Come on, quick! Now’s the time to get rid of players you don’t need and then go and get some new ones! Why? Because after the qualifying games for the Champions League and the European Cup, it’s clear that all the German teams involved have made it into the group phase of the continental competitions. There’s new money available, the first games are out of the way and decisions about location have been made: so now it’s a game of musical chairs, with Bremen hoping Silvestre will set down on their seat, Hannover wanting to tempt Hajnal from Dortmund, Wolfsburg grabbing Diego and Demichelis looking to sit down anywhere except at Munich – he doesn’t get along well with the trainer. Really, any team with ambitions to take the Champions’ League should be looking to sign him: after all, ex-Bayern defenders are as close as you can get to guaranteed title success (see Lucio at Inter Milan last season).

Have you ever had that kind of passive-agressive criticism packaged as praise? You know, kind of like: “So, what did you think of my game, coach?” “Well, all the goals we conceded are your fault: but apart from that, you were great!”

This kind of praising criticism is exactly the right tone for the first day of play in this new Bundesliga season. There were a lot of people looking forward to it: players, coaches, fans, all of them raring to go. Well, everywhere except at Schalke, where they were all at each other’s throats before the first whistle had been blown.

Now that the Germany’s football fairytale this summer is nothing more than a vague memory, that the vuvuzelas have, thank the Lord, been discarded, and that people who tack mini-flags to their cars once every four years have put them away, we can return to less exciting but more regular fare: the daily soap that is the Bundesliga.

Things get going for the 48th time on Friday 20th August with Bayern München coming up against VfL Wolfsburg. The Bavarians are everyone’s favourites to take the championship again, whilst newly promoted St. Pauli in Hamburg is where the smart money is for relegation. The rest of the league will fit in somewhere in between.

Fans watched tensely as Germany faced Spain this week. Photo (cc) flickr user monicamüller

It was painful and sad for me to see Germany knocked out of the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa. I had predicted that Germany would lift the coveted trophy this year.

I watched the game with some sense of confidence. But with a cagey first half, the game became lively in the second half as both teams sought to edge out the opponent.

Puyol’s header gave the Spaniards a World Cup final ticket and robbed me of my spirits. After 90 minutes of play, I knew I had been wrong.

Last week you met Der Irische Berliner, one of this year’s Young Germany World Cup Bloggers.  This week we’ve got someone else to introduce to you: Fazal Adnan.

Fazal Adnan, newest member of the Young Germany World Cup blogging team

Fazal is a 27-year-old biotechnology student from Peshawar, Pakistan.  This past March he received a DAAD scholarship to complete his Ph.D. in Germany at the Graduate School of Life Sciences in Giessen starting in June.  As he settles into German student life, he’ll be blogging about his impressions of life in Germany and the 2010 World Cup on Young Germany.