2011-12 Bundesliga Season Predictions

With the kickoff to the Bundesliga a few hours away, I feel that there is no better time to throw in my predictions for the coming season. That being said, the Bundesliga is by far the most difficult league to predict when it comes to who will win given the intense competition and freakish results from time to time (see 16th place Borussia Monchengladbach beating second place Bayern Leverkusen 6-3 at Leverkusen). Predicting the final placings midseason can be tough enough, let alone before the season starts.  

Last season, Borussia Dortmund put blushes on the faces of many journalists who thought Louis van Gaal and Bayern Munich would stroll towards another title while Monchengladbach defied the odds by once again surviving by the edge of their teeth. All the while, Nuri Sahin raced towards becoming the Player Of The Year, an award most people think is reserved only for Bayern Munich players.

All in all, it was a tremendous season full of twists and turns. I'll try my best to see who will succeed and who will ultimately fail with a series of predictions, from individual, to ultimately the prediction for who will win the biggest prize, the Bundesliga Shield. 

Breakthrough Young Player of the Season

Contenders: 

Marc-Andre ter Stegen (Borussia Monchengladbach)

Moritz Leitner (Borussia Dortmund)

Julian Draxler (FC Schalke 04)

Pierre Michel Lassoga (Herta BSC, Berlin)

Winner: Son Sueng-Min (Hamburger SV)

Son is a young player who has proven himself as an extreme talent over two preseasons for Hamburg and one season blighted by injuries. Son is set to go out and fix his name alongside the likes of Thomas Mueller and Mario Goetze as being a genuine star of the game next season.

His first test might be his biggest as he goes to face champions, Borussia Dortmund, who he had already faced in the Liga Total Cup final.

Hamburger SV as a whole look like they will do well next season with having a capable manager, which was not the case last season with Armin Veh at the helm. Now there is a manager in place who has faith in the young Korean. Therefore, Son has a good platform to kickstart his professional career.  

Young Player of the Year (U-21)

Contenders:

Ilkay Gundogan (Borussia Dortmund)

Thomas Mueller (Bayern Munich)

Andre Schurrle (Bayer Leverkusen)

Son Heung-Min (Hamburger SV)

Winner: Mario Goetze (Borussia Dortmund)

This prediction takes into account all players at or under 21 by the time the season starts. Therefore, unlike the previously mentioned 'Breakthrough Young Player of the Year', this includes established players such as Thomas Mueller and Mario Goetze. The latter is the player I feel will again come out as the best U-21 player of the year. 

Borussia Dortmund will be without their midfield talisman of the previous season, Nuri Sahin and will be looking for a new fulcrum within the middle to pass towards in order to build their now-renowned attacking moves.

New signing Ilkay Gundogan will most likely be placed in Nuri Sahin's position as deep playmaker, but Mario Goetze will no doubt look to come deep in order to build play and therefore will have a large influence over the course of the season.

It will be a close battle between the two Borussia Dortmund players, but I feel that Goetze will come out with the better season overall.  

Best Signing of the Season

Contenders:

Christian Trasch: Vfl Wolfsburg from Vfb Stuttgart for €12 Million

Andre Schurrle: Bayern Leverkusen from FSV Mainz for €8 Million

Jerome Boateng: Bayern Munich from Manchester City for €13.5 Million

Mehmet Ekici: Werder Bremen from 1.FC Nurenberg for €5 Million

Winner: Ilkay Gundogan: Borussia Dortmund from 1.FC Nurenberg for €4 Million

Considering the overall value for the deal and the effect the player will have on the team, Ilkay Gundogan seems to be the best bet to come out as the signing of the season.

A player who will have a massive responsibility to replace the current holder of the Bundesliga Player of the Season, Gundogan will have all of Germany watching to see how he can fill that void. Not only because he is playing for the champions of Germany, but also since he is a player Joachim Low is looking at as a future star for the German national team.

Gundogan has improved tremendously over the past season and looks to be a perfect player to replace Sahin in the deep playmaker position. That being said, Gundogan will do anything but play deep, he has displayed a great tendency to burst forward since his natural position is that of an attacking midfielder.

Jerome Boateng will be the closest contender against Gundogan, but Gundogan has been bought for a much lower price and represents better value, I feel.   

Worst Signing of the Season

Contenders:

Ivan Perisic: Borussia Dortmund from Club Brugge for €5 Million

Sasha Reither: 1.FC Koln from Vfb Wolfsburg for €2 Million

Micheal Mancienne: Hamburger SV from Chelsea for €2.2 Million

William Kvist: Vfb Stuttgart from FC Copenhagen for €3 Million

Loser: Omer Toprak: Bayern Leverkusen from SC Freiburg for €3 Million

Bayer Leverkusen ended the season with a center back pairing of Stefan Reinartz and Daniel Schwaab. The former performed most of the previous season as a defensive midfielder while the latter wasn't even the first choice at his favoured position of right back.

This was not due to injuries or suspensions, but rather the poor form of the first choice center backs, Manuel Friedrich and the now-retired Sami Hyypia. It was paramount therefore that Bayer Leverkusen sign a top quality center back if they were to not only challenge for the Bundesliga, but also be competitive in the UEFA Champions League.

Omer Toprak is simply not the answer to their problem. A player brought in only because of his affiliations with Leverkusen's current coach, Robin Dutt, with whom he had played with at SC Freiburg, Omer is far from an improvement when compared to the likes of Reinartz, Friedrich, or even Schwaab.

Omer's incompetence as a center back has already been shown in Bayer Leverkusen's disastrous exit from the DFB Pokal at the first stage when they let go of a 3-0 lead to lose 4-3 to an outfit playing in the third division of the Bundesliga.  

Player of the Season

Contenders:

Mario Goetze (Borussia Dortmund)

Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich)

Jerome Boateng (Bayern Munich)

Son Heung-Min (Hamburger SV)

Winner: Bastian Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich)

The previous season was a troubling one for Schweinsteiger. Though he still managed to bring in consistently good performances, he was never as authoritative as he was during the season prior when he was consistently seen playing the deepest amongst the midfielders. He was rarely given the license to go beyond the half line and attack the box like he does for Germany, though he was given a spell as an attacking midfielder due to an injury crises.  

Much of that was due to the tactics under Louis Van Gaal, but his departure brought about a new confidence in Schweinsteiger as he played with more freedom in the next few games under caretaker manager Andreas Jonker. Much better performances followed as Bayern Munich managed to scrap towards a place in the UEFA Champions League. 

The tactics under Heynkes seem to be similar to those used by Jonker. Schweinsteiger has been seen to show more tendencies to attack the box and exert more influence upon what happens in the final third. If Bayern Munich are to win the Bundesliga, then Schweinsteiger will certainly have a large part to play. 

The Battle to Stay Up

Table:

15: 1.FC Nurenberg  

16: FSV Mainz 05 (Playoff)  

17: SC Frieburg

18: FC Augsburg

All three clubs have lost important players over the summer and will be heavily undermanned compared to their previous successful seasons. FC Augsburg had Moritz Leitner for the second half of the season and he played a good role in the club's build up to second place in the table, leading to an automatic promotion. There is a general lack of quality within the side and whether they will be able to stay in the Bundesliga has a huge cloud of doubt about it. 

Freiburg will be without their influential manager who not only brought them up to the Bundesliga from the second division, but also made them into a respectable force within the league, coming 14th in their first season and then ninth last season.

A tremendous achievement given they were relegation candidates in many people's view. Even though they managed to lose Toprak, they have still somehow managed to keep Oliver Baumann and Papiss Cisse. That being said, the manager was always the most important person within the team and without him, Freiburg won't be able to keep up with the rest of the competition. 

Mainz were the darlings of last season, coming out of nowhere to not only lead the Bundesliga after two months, but to do so having won their first seven matches including incredible victories over Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg.

That had much to do with the performances of three players: Lewis Holtby, Andre Schurrle and Christian Fuchs. All three have left for bigger clubs and all Mainz has left is their talented manager Thomas Tuchel.

The squad is depleted and weak without their three stars of last season. Their weakness was shown in full as they failed to get past the qualifying round of the Europa League, losing to a team from the Romanian league. The only thing keeping them from being automatically relegated is their young coach who could yet again work some magic with the side. 

The Race for the European Places.

Table:

4: Vfb Wolfsburg

5: Werder Bremen

6: Bayer Leverkusen

7: FC Schalke 04

With the Bundesliga having gained the third spot in the UEFA Coefficients standings over Italy, the league will get an extra spot in the Champions League. Thus, the fourth spot in the league will be a qualification spot for the UEFA Champions League group playoff rather then the Europa League.

That will add an extra dimension to the always interesting race for the Champions League spots, in which one surprise team is usually involved with lowly Hannover and Herta Berlin providing competition in previous seasons. 

Vfb Wolfsburg will be a team to watch out for next season as Felix Magath looks to exert his hard training methods and work ethic upon the players. Much of Wolfsburg's faltering last season came from an incompetent manager in Steve Mclaren and a completely new squad that was unable to blend.

Both though has changed as Magath returns to the side he won the title with in 2009 while the squad is relatively the same bar a few good signings (Trasch, Marco Russ and Ochs).

Bremen will also be looking to get over the ghosts of last year and have a positive season. The signing of Ekici will be important as Bremen lacked any proper passing midfielder in the middle to replace Ozil.

The coach, Thomas Schaaf, will also be hoping for less injuries to key defenders, but even if that happens again, he will be much more prepared as the signings of Sokratis and Andreas Wolf will provide ample cover in multiple positions.

The last of the European positions will be fought by Bayer Leverkusen and FC Schalke 04, both losing important players and having clear weaknesses in defense. Leverkusen's weakness at center back has already been discussed, while Schalke will now have an inexperienced, though talented, center back in Papadopolous starting alongside the reliant Benidtk Howedes. They will be without Manuel Neuer unfortunately.

Both teams, though, have strong attacks, which should enable them to have mildly successful seasons.   

The Race for the Title

Table:

1. Bayern Munich

2. Borussia Dortmund

3. Hamburger SV

As per every season, Bayern Munich will enter as favourites. While last season there were doubts about their defensive stability after Louis Van Gaal continued to persist with Daniel Van Buyten and Martin Demichelis after a horrible season endured by both, the management have learnt from the mistakes and decided to invest heavily in the back line.

The signings of Manuel Neuer, Rafinha and most important Jerome Boateng should fix the leaky back line and with the same world class attack infront of them, Bayern should charge towards the title. 

Behind them will be the defending champions in Borussia Dortmund, who despite losing Nuri Sahin, have the look of the offensively amazing side they were last season.

Early season struggles might have to be endured since the their regular striker, Lucas Barrios, is injured for six weeks and the only replacement is Robert Lewandowski who struggled for much of the second half of last season where he started majority of the games, but failed to score the goals expected of him. 

While having much the same squad of last season, Hamburger SV will be much different from last season given that they not only have a new coach in Michel Oenning, but also a new director of football in Frank Arnesen.

This season will be a new chapter in the Hamburg story, much of which will be written by the success of Arnesen's new young signings. With more stability in the squad, the performances of talented players like Son Heung-Min, Elia and Kacar, along with the leadership of Westermann, should take Hamburg towards a successful qualification for the Champions League.