the upcoming title holder. But with the 2-1 defeat on Matchday 31 in Bochum, when the Royal Blues marched with 6,000 supporters from the train station to the stadium "all in white" under the motto "North curve in your city", the depression at Schalke began. At the same time, VfB Stuttgart was on the cloud of success and won all of the last eight matches of the season. The Schalke had painted the season finale so beautifully. Gerald Asamoah had been looking forward to the game on matchday 33 against district rivals Borussia Dortmund for weeks and promised: "If we win the title in Dortmund, I'll run back home - with a huge glass of beer in my hand!" A plan that manager Andreas Müller didn't want to follow one way or the other: "I'm definitely not running. It's better to drive badly than run well!"
In the end, however, everything turned out very differently than we had hoped. While VfB Stuttgart won 3-2 at the same time and after a big fight in Bochum, Schalke lost 2-0 at Borussia Dortmund. A result that the black and yellow of course celebrated properly. First and foremost BVB Internet reporter Boris Rupert. Full of delight, he moaned into his microphone at the decisive goal: "Metzelder now on the left, come on, he's not really good at flanking with the left. Now with the right, Metzelder pulls away. But blocked by Bordon. Again! Goal, goooor, goooooorrr , Goal, goal, goal - Ebi Smolarek. 2: 0 for Borussia Dortmund. Can you believe it? 2: 0. 2: 0 for Borussia Dortmund against FC Schalke 04, against the coming runners-up in season 2, 6, 2, 7. 2-0 for Borussia Dortmund. And there's another yellow card for Smolarek. There's a yellow card for excessive goal celebrations. But really give a shit!" Finally, on matchday 34, VfB won their fifth German championship with a 2-1 win at home against Energie Cottbus.
The trainer of the wolves, Klaus Augenthaler, celebrated his last big appearance in Wolfsburg with a show that was as brilliant as it was entertaining. He sat on the stage for exactly 42 seconds at the press conference: "Hello! Gentlemen, there are four questions and four answers. I ask the questions and I also give the answers. The mood of the team, how is the mood of the team, the state the team? The team did an excellent job. Tactics: one or two strikers? That depends on the personnel situation - one or the other is injured. How I expect the opponent: Aachen will certainly put pressure on, Aachen must We're prepared to win the game. Can the team stand up to the pressure? What I observed during the week in training: The team worked very well and will respond on the pitch. Thank you very much!"
Midfielder Mehmet Scholl from Bayern Munich ended his career and said goodbye to his fans with a befitting saying: "We're all crying tonight. We'll have a drink and then we'll all cry. And then we'll swap women and then we'll continue. "
