I had this post ready to go on Saturday, but unfortunately family events got in the way of me posting it (Look Mom, die Blauen Blog > Christmas par.. *thwack* Ow! OK, OK, you're right... *sigh*)

Well, the Winter Break is upon us, and thankfully Bielefeld gave supporters a reason to cheer with a well-deserved 2-0 win over defending champions VfB Stuttgart on Saturday. Despite beginning the day in the relegation zone, the team came out flying for the first 20 minutes, leaving the Swabians dazed and confused. Jonas Kamper just missed the net in the 7th minute, and Sibusiso Zuma took a most clever pass in the 15th minute and promptly beat the keeper, only to be denied by the post. The breakfast I was eating (scrambled eggs and toast) promptly flew in the air as I was in a fit of premature celebration. I spent the next 10 minutes cleaning up the mess as well as cooking another batch of eggs, much to the pleasure of my two dogs. By that time Stuttgart finally got going got going, and the game tightened up considerably. Despite this, at halftime Arminia had the advantage in terms of shots despite only having about 36% of possession.

Raphael Schäfer waves in futility at the first goal of the match (Image: Bongarts/Getty Images)

Interim manager Detlef Dammeier evidently gave them the needed speech at halftime, as there was no faltering unlike against Bayern. The pressure continued to mount until it finally gave when Stuttgart lost midfielder Pavel Pardo for a second yellow card on what was really a dumb challenge, especially considering he had a yellow card. Stuttgart manager Armin Veh couldn't complain, as he was already sent to the stands for arguing with the officials. Jonas Kamper broke the deadlock with a stupendous shot 6 minutes later that completely surprised Stuttgart goalkeeper Raphael Schäfer, sending the Alm into a frenzy. Stuttgart tried to get back into it, but 5 minutes later defender Ricardo Osorio was sent off for a straight red for a pretty bad tackle on Artur Wichniarek, leaving Stuttgart with 9 men for the final 4 minutes, and holding on for dear life. It looked to end 1-0 until Wichniarek (who else?) put the icing on the cake with a nice goal from an even better pass from Zuma. It proved to be the last kick of the match, and Arminia walked away 2-0 winners.

Jonas Kamper celebrates with the Arminia faithful after the match (Image: Bongarts/Getty Images)

With the win, Arminia climbed out of the relegation zone, and sit 3 points clear of the drop zone. The Bundesliga table looks like this when looking at Arminia and its neighbours (Relegation Zone in red):

Arminia was in a similar situation last season, but unlike last season they have actually won a match after November, and are outside the relegation zone, though only by three points. It's a tricky situation, but it doesn't quite have the hopeless feel that last year had. Shoring up the back line in January will go a long way to keeping Arminia up, as if they can get off to a start similar to the one at the beginning of the season, safety will be achieved pretty early, especially they can pick up points they dropped against Frankfurt and Duisburg, which should have both been three points in the bag. Add the five points dropped in those two matches and Arminia sits in 10th position. If there isn't a better example of the impact of fifteen minutes of lack of concentration in football, let me know.

Speaking of the second half of the season, much of it will ride on how well new manager Michael Frontzeck can keep the club going. I'll be frank and say that I really didn't pay attention to how well he did last season with Alemania Aachen other than the fact that in their final 8 matches they went 0-1-7 with a -20 goal differential. Not exactly the most comforting of statistics, but perhaps with some cash and a pretty experienced and motivated roster, we won't see a similar swoon.

We have about 6 weeks to discuss all of this, along with a lot of other goings on, especially the Virtual Season, as well as the trip to China (Arminia plays Wuhan FC on Tuesday and Shanghai Shenhua on Wednesday) and the DFB-Pokal match at Carl Zeiss Jena at the end of January.

See you on Wednesday after the match!