With no football due to the coronavirus outbreak, it’s time to revisit some old favourites. First, why it’s worth digging out your DVD of Wolfsburg vs Bayern Munich from 2009.
If the 2008-9 Bundesliga season didn’t have it all, then at least you don’t need to spend very long listing what was missing. An upstart village team charged to the Herbstmeisterschaft. Fans saw the most prolific strike partnership in Bundesliga history. The league lead changed hands 11 times across 7 different clubs and culminated in a four-way final day shootout for the title.
With three of those final day contenders not exactly title run-in regulars – Stuttgart, Wolfsburg and Hertha Berlin, which is to leave aside one-time front-runners Hamburg and Hoffenheim – you could reasonably make a case for this being the most exciting season in a major European league in the last 20 years.
That it’s the last time a team other than Borussia Dortmund or Bayern Munich did not win the Meisterschale adds to its allure. You could even argue that it represents an important milestone in modern European football, as this was the season that Jürgen Klopp found his rock-and-roll feet with a youthful Borussia Dortmund side and laid the foundation for his subsequent Gegenpressing success.
Against the backdrop of vintage kits (even if Bayern fans have probably consigned it to the bin, their unconventional red and white striped number was a cracker) and memorable fandom (why wouldn’t your heart quicken a few beats when you heard the music greeting every Obasi, Ba or Ibisevic goal at the Rhein-Neckar Arena?), it’s also possible to single out the high point of the season – Grafite’s mesmerising 5th goal in Wolfsburg’s heady victory against Bayern Munich, widely considered among the finest the league has ever seen.
Look it up on Youtube and enjoy all 12 glorious touches by Grafite, soaring towards his status as one of European football’s greatest one-season wonders. Smile at the outrageously cocky and yet pathetically weak backheel that somehow crawled past a Bayern defence metaphorically, if not literally, on its knees by that point of his virtuoso run. Bask in the joy emanating from a delirious Volkswagen-Arena that witnessed 16 victories and 1 draw in the Wolves’ 17 home games that season.
Played out in the warm April sun of Northern Germany, this game is worth revisiting for other reasons, too.
Cherish a rare 89th minute goalkeeper substitution, with the keeper neither injured nor totally humiliated and his side 5-1 up. This was the brainchild of Felix Magath before his Craven Cottage fall, when he was still considered one of Europe’s sharpest tactical minds and hurting from having been sacked by Bayern Munich only two seasons before. If you’ve ever wondered what Schadenfreude looks like, watch the peak-Magath footage of him using his post-match interview to justify his decision: “I knew he [the reserve goalkeeper] would appreciate the bonus payment”.
Enjoy a superb performance from an early career Edin Dzeko, long before the frustrations of benchwarming for Sergio Aguero had caught up with him. This was Dzeko’s breakthrough season, surging to 26 Bundesliga goals (alongside Grafite’s 28) and in so doing breaking Gerd Muller and Uli Hoeness’ record for the most prolific strike partnership in the league’s history. Neither of Dzeko’s goals is particularly remarkable but this game signposted Dzeko’s burgeoning talent as a powerful, rangy sharpshooter who would score across Europe over the following decade.
Marvel at pre-fall Volkswagen, arguably at the peak of their Wolfsburg-backing powers. Packed stadia cheering their team, resplendent in its all-green kit, towards the Champions League feels a world away from modern Wolfsburg playing to half-empty stadiums in mid-table obscurity. Purist German fans don’t love their financially muscular footballing upstarts and that season had to deal with two, in the form of runaway early leaders Hoffenheim and ultimate champions Wolfsburg. If only they knew that RB Leipzig were just around the corner.
Relish rare embarrassment for all-powerful Bayern, physically embodied in the ever pucer face of Uli Hoeness. Hoeness, not yet on his way to prison, responds to his side’s shambolic second-half display by refusing to make eye contact with coach Jürgen Klinsmann as the situation goes from bad to worse.
The current season – with its energetic title contest involving the likes of Leipzig and Gladbach, that may yet provide a fairytale finish if and when it resumes – has shown that, for all Bayern’s dominance over the last ten years, the Bundesliga isn’t Ligue 1 just yet. But a look back at 2008-9 season, and particularly this game, serve as a reminder that the Bundesliga administrators need to work hard to preserve the league’s best asset – competitive, unpredictable and thrilling football. To ensure that moments like Grafite’s don’t just belong in the history books.
Gegenpress 