Finally there is a real struggle for the championship again, but it remains strangely quiet. Where Uli Hoeneß, Christoph Daum, Willi Lemke and Jürgen Klopp also provided esprit off the pitch in the past, there is now radio silence from the media. Too bad actually.
It’s been almost 30 years since the United Kingdom eagerly awaited the presentation of the singles chart. In the legendary “Battle of Britpop”, the two bands Blur and Oasis released their brand new discs on the same day, August 14, 1995. This “fight for the crown” was accompanied by crazy stories and fantastic anecdotes in the tabloids. And the lettuce was flanked by heated exchanges of words between the Gallagher brothers on one side and Blur frontman Damon Albarn on the other.
For weeks there was almost no other topic in England. Ultimately, the winners at the checkout were Blur, but in the end a lot of players and an entire industry benefited from this media confrontation, which entertained an entire nation for a long time. The show fight between the two bands was a lot of fun for the Brits – because no one could avoid this “Battle of Britpop” whether they wanted to or not.
For the first time in more than ten years there is finally something like real excitement in the fight for the championship in the Bundesliga, but you can’t help but get the impression that this fight for the title is going on strangely silently. It may be due to the fact that everyone involved has now forgotten that there is actually something like a fight for first place. Or the two teams from Dortmund and Berlin first have to come to terms with the fact that they have found themselves in this comfortable position. But whatever the situation is in reality: A little more theater and show in this current situation would not be the worst for the attractiveness and charm of the league.
Because the Bundesliga shouldn’t be stingy with its charms in time for its 60th anniversary. The competition lures both above and below and makes us forget the rather dull years when questions about the championship were only about which match day Bayern won the title. But football has always had the guys that the fans could rub against. Whether it was Max Merkel, Udo Lattek or Hennes Weisweiler, who entertained with their cheeky jokes or, until he left BVB, Jürgen Klopp, who inspired the league and the fans with his esprit – everyone always benefited from the headlines and colorful stories.
And then there were the legendary duels between Uli Hoeneß on the one hand and Willi Lemke on the other. Similar to Blur and Oasis in the mid-1990s in the fight for the English Britpop Olympus, Bayern Munich and Werder Bremen competed for supremacy in German football in the 1980s. And in such an entertaining way that sometimes, as an outside observer of the dramatic spectacle, one could hardly believe that these arguments were not played. Both outdid each other in small meanness and poison arrows in the direction of the other. Werder’s former manager Willi Lemke once said: “I don’t see what the Bayern manager is saying because I always switch off the television when it appears on the screen.” And Hoeneß said a few years later: “The man doesn’t interest me. He can become what he wants, I’ll never make peace with him. Never.”
This very special rivalry was flanked by two teams that have been sportingly challenging each other for years. Entertainment was always provided for the neutral spectators on and off the field – and the additional media attention also brought in money for the Bundesliga business. Just like when Blur and Oasis competed for the Britpop crown and a whole nation (and the rest of the world) watched with interest and fascination.
Because you can see how sustainable these earlier competitions in the Bundesliga were by the fact that they got stuck in the minds of the following generations of fans. In 2011, when the then Schalke player Manuel Neuer was about to switch to Bayern Munich, a poster hung in the south curve of the Munich Arena. Addressed to Uli Hoeneß, the FCB supporters wrote in bold letters: “Neuer im Tor is for us what coach Daum and manager Lemke are for you.” It will be interesting to see how people will talk about this season in many years to come. But no matter how the title race turns out at the end – sometimes you would secretly wish that a few special memories (also for the neutral fans) would stick. Let’s see what else the Bundesliga has to offer in the next few weeks!
