Playoff Time

It's this time of the season, the leagues are done and it all comes to a one or two games – the playoff, so here's a paper about 2 of the most interesting playoff games.

Wolfsburg - Eintracht Braunschweig, 25/5/17, 29/5/17

Everyone in Germany wonders what happened to the runners-up from two seasons ago, to the team who won against Real Madrid, to the team who won the German Cup. The thing that happened to the team is simple enough. The club sold its big stars for a load of money but didn't get replacements in the same calibre. Kevin De Bruyne went to Manchester City for 65M after being awarded Play of The Year in the Bundesliga, Ivan Perisic the great winger went to inter for about 15M, Andre Schurrle went to BVB for 30M, Draxler to PSG for 45M. Out of all Wolfsburg's purchases in the summer only vacant Mario Gomez who led Besiktas for the title in Turkey and Yannick Gerhardt who was brought from Koln for 12M proved themselves to be good and quality buys. Wolfsburg was so desperate they brought back Ashkan Dejagah the Iranian winger who played for the Wolves between 07 and 13. He didn’t make a single appearance. Another thing that Wolfsburg did wrong is the choice of its managers, after sacking Dieter Hecking the club appointed Valerin Ismael who was the manager of Wolfsburg 2, his record as head coach is awful after a failure at Nurnberg. It took him about 4 months to get sacked but once again the club appointed an inexperienced manager – Andries Jonker who worked at Arsenal U19.

Can the great German striker save Wolfsburg?

But you need 2 people for tango so here comes "The Lions". Torsten Lieberknecht is the Manager of the team since May 08. He took the team from the 4^th league to the Bundesliga (at the season of 13/14. After three seasons in the second league, The Lions will fight in their place at the top tier. Dominick Kumbela who lead the team to the Bundesliga on 12/13 is once again (after short periods in Turkey and Greuther Furth) scoring 13 goals. His main partner in the attack Christoffer Nyman scored 11 goals.

The first game will be played in Wolfsburg.

 

Torsten Lieberknecht

Huddersfield Town – Reading, 29/5/17

The big season finale in the best league in the world, the game for the small amount of 60M pounds for the winners. Last season Huddersfield finished 19^th, Reading 17^th. So what happened that those teams are few of the best in the league today?

At November 15, David Wagner joined Huddersfield after 4 years at Borussia Dortmund 2. It took the young outsider time but the man who worked under Jürgen Klopp. What's so special about a man who worked at BVB? He knows how to get the right players in little money. So David Wagner brought Aaron Mooy, Kasey Palmer and Danny Ward from Man City, Chelsea and Liverpool on free loans. Elias Kachunga on 200k loan from Ingolstadt, Michael Hefele, Christian Lowe and Jack Payne of free transfers, Van La Parra for 800k and Christopher Schindler for 1.8M, the thing about all those names – all of those players were vital (maybe expect palmer, but yet he played 20 games) in the successful season of Huddersfield how successful? Elias Kachunga was the team's top scorer with 12 goals. Lowe, Hefele and Schindler were 3 out of 4 main defenders where Schindler playing all 46 league games. Aaron Mooy being nominated for POTS. As good as it seems for a season, it could’ve been even better for the team from Yorkshire. Huddersfield was on the tail of Newcastle and Brighton for a big chunk of the season but in the last months or so the team lost a lot of points that they shouldn't lose after such seas


on, that fact made them finish 5^th although they held the 3^rd position for a long time during the season (after they lose the 2^nd).

 

David Wagner

June 2016, Reading announcing that Jaap Stam is the new manager of the team. The hot-blooded Dutchman who played for Manchester United and was the nightmare of many strikers took his first major job at the club who fell from the Premier League in the season of 12/13. Just like Wagner Stam did some great deals bringing in players. Tyler Blackett was loaned from Manchester United, Joey Van Der Bergh and John Swift came for free (Heerenveen, Chelsea) and players like Paul McShane, Ali Al Habsi and  Yann Kermorgant got "second wind" under Stam. As a player, Stam was well known for his killer instinct, ability with the ball, power and speed all of those made the great centre-back a manager who counts on his attack more on his defence. Yann Kermorgant didn't only get "second wind" he had his best season of his career at the age of 35. He's the top scorer for Reading with 19 goals, can he lead them to the Premier League?

 

 

Yann Kermorgant celbrates once again