Reuters Soccer Blog

Premature move for Swiss prodigy Ben Khalifa?

The Swiss Super League is certainly not the strongest in the world but it’s a fairly safe bet to say that it beats the German fourth division. So why has 18-year-old Nassim Ben Khalifa, one of Switzerland’s most exciting prospects, swapped the former for the latter?

Last year, Ben Khalifa hit the headlines when he led the attack in the Swiss team which surprised everyone by winning the world under-17 championship in Nigeria.

He was runner-up in the vote for the best player of the tournament and also scored four goals. Back home, he was a regular first-team player in his debut professional season for Grasshoppers, scoring eight goals as he helped them finish third in the table.

In the midst of all this, German Bundesliga outfit VfL Wolfsburg stepped him and snapped him up for the 2010-2011 season. Yet they appear to have little intention of fielding him any time soon. Ben Khalifa told Swiss media this week that he is fifth or sixth in the strikers’ pecking order and would have to fight for his place with Edin Dzeko and Grafite, the two players who have topped the Bundesliga scoring charts in the last two seasons.

For the time being, this means that Ben Khalifa is turning out for the reserve team VfL Wolfsburg II, who play in Regional League North, the fourth tier of German professional football. This has also had a knock-on effect with his Switzerland career — having made his full international debut against Austria in August, Ben Khalifa will be with the under-21 team this weekend rather than travelling with the seniors for the Euro 2012 qualifier in Montenegro.

Switzerland coach Ottmar Hitzfeld says he made the decision due to Ben Khalifa’s lack of match practice.

It hardly seems like a move forward. Yet the story is typical of many promising young players from Latin America, Africa and the smaller European nations. They move abroad to a bigger league in their late teens, get shunted into the reserves and are barely heard of again.

German football end-of-season special

One of the best Bundesliga seasons I can remember came to a disappointing end in Saturday’s DFB-Pokal final. 

While the league gave us two great stories with the rise and fall of Hoffenheim and the ultimate triumph of Wolfsburg, the Cup final was a damp affair.

In the two posts below, Erik Kirschbaum reflects on Werder Bremen’s victory in the frightened rabbit final, while Karolos Grohmann considers the record of Bayer ‘Neverkusen’.

Werder win ‘scared rabbit’ final

Unless you happen to be a Werder Bremen fan, you’d probably agree with the rest of Germany that Werder’s 1-0 win over Bayer Leverkusen in Saturday’s Cup final made for a deflating end to the season.

Germans have a term for it: “Angsthasen Fussball” (scared rabbit football) — an appropriate description for a fear-filled struggle between two of Germany’s biggest underachievers this year, doing everything they could to avoid one last defeat before the holidays.

That was a shame because Werder and Leverkusen are both capable of lighting up the scoreboard when they stay true to their attacking styles.

I’m an unabashed fan of the “DFB Pokal” (German Cup) and the atmosphere for the final each May in Berlin’s Olympiastadion in the company of 70-odd thousand fans is something I really look forward to. (It’s a wonderful stadium when it’s sold out, which rarely happens for Hertha Berlin.)

The final two years ago between Nuremberg and then-Bundesliga champions Stuttgart, won 3-2 by Nuremberg in extra time, was a classic Cup final — arguably the match of the season. But the 2009 final was a real dud.

“We’re all deeply relieved,” said Bremen sporting director Klaus Allofs, whose team were considered among the pre-season favourites for the Bundesliga but finished 10th. “There would have been a very bitter after taste if we had also lost the German Cup final after losing the UEFA Cup final.”

Bremen’s fears were understandable after the pain of their defeat by Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk in Istanbul and Bayer Leverkusen fans would have know just how they felt (see the post from Karolos below).

What now for wondrous Wolfsburg?

Wolfsburg are only 90 minutes away from winning their first German championship and they have equalled or broken several records in achieving that.

No other team have ever had two strikers score 20 goals or more in a Bundesliga season. Grafite has 26, Edin Dzeko 25.

Wolfsburg equalled the longest winning streak in one season in the Bundesliga with 10 consecutive victories after the winter break. They have a near perfect home record, dropping only two points in 16 matches this term.

What can they improve on after such a season?

Coach Felix Magath will not be there next term, having signed with Schalke 04. Grafite has said he will stay on but Dzeko looks unlikely to partner him up front next season with big European clubs including Arsenal rumoured to be eyeing the Bosnian and team mates.

But don’t expect Volkswagen-backed Wolfsburg to be a one-off thing.

Bayern show ruthless streak with Klinsmann sacking

Bayern Munich’s decision to sack Juergen Klinsmann five rounds before the end of the season with the team just three points out of first place might end up working out for the club, with the title still very much up for grabs, but it’s sad news for the Bundesliga.

It is also sad for fans of the exciting, attacking style of football that the former Germany striker brought to Munich. Klinsmann had won myriad new enthusiasts for soccer in general and Bayern Munich in particular with his innovative approach — quite an achievement considering Bayern were probably the most hated club in Germany outside Bavaria.

Under Klinsmann, Bayern’s insatiable appetite for goals could make them a joy to watch going forward. Unfortunately for the coach, the defence also seemed to enjoy seeing goals scored too and let in far too many.

Bayern were brilliant on some nights: their 5-1 win over VfB Stuttgart in the German Cup and the one-sided wins in the Champions League against Sporting Lisbon (5-0 and 7-1) spring to mind.

But on other occasions they were pretty dreadful, like when they lost 2-1 against Cologne and 5-1 at VfL Wolfsburg — to say nothing of the humilating 4-0 defeat at Barcelona in the quarter-finals of the Champions League.

So why didn’t Bayern bosses hold tight and wait and see how the season played out? Five wins from their last seven Bundesliga matches had left them just three points behind Wolfsburg and one behind Hertha Berlin — two teams with no experience of a pressure-packed title run. Surely Bayern’s chances were pretty good.