In his native Britain, Wolfsburg’s new coach Steve McClaren has been given a rather nasty nickname: “the wally with a brolly” – or, to English-speakers not versed in the argot of the fair islands, “the idiot with the umbrella”. He got himself this unfortunate moniker due to his poor performance as the English national coach, which reached its lowest point as he passively watched his team suffer a crushing defeat to Croatia from the sidelines – sheltering under an umbrella. As England crashed out of the 2008 European Championship, there was McClaren not moving a muscle and trying to stop himself getting wet: he’ll have trouble ever workin in English football again.

Last week must have been difficult for all of you Bundesliga junkies: the season had just got going, and suddenly there was a pause for international games; and they weren’t even high-adrenaline games, either. We were forced into watching teams like Denmark, Belgium and Azerbaijan. That’s all over now, though: play started again on the weekend – and if you’re anything like me, you couldn’t wait!

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.