Last season was St. Pauli's first in the German Bundesliga in over a decade, and they performed pretty well. They lost the famous Fabian Hürzeler before the season started and had one of the cheapest squads in the league. Nevertheless, under the leadership of new coach Alexander Blessin, St. Pauli...
Tottenham Hotspur have been spending heavily this summer to keep up with the rest of the traditional 'Big Six'. Thomas Frank needs reinforcements in this midfield as they switch tactically, and they may have found the perfect midfielder for him in João Palhinha. João Palhinha was the best defensive midfielder...
The 2024/2025 season was the most prolific goalscoring campaign that Werder Bremen playmaker Romano Schmid (168cm/5’6”, 69kg/152 lbs) has had since joining Die Werderaner from Austrian Bundesliga side Wolfsberger AC five years ago. Schmid scored five German Bundesliga goals last term, while he also provided five league assists, his second-best-ever...
Welcome to another instalment of our budget-friendly series. Last week, we released a list of four budget-friendly strikers who could join middle- or low-level clubs in Europe's top-five leagues. Now, we're moving on to midfielders. The idea is the same: to find affordable midfielders with decent attributes, numbers or qualities...
Since 1. FC Köln sealed their promotion back to the German top flight by winning the 2. Bundesliga title in May, they've been preparing themselves for the challenge of being among the elite again and stocking their squad with new signings. One of those signings was Icelandic midfielder Ísak Bergmann...
Last month, TSG Hoffenheim secured the services of Leon Avdullahu from Swiss champions FC Basel for a fee of €8m, making him their most expensive summer acquisition to date. Following the departures of Tom Bischof and Diadié Samassékou and the now-rumoured sale of Anton Stach to Leeds United, Hoffenheim went...
Victor Boniface is a Nigerian international striker who plays at Bayer Leverkusen and is rumoured to have attracted the interest of numerous teams, especially AC Milan, as of late. With some of the biggest names having already completed their summer transfer like Florian Wirtz to Liverpool and Viktor Gyökeres to...
So far, this summer transfer period has not been too kind to Bayern Munich. The German giants have been trying to sign another option for their attacking line for weeks, but with Florian Wirtz joining Liverpool and Nico Williams deciding to stay at Athletic Bilbao, their operation has been disappointing....
The 2025 U21 European Championships have ended, with Lee Carsley’s England ultimately emerging victorious. The Young Lions defeated Antonio Di Salvo-led Germany in the EURO U21 Final, thanks to goals from Liverpool’s Harvey Elliott, Ipswich Town’s Omari Hutchinson and Olympique de Marseille’s Jonathan Rowe. On the German side, 1. FSV...
When Niko Kovač took over at Borussia Dortmund in early February, his side was 11th in the Bundesliga and appeared likely to miss out on European football in the 2025/2026 season. Even as we reached the end of March, Dortmund had hardly moved an inch in the standings, as they still occupied a place in...
When Werder Bremen announced Ole Werner's departure, many outsiders were surprised by Die Grün-Weißen CSO Clemens Fritz's decision. The young German coach took over Werder at the club's darkest time in 2021. After getting relegated, the team was stuck in the second division's midfield, and the situation looked dire. But Werner took over the struggling...
Defending crosses is one of the most detailed tactical analysis topics, with numerous differences between different teams and coaches' ideas. The details of defending crosses begin with each defender's ability to either mark an attacker or cover a specific space. It differs from defending with either four or five defenders due to the...
If you had asked 100 German football fans in 2018 if they knew about SV Elversberg, the majority would have had no clue about the small club from the Saarland, a region located near the French border in Germany. In October 2018, the club made two huge decisions that would shape its...
AC Milan are said to be in advanced talks with Granit Xhaka of Bayer Leverkusen. The 32-year-old midfielder looks likely to play in Serie A for the first time, knowing that AS Roma showed interest in 2021, but Arsenal rejected the offer. Xhaka is an experienced midfielder who has already...
At the beginning of May, Bayer Leverkusen officially announced the signing of talented Algerian midfielder Ibrahim Maza from Hertha Berlin, activating a €12 million release clause in his contract to secure his services. The 2023/2024 German champions made the move quickly, given the interest Maza was garnering with the summer...
Vincent Kompany’s first season at Bayern Munich was seen as a success. After an entertaining title race, the Belgian won back the Bundesliga title from Bayer Leverkusen. Bayern's consistent domestic performances in the 2024/2025 season were offset by multiple evident lapses in UEFA Champions League matches. In this article, we...
Many Team of the Season selections are, frankly, boring. Sometimes, you couldn't really call it a team; it's just a selection of eleven players, and their actual positions don't even matter. Sometimes, it's just an absurd selection because the idea is to pick only the players they think are the...
Dribbling has long been one of football’s most eye-catching actions—a burst of creativity capable of shifting momentum in an instant. This tactical analysis examines how dribbling serves as a strategic mechanism within various systems and styles of play, focusing on the roles of Rafael Leão at AC Milan, Jamal Musiala at Bayern Munich, Ousmane Dembélé at Paris Saint-Germain, and the...
One of this season's standout players in the German Bundesliga has undoubtedly been Mainz striker Jonathan Burkardt. The Darmstadt-born forward netted 18 times in 29 league appearances—contributing about a third of Mainz's 55 goals, which helped them return to the continental scene for the first time in nine years via the...
Now it’s finally official: Carlo Ancelotti’s second stint as Real Madrid manager has come to an end, and former Real Madrid midfielder Xabi Alonso will replace him. It has been an open secret for over a year that Florentino Perez wanted his former player to be the next Real Madrid manager. With the current season...
