Wolfsburg coach Felix Magath was asked two weeks ago, after his team won their fifth consecutive league match, whether they could become German champions

“If we win all our 11 remaining fixtures then we can be champions,” he told the reporter with a hint of sarcasm. “But we are not title contenders, let’s make this clear,” he quickly added.

Two weeks later Wolfsburg have extended their winning streak to seven matches, sitting comfortably a point behind league leaders Hertha Berlin.

But even after this weekend’s 3-0 win against Arminia Bielefeld, Magath is still not satisfied.

“This result does not reflect the match,” he said. “We allowed Arminia far too many chances. We did not play well and were lucky to get away with a win.”

It has become a running joke in Germany that even if Wolfsburg win the Bundesliga, Magath will still be complaining afterwards.

Wolfsburg are going into the final stretch of the championship in mint condition. They have hardly any injuries while strikers Edin Dzeko and Grafite are in amazing form.

This could be down to Magath’s notorious fitness regime which some players have compared to torture.

Midfielder Christian Gentner, who joined from Stuttgart in 2007, admitted life was harder at Wolfsburg. But when you watch them play, Magath’s side make it look easy, attacking for 90 minutes especially when the opponents are running out of breath after 75.

So champions or not, they must be doing something right, Felix?

PHOTO: Wolfsburg coach Felix Magath arrives for their German Cup quarter-final match against Werder Bremen, March 4, 2009. REUTERS/Hannibal Hanschke

What a Bundesliga season! Exciting, fast-paced and at least five teams in the running for the title and believe it or not, Bayern are not top of the table.

But next season may be very different. Many of the league’s top players who have carried their teams into title contention could leave at the end of the campaign.

Hertha Berlin strikers Andriy Voronin and Marko Pantelic have fired their team to the top but are on their way out.

Voronin, who has scored eight goals in the past six matches, is on loan from Liverpool and with Hertha’s budget shrinking for next season, the more goals he scores the more difficult it will be for them to keep him. Only a Champions League spot could help finance his stay.

Pantelic, with six goals, looks even more certain to leave after recovering from injury but then being left on the bench for the past two matches as strained ties with club and coach continue.

Surprise package Wolfsburg, four points behind, could see strikers Grafite and Edin Dzeko, who have scored a combined total of 30 league goals, packing their bags with several English clubs reportedly circling for the pair.

Speculation about whether Bayern Munich’s Franck Ribery will stay has been growing and much is riding on a Champions League berth for next season.

Werder Bremen, who are through to the last 16 in the UEFA Cup after ousting AC Milan, could lose their own pillars in midfield and attack.

Brazilian Diego, among the league’s most exciting and gifted players, looks poised to move to a bigger European club with media reports suggesting Juventus are his preference. Peruvian Claudio Pizarro, on loan from Chelsea, is also unlikely to stay despite his 12 league goals.

Werder are hesitant about buying him because of an ongoing investigation into his co-ownership of a management firm embroiled in a financial affair that led to the resignation of Werder’s chairman.

By the time next season starts, the Bundesliga could look a lot poorer in terms of talent.

The credit crunch is biting into German soccer, with teams starting to consider the idea of salary caps to further reduce annual running costs.

It was Bayern Munich manager Uli Hoeness who first warned some time ago that the financial downturn would hit Bundesliga clubs, especially mid-table ones, who would not be able to balance their budgets. Now Bayer Leverkusen sports director Rudi Voeller and, more surprisingly, Hoffenheim billionaire backer Dietmar Hopp have come out in favour of salary caps.

Salary caps, financial limits on the total amount spent on players’ wages, already exist in all professional sports leagues in the United States.

“I hope there will be an upper limit for players’ wages,” Voeller, who earned the best money of his long career in Italy and France. “We have reached the top limit.”

Hopp has poured just under 200 million euros into Hoffenheim to help bring the club from the lower regional divisions to the Bundesliga. The tycoon has turned them into title contenders and built a new stadium as well, but even he said contracts were now too high.

“What players earn is too much. If this crisis continues we will go under,” Hopp said after admitting that his shares had lost value worth about 2 billion euros in the stock market fall.

Germany has been hit hard by the crisis and while its clubs have always been less exuberant than their Italian, Spanish or English counterparts, they could soon decide to spend even less.

Several clubs have hinted they would look into reducing salaries from next year. It may sound bad for the quality of football but isn’t it ultimately better for the sport’s social responsibility?

PHOTO: The boot of TSG Hoffenheim’s Sejad Salihovic lies on top of the net during their Bundesliga match at VfB Stuttgart Feb. 21, 2009. REUTERS/Thomas Bohlen

Like political pundits on local election night, football reporters can’t help reading too much into the results of international friendlies.

Pretty much the least interesting thing about England’s error-strewn 2-1 win over Germany in Berlin on Wednesday was the result, but there was food for thought in the performances of two under-strength teams.

1. England seem to bat quite a lot deeper than they used to, with a number of the players coming in doing good jobs. Barry and Carrick easily won their midfield battle with Rolfes and Jones, while Wright-Philiips was probably the best player in the pitch. Time for the Gerrard-Lampard partnership to be definitively retired?

2. England have never been short of confidence in the ability of their players as individuals, but what seems to be developing now is a collective confidence, which showed itself in the patient way they exercised control in the first half. (more…)

Germany’s friendly against England at the Olympiastadion later on Wednesday will have the feel of a B international, given the absence of so many familiar players.

England are without Beckham, Gerrard, Rooney, Ferdinand, Heskey, Owen and a couple of Coles, and Theo Walcott has now joined the injured list. 

Germany are without four of their best known and most experienced players from the World Cup and Euro 2008 in Ballack, Lahm, Frings and Lehmann.

My colleague Martyn Hermann takes a look at the whole issue over on our main website. Martyn says the friendly has been rendered “almost meaningless” by the absentee list.

I think the qualifier “almost” is a pretty important part of that sentence.

I agree it’ll be pointless reading much into the result, but playing this sort of match at a venue like Berlin’s Olympic stadium is always a worthwhile exercise.

As Fabio Capello said at his eve-of-match press conference, it will be very interesting to see how the newcomers take to one of the more intimidating stages in European football.

When Germany played England at Wembley in 2007 the likes of Ballack and Frings were missing then too, along with senior players like Podolski, Klose and Schweinsteiger.

England had a more experienced and supposedly superior team yet players like Christian Pander, Piotr Trochowski and Thomas Hitzlsperger performed above their reputations to wrest control from a complacent England and claim a 2-1 win. Trochowski and Hitzlsperger are now fixtures in the team, and only injury is keeping Pander out.

Are there unheralded England players who can take their chance tonight? We’ll see…

PHOTO: Fireworks explode above the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, following Italy’s victory over France in the World Cup final, July 9, 2006. REUTERS/Toby Melville

The great and the good of German soccer have been quick to condemn Kevin Kuranyi after the Schalke 04 striker walked away from the national team at the weekend.

Former Germany coach Franz Beckenbauer said Kuranyi’s behaviour was “ridiculous” and had overshadowed the good impression Germany made in their 2-1 win over Russia.

“He not only let the coach down but also his teammates,” the Kaiser wrote in his column for Bild newspaper on Monday.

“I can’t imagine he’ll ever play again for Germany,” he added. “He’d have to go down on his knees to (coach) Jogi Loew.”

But not all reactions were negative. (more…)

Anyone who has any lingering doubts whether Juergen Klinsmann is determined to be an agent of change at Bayern Munich should have a word with the city’s photojournalists. 

All 20 photographers accredited for Klinsmann’s first news conference on Wednesday stood up and walked out in a silent (and somewhat silly) protest because of a new rule limiting them to three minutes of pictures at the start.

Just as Klinsmann was a catalyst for change in his two years shaking up some of the antiquated structures in the German FA from 2004 to 2006, it seems abundantly clear the former Germany striker is not going to be satisfied with the status quo in Munich. 

They might have won the Bundesliga and German Cup last year, but that’s not enough for Bayern.  

In a refreshingly open 45 minutes, Klinsmann sketched out his ideas about Bayern’s direction — candidly saying the goals are a German domestic double and reaching the final of the Champions League — and kept referring to the centrepiece of his masterplan, a new Hochleistungszentrum (high performance centre).

He’ll be expecting his players to spend all day — from 9:30 to 5:30 — on site and use the few hours between morning and afternoon training sessions to work on their language skills, fitness abilities or learn about new things.  

“Matches are decided in the head,” he said at the news conference, which was broadcast live by two German TV networks. “It’s important to keep learning, to stay hungry to learn more.”  

Klinsmann, who spent the last decade living in California, has a number of critics in Germany sceptical of his American-style optimism. They are also unsure about imported training methods from a country they tend to view as a minor soccer nation.

But as well as working with the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns, Klinsmann spent time in South America in the last two years and has worked hard to learn Spanish — adding to his Italian, French and English skills.

“I did a lot of travelling. And obviously I spent a lot of effort to learn more about soccer. It’s my belief that everyone can learn something from someone else. You just have to open yourself up to it,” he said.  

He was certain his players were going to welcome the new challenges rather than feel any burdens, adding it will “set new energies free.” Klinsmann said one of his biggest challenges will be keeping all his talent-laden squad happy.

“We’ve got two players for every position and for some positions there are even three people at a very high level,” he said. “I’ve got my work cut out for me. But I’m really looking forward to it.”  

He said he had intentionally refrained from any TV or print interviews of any kind for the last six months but had been excited about the new season in the Bundesliga since the moment Bayern bosses called him just before Christmas.

“I’m extremely ambitious and sometimes as a player I was a bit too ambitious at times. But I want to move something here at Bayern. What I’ve missed most the last two years was the day-in and day-out work with the players. If everyone gets a little bit better the team will automatically be better. I can’t describe how happy I am to be back.”

PHOTO: Klinsmann smiles during a news conference in Munich. REUTERS/Michaela Rehle

It took 44 years but Spain are finally European champions once again.

A well-taken first half goal from Fernando Torres sealed a 1-0 win over Germany in an open, attacking final which summed up the whole of Euro 2008.

Looking at the match and the finals in general, technically-gifted Spain probably deserved to end their major tournament hoodoo. Do you agree?  

Germany’s Philipp Lahm will wonder how he allowed Torres to beat him to the ball and slot home. In fact, the German defence was unusually creaky for much of the tournament. Can they bounce back for the 2010 World Cup or will Spain’s dynamic side continue to dominate? 

Let us know your views below.  

PHOTO: Spain’s Torres scores past Germany goalkeeper Lehmann during the Euro 2008 final at Ernst Happel Stadium in Vienna. June 29 REUTERS/Christian Charisius

In our area of London, national flags have hung in shop windows, kids have worn team shirts 24/7 and, after a couple of Euro 2008 games, complete bedlam broke out.    

The main road was blocked by dancing crowds and horn-blowing cars raced around the side streets with youngsters hanging out of the windows. The parties have gone on almost until dawn.      

For England fans, watching our Turkish neighbours’ unbelieving joy at their team’s Houdini acts on the pitch has been as close as we’ve got to taking part in the tournament.

But I would bet that for most, this has been the most enjoyable European championship or World Cup since Euro 96 and that night we beat the Dutch.     

Jingoism and club loyalty have been put away for the duration and very cleansing it has been too. In the pubs, you hear fans talking about foreign teams and individual players in an overwhelmingly positive fashion, although Cristiano Ronaldo and Jens Lehmann could be the exceptions to that.       

Instead of sitting on the sofa debating the recovery rates of metatarsals, swearing at Sven’s lack of daring and working out just when we would be knocked out on penalties, England fans have been able to watch most games dispassionately and marvel at the skills of the foreign players.     

We have been doing that for years, of course, in the Premier League. But Euro 2008 has shown up the shortcomings of the self-styled best league in the world and also explains why England never achieve any success.     

The speed at which the English game is played creates a great atmosphere but the speed of thought and deed displayed by teams like the Dutch and Russians, and Portugal in flashes, is rarely seen in the Premier League.

The passing angles and switching of the point of attack in some games were almost an epiphany to those brought up on Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard - to name the best rather than the worst.     

Touch and the ability to bring the ball under control whether it comes to you at chest height, to your midriff or straight to your feet is something most English players lack, and yet it is something German players, for instance, seem to be born with.     

And to return to the Turkish team, England’s players just do not feel the same way about representing their country as those men did, and it shows on the pitch. The cream of English football talk the talk about their pride in pulling on the shirt, but do they really feel the same way about it as Fatih Terim’s charges or Bastian Schweinsteiger?      

Club football is all that matters in England and even national coach Fabio Capello will find it hard to change that. 

Robert Woodward, London  

PHOTO: Spain’s Daniel Guiza celebrates his goal during the Euro 2008 semi-final against Russia in Vienna, June 26. REUTERS/Robert Zolles

Germany made it into the final of Euro 2008 despite playing some truly awful football against Turkey.

The question now is can anything stop them winning their fourth European Championship in Sunday’s final in Vienna?

Fans back home in Germany missed some of the second half after a storm in Vienna caused a problem with the TV signal. That was a shame, because it was only in the last few minutes in Basel that Germany actually started playing the way they should have done all along.

In the first half they were far too careless with the ball, seemed to underestimate how dangerous Turkey could be and deservedly fell behind to a goal from Ugur Boral.

Germany equalised with their one moment of quality in the first half, when Bastian Schweinsteiger clipped in from Lukas Podolski’s cross, before a talking-to from coach Joachim Loew at the break served to sort them out.

“I told them we have to play more seriously, and stop losing the ball,” Loew said.

The dressing down worked and when an otherwise anonymous Miroslav Klose headed in on 79 minutes, Germany looked to be on their way. Another twist saw Semih Senturk equalise before Philipp Lahm bagged a 90th minute winner.

Germany win even when they don’t play well. Can they really be stopped?