Oh. My. Goodness.

What else is there to say?

Well, there is a lot to say, to be honest. When die Blauen Blog went into its own Winter Break I was chewing on the idea of the hiring of Michael Frontzeck as manager, as the last time we saw him in the Bundesliga his Allemania Aachen were packing their bags for the 2. Bundesliga after a memorable collapse saw them lose seven of their final eight matches to end the season. Despite this I was bullish on Arminia's chances as I would expect Frontzeck to splash some cash in the Transfer Window to repair the, er, nonexistant back line. Unfortunately, Arminia's transfers went as follows:

In: None

Out: Abdelaziz Ahanfouf (F) to SV Wehen

Granted, Ahanfouf was surplus to demands, but come on, it never came to Frontzeck's mind that perhaps a defender or twenty may help the worst defence in the Bundesliga?

Before I blow a gasket over that, let's move right along. Right before the Winter Break ended Arminia went to Jena to take on 2. Bundesliga Carl Zeiss Jena in a DFB-Pokal clash. The result was of course a 2-1 victory for the little guys in extra time, mainly because the defence coughed up a late goal (ugh) and a goal in extra time. Where have we seen that before? The league returned as Arminia lost 1-0 to Wolfsburg through a display of anemic offence and lost points because of a defencive lapse (Schuler). The same was in store as the Martin Fenin Show showed up and his carving up of the back line enabled the first goal, and he was unmarked for his second goal. At least Artur Wichniarek showed some bottle by putting away a chance to make it 2-1, albeit from an offside position. I'll be fair and state that the second half in the Frankfurt match Arminia came out looking to score, but were unlucky when Sibusiso Zuma's chance went just wide.

And this brings us to today, where Arminia went to eternally-middling Hertha Berlin, which, according to Wichniarek, middles because of their manager Dieter Hoeness. What can I say? I'll take Koenig Artur's word over almost anyone. After all, he was there and rotted for almost four years and not me. Apparently some other blogs digress, but given Hertha Berlin's history, who wouldn't complain about them?

Anyway, the match today started out as boring as Herr Frontzeck wanted, as both sides wandered about the pitch for the first half without much in the way of action. The second half was the same until Raffael put a shot on goal only to be saved by Mathias Hain. The pressure began to build, but the line held and the score remained at 0-0. In the 88th minute, Sibusiso Zuma came off for Tobias Rau in an obvious attempt to hold onto the precious point. I scribbled a note on my notepad "A Striker off for a Defender this late in the match? Why? Unless he wants to lose the game..."

Me and my mouth almost got away with it as in the dying seconds of the match Berlin had a throw-in deep in Arminia territory. The throw went into the box, above all Arminia defenders, and right to Raffael who won the game at the death to take all three points. I'm never one to shout or anything at the TV or computer (Complain? Definitely), but this instance got a "GOTT IN HIMMEL! YOU'RE A BLOODY IDIOT FRONTZECK!" out of me. About the only positive out of the match was that the three in the drop zone below Arminia are equally putrid, so Arminia remain two points clear, but it's far too close for my sake.

Going back to the sacking of Ernst Middendorp, the Germanocentric part of the Soccer-writing Anglosphere (How's that for some fancy wording?) did some writing to say the least. The best was the (always good) The Offside's take on the firing with the requisite comment about the club's love affair with Herr Middendorp (In their league table summary for last weekend, their comment about Bielefeld went to the tune of "At this point, I am starting to believe they only fired Ernst Middendorp so that they could rehire him for the umpteenth time to save them".) The best was from Ernst's old stomping grounds in South Africa where Johannesburg's Business Day tore Middendorp apart in a laughably-sad-but-true piece about the state of the club.

Finally,  World Soccer Daily interviewed Arminia Bielefeld's most famous support, journalist Johannes Berendt in the first hour of Thursday's show. When asked about Bielefeld, his response was that perhaps all of this was a bid to break the record for managers for a club in a single season in the Bundesliga (They've matched last year's total of three already) and finished the discussion with a quite funny comment of "So if you ever lose, you'll have a job in Bielefeld!" and guaranteed a loss against Berlin, leading up to a do-or-die match against Duisburg. Yikes. You can download the podcast off of iTunes by following this link.

I should be back into the swing of blogging things now, but I'm not sure about what. Fun times via Arminia aren't that plentiful here at die Blauen Blog HQ, as I'm having to resort to my PSV fandom to tide me over, which is helpful, though not a true fix. Here's to three points against Duisburg next Saturday!

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!