The Pure Bundesliga XI

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Unhinged goalkeepers, giant defenders fathered by US military servicemen, nigh on naturalized Brazilians, meat and potatoes midfielders.

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German under 21 internationals with English mums, a walking advert for German footballing mentality, a Brazilian striker with no more than four caps for the Cellesal, and a lumbering German journeyman to spearhead the whole thing.

An Irre Uhren von Golhanger Podkasgebracht, dasist football clichés, undie Rheine Bundesliga Mannschaft.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Football Cliches.

I'm Adam Hurry.

This is going to be the Pure Bundesliga 11.

Joining me is noted Bundesliga man Charlie Eckelshire.

How How you doing?

I'm good.

How are you?

Yeah, I'm alright.

Thanks.

Good and talk to you, David Walker.

Hello.

And joining us, we needed an expert voice for this.

I didn't feel like our German football intellect was quite at the level required to do it between us.

Joining us is Bundesliga commentator Kevin Hatchard.

How are you doing, Kev?

I'm thrilled to be here.

This is a very fun assignment, which I found very tough, actually.

But yeah, looking forward to drilling into it, I think.

We'll get into our early workings in a moment.

But whenever we have a commentator on football cliches, Kev, I do a bit of wholesome online stalking.

And the only place to go, of course, is the internet commentator database, which tells me that your first Bundesliga match for TV was Hanover 96 versus Leverkusen in August 2015, a 1-0 win, hacking Chahanoglu on the score sheet.

Is he making it into R11?

He didn't.

He was close, actually, because he has that kind of

style about him, that kind of not languid, I would say.

He's kind of improved the work rate maybe since he left Germany.

But yeah, some of the magic that he produced, I seem to remember he scored a free kick in that first game.

Right.

And I said, what was that?

Another masterpiece for the Chalinolu collection.

Something very cheesy like that.

That's how I started the TV spell.

So yeah.

Dave, I pondered asking Kev, you know, at what point he fell in love with the Bundesliga and really decided to make that his commentary thing.

And then he popped popped up on the Zoom wearing a Germany Italian 90s shirt.

And that's something I thought, yeah, that's it.

He's indoctrinated.

Yeah, it was the uh, it was weird actually, because you think of something like La Liga, for example, and obviously that was on Sky, and we didn't have Sky, but what we did have was obviously had the Champions League games that would be on TV every so often, and I was absolutely glued to those, fascinated by those.

And the German kits, which were very rarely well-fitted.

They were usually massive bags of things.

In Dortmund's case, that big Day Glow thing with the Continental logo on it.

And that was the kind of thing that always really stuck with me.

So I was always fascinated by any time a German team would appear.

But the Bundesliga does have quite a distinct place in the hierarchy of the

European leagues.

You know, the La Liga and Syria have their own glamour periods.

And I'm sure, Kev, you would argue that the Bundesliga has its too, but it doesn't occupy the same space in the collective football consciousness, does it, as those other two?

No, we have to fight and push the PR because you get the kind of football Italia era that Italian football fans can rely upon, the Revista

Liga angle.

We don't have that.

We have to go, look at the fans, look at the flares, look how much fun they have.

50 plus one.

Exactly, 50 plus one.

None of these takeovers for us.

So we have to kind of bang the drum in those ways because we're aware that it hasn't got that kind of golden period that people look back on.

I think you'd always have that May-June 2020 period where there was no other football.

People got into the Bundesliga then.

German efficiency, we were the only show in town for it.

Yes.

That was great.

I remember telling that and being like, oh my God,

this is amazing.

I'm not going to lie.

I really watched the Bundesliga that day.

I was well into it.

Everybody had a team.

I'm a Hanita fan now.

Are you?

Are you really?

But yes, it was very enjoyable.

No Bundesliga right now, of course, which means that your last game for commentary duties, according to the ICDB, was Iran versus North Korea.

Fair player.

Wow.

Yes, it was.

Which was an odd one because there wasn't a huge amount of motivation in it.

And as a commentator, you try and research as best you can.

One of the most secretive regimes in the world makes that quite difficult, I have to say.

So you have, I have anyway, lots of commentators do it in different ways, as I'm sure you guys are aware, but I have a little sticker for each player.

And what I'll generally will try and have is four lines of information on each player.

Many of the North Korean players had two at best.

It was a tricky one, I have to say.

That's a good effort, yeah.

North Korea had a man sent off in the 68th minute.

I mean, did you ever think that your commentary career would lead you to be able to use the phrase 10 man North Korea?

No, it did not, actually, but

I enjoyed that very much, actually, because Kie Tam, who was the player, was spoiling for a red card from the moment he picked up his first yellow.

There were at least three incidents where you thought he's going off here.

And I'd even said it in commentary because when you do solo comms as opposed to having a co-com,

you often have these kind of weird conversations with yourself.

And I probably went, well, Kick Tam's going to go at some stage if he carries on like this.

And

then behold, he was off.

Did you know the Korean for walking a tightrope?

I didn't, actually.

I should have learnt that.

That was poor research on my part, actually.

I should have could have really drawn the fans in with that one.

Yeah.

I love the idea that you got to say, oh, he's got to be careful now to yourself.

That's

the joy of doing it solo.

That is tremendous.

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Okay, let's do this.

This is the pure Bundesliga 11.

Our guest Kevin Hatchard is going to is going to be the voice of reason here.

If there are sort of two names in the mix, we're going to need you to adjudicate about who goes in.

So you've got a very important role, a pivotal role in this selection process.

But before we get into

names for this 11,

learn I think we need to spend a little bit longer on the ethos of this team selection Dave than we would normally do because the Bundesliga is a unique challenge I think compared to the Premier League Serie A La Liga because

as as Kevin said we we have this kind of cultural capital already with those from our childhoods the Bundesliga hasn't quite made that same penetration into our existences

so was it a trickier thing for you?

I thought it would be, but actually when I sat down and started looking through a lot of the players and a lot of the suggestions that listeners have sent in, I'm more familiar with it than I perhaps realised.

And particularly, whereas something like Syria and Alega, you know,

our memories maybe stretch back a bit to that 90s or that noughties period.

Whereas Bundesliga is a bit more modern, I think.

I mean, I couldn't tell you much about 90s Bundesliga,

save for, you know, a couple of Dortmund and Bayern players that I saw in the Champions League or whatever.

But actually, the sort of modern Champions League era and even the sort of the 2010s, there are a lot of players that i'm more familiar with and and and the pathway from bundesliga to the premier league has been quite a busy one as well so i think there's quite a lot for us to get stuck into here there are a lot of different aspects and some potential pitfalls here charlie i think we need to be careful not to pick anyone too demand shaft

here because some people some players do identify more as a kind of national team figure than they might do for bundlesliga clubs tolston frings for example yeah i think this is actually it's a it's a strange one in many ways because, yeah, like you say, it doesn't have the Serie Ada Liga kind of moment, but Germany, the German national team, is huge for us in our childhoods

and has always been there.

It's been this massive team, and their teams have traditionally done well in the Champions League, like Bay Munich and Dortmund, and even Leverkus, and had their moment.

So, again,

we also don't want them to be too Champions League-y.

So,

there is a sweet spot.

And I think, yeah, that's going to be,

that will be the making or breaking of this team.

In the process, Kev, of trying to avoid being two national team for this,

it opens the door to a whole slew of under-regarded, potentially maybe even obscure Bundesliga men from the last sort of 15 years or so.

Which begs the question: do you think there'll be a single kind of bi-Munich player in here?

Should there be a Bi-Munich player in here?

Yeah, I think there are because I was going through this and I was throwing out players and dragging players back in.

And one of the things I have realised with my team is that it would be completely dysfunctional.

They would argue they would implode within the first 20 minutes of a game because it's a collection of old school mavericks, which I really associate.

Germany with the kind of those ones that would grab a game by the scruff of the neck or just say, I can't be bothered with this today.

So you'd have a kind of mix of that, but also the kind of more modern guys, because I think there are definitely different eras in German football.

I think I think now it's very much, look at the talent factory, look at these players we can develop, look how they press, look how athletic they are.

Premier League, come and give us some money and take them from us.

Whereas previously, it was kind of this mix of mavericks, like Mario Basler, for example, at Bayern.

and players who very much played for themselves, but in doing so made their teams very successful.

So Matthias, Effenberg, guys like that, who are very much kind of, I will win this game for you.

I don't need you.

I'm going to go and win the game myself.

Yeah, there's room in this eleven, more than enough room, for some pathological arrogance, I think, sort of Effenberg level not giving of a shit.

We'll run through a couple of our listeners' kind of broad observations on this.

Simon Trainer,

very Bundesliga savvy.

He's given us some sort of templates for some of these positions.

He says we should have a 90-plus cap USA international at centre-back.

We should have a skillful Turkish-German midfielder.

We should have a young England prospect

who's shown his maturity to even go out there at his age.

And we should have a big name, experienced striker at Bayern Munich, he says.

So there are some touch points all the way through this 11 Charlie for kind of types of player, which always excites me before we get even stuck into the granular names.

Yeah, I think that's really important.

I think the best 11s have those kind of typecast characters.

And yeah, absolutely, those ones.

He says, I mean, like, I found as well, like, doing the strikers, i've just cut runneth over with strikers again like dave said i didn't think necessarily should we have to go 4-3 you think i mean possibly there are so many options it just feels so right but yeah definitely like the english element or as we'll get on you know growing up there was kind of random scottish midfielders popping up that seemed like totally otherworldly somehow few people have ever understood a themed 11 assignment more than chris duncan here kev he says all i ask is that a token american player such as timothy chandler michael Bradley, or Steve Turundalo should feature.

The latter inexplicably played his entire career at Hanover.

Smeach is Wright also replied with Jermaine Jones.

So there's definite bonus points here for anybody who's born on a US military base in Germany and has dual nationality.

That is an absolute staple for this team.

So Steve Turundalo will be annoyed with me because he only made the notable mentions.

And

I've worked with him quite a lot, actually, as a co-com.

He's a lovely, lovely man.

He was known as the mayor of Hanover.

Played his entire pro-career with Hanover.

So he's my backup right back.

I found right back really difficult, actually.

Okay, well, he's on the periphery for nicknames alone.

Right.

We'll start with goalkeepers.

I'm going to chuck a name in straight away.

Charlie, Kevin Trapp.

I don't know if he's quite Bundesliga enough, but he was a name that jumped out for me.

James Berriman says Tim Wieser for his 192 games at Verdebremen and six Germany caps before embarking on a David Walker-friendly career in WWE.

Short-lived, sadly.

Yeah, I remember that happening.

I mean, goalkeeper's a good one because obviously Khan and then Lehman for a little bit and then Neuer just tied up the national team position.

So that leaves a whole raft of options for us.

Hans Jörg Butt, or butt, don't know how it's pronounced, jumped off the page to me in a kind of the first, in the who's the first that comes to your head of any player.

He came to my head first.

Like he was, he had the novelty, he took penalties.

He just feels absolutely right for this.

But also

had that goal scored against him.

Was it him when he scored the penalty and then trotted back and they scored over him?

Shouldn't be allowed.

Can't allow that.

I'm actually really annoyed that that was allowed.

I mean,

that's pathetic stuff.

But yeah, Hans Jogbut really does feel like the standout candidate here, Kev.

I know Timo Hildebrand is going to have a lot to say about this.

Yes.

Yes, Timo with his wonderful flowing locks.

And set a record, actually, for

longest period unbeaten as a goalkeeper, I think, in Germany.

Oh, I like this.

So, he's got that going for him as well.

The Hans-Jörg Buck thing is really interesting, actually, because a half-time in Bundestiger games in the season just gone, they play these compilations, and one of them is mad things that have happened to goalkeepers.

And that goal that Dave was talking about is one of those.

And what's really funny about that is one of the celebrations is him leaping into somebody's arms.

And you're there knowing full well what's happened in the future, going, get on with it, man.

Why are you jumping up to him?

Run back to your goal.

It takes so long for him to get back there.

Um, I, even though this is a very showbiz start to the 11, I am going to wave the flag for Khan a bit, and you're all going to go, but but he's far too big.

He's a goalkeeper at Germany level, he's done well at the World Cup.

He's a madman, he is a madman.

You think of all of the things that he did, because I think with German football, the tabloids are very kind of

intrinsically linked, and they still talk about him.

Any kind kind of story about Oliver Khan, they still talk about.

There were incidents in things like the game against Dortmund de Classica, where he kind of had a little bite at Heiko Herlich.

He kind of nuzzled up to him and had a little bite at him.

He launched this kung fu kick at Stéphane Chapuiset.

He came miles out of his goal, jumped for the ball.

The whistle had already gone.

He just did this straight-leg kung fu kick, and they still in Germany call him Kung Fu Khan.

And the one to top it off was there was a charity event for an orphanage where there were a load of nine-year-olds that were supposed to take penalties against him.

And it had been set up as, right, well, if the kid scores a penalty, we add some more money to the charity funds.

And now this is going very quickly.

Khan saved every single one.

Oh, no.

He saved every single one.

So for the football, which he was obviously incredible,

not necessarily gets in, but for all of the mad stuff he did as a goalkeeper.

He got sent off once because he went up for a set piece.

I can't remember if it was a corner or a free kick, but he went up for a set piece.

The ball got floated to the far post.

He forgot that he wasn't in his own penalty area and he attacked it with both fists, punched it into the net.

He was already on a yellow card and he got sent off.

Oh, what?

This man, just to cap things off, Kev, has Oliver Khan sort of ascended to some sort of, you know, classically Bundesliga kind of administrative position at a club and been outspoken about things.

Has he taken on that kind of role?

Yeah, he was the CEO at Bayern.

Right, okay.

There's quite a famous, it was a game that I was at, actually.

It was a classica at Dortmund.

And Anthony Modest scored right at the end to make it 2-2.

And Khan's up in the stands and his reaction is so furious.

Like the seat can't contain him.

Like he smashes his head back and he's absolutely enraged by this goal, which didn't make a lot of difference in the grand scheme of things.

But he was absolutely furious.

So he burned brightly, but not for long as the CEO of Bayern.

I mean, what a titanic battle this already is, Dave.

Oliver Khan, to me, remains a little bit too World Cup 2002.

And hand your butt, despite that one game for Ben Fica, still strikes me as our Bundesliga Munning goal.

I agree.

And I also just associate Khan with that Bayern Champions League team in the late 90s and that as well.

You've made a strong case, and I'm sure you're going to be making plenty more of those, Kev.

But I think on this one, I think we're going to have to go with Butt.

Charlie, it's good that we got Kevin to adjudicate these things, and we've completely overruled him in the first one.

Fully deserved.

I went to showbiz in the first selection, and I've let myself down.

That's the arrogance of this podcast, honestly.

And chalk button goal, nonetheless.

This is a bit like when Keesy gets on actual experts and then just completely dismisses what they say.

Yeah, pretty much.

We've learned from the best.

Kevin, no.

Right.

Kevin.

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Welcome back to football clichés.

This is the pure Bundesliga 11.

To our fullback positions, we go.

This man was one of our most nominated amongst our listeners.

Kev, it was Kevin Grosskreutz.

Mark says an unwieldy German alphabet using name, integral cog in a beloved Dortmund team, nominally a right back, bags of energy, but nobody knew what he was actually good at.

Only six cats for the national team, because the best Bundesman never do it for Die Mannschaft.

Yeah, and he was quite a controversial character in that regard as well.

He would he di didn't necessarily always look after himself food-wise.

There was a story, I d I can't remember if it was ever uh firmed up, so we'll call it an allegation at this stage, that he uh had a Wii in a hotel lobby uh on international duty, so that was not ideal either.

And he was effectively, I think what was really, what was really always appealing about Gross Kreutz was that he felt like a fan who got to play.

Right.

And that was always the thing that people absolutely loved about him.

Because I do think, as fans, we like that, don't we?

When we see a player and go,

I could do that.

I could do that.

I mean, in reality,

he's a very, very good footballer.

But he went to Galatassarai and barely played.

In fact, I don't think he ever played, actually.

I think that move was a total disaster.

But yeah, I think he merits selection based on that feeling of he's a fan and and you know that's our guy out there you know running around and on the same basis not quite as a fan but on a similar kind of

although that was a left back i'm guessing grosskreutz gets in as a right back but i've got one for left back that's kind of a similar ilk i i do think we we definitely need a german alphabet name in there at some point.

I think that is a I forgot to look up what that character is called.

What's it called?

Yes, the double S that is the kind of B.

I'm racking my brains trying to think as well.

My German doubles let me down.

German double S is called an SZ.

Oh, yes.

I should know that my former GCSE teacher would be furious at me.

I remember in GCSE history using that for the Anschluss, the union between Germany and Austria, and feeling like a million dollars.

I was like, this is an absolute mic drop for me to be using this in the exam.

If I were blind ranking continental unique characters in the alphabet, it's going to be right up there.

I'll put it at least now.

Right to the very top.

I mean, let's be honest, Charlie.

I mean, I think you knew this before we went into this level, but right back is going to be between Kevin Grosskreutz and Lucas Peaceczek, isn't it?

Let's face it.

Yeah, but I do think Grosskreutz, that is a really compelling argument.

Like,

he seems kind of perfect.

And also,

Kev's point, Dave, that

Grosskreutz felt like a fan playing and living out their dreams.

That's surely more pertinent to German football than it might be elsewhere, right?

Given that

from the outside, we're fed all this stuff about how great their fans are.

Maybe this is the clincher for him.

Maybe perhaps.

I do think it's an early opportunity for us to wrestle with that 2010s Dortmund team because there could be more from that team.

It was a team that was interesting because they weren't buying and they won the league and it was the first time we'd heard of Jürgen Klopp.

And you know, some of those players obviously went on to bigger and better things at other teams as well so we don't want too many of them I don't think but I do think we we have a sprinkling is fine but that's why I think he's a really good option as well because so many of them did then transcend just that team and they went bigger you know you're not gonna have someone like Royce I feel like is maybe became too much of a big deal or you know or Goethe you know those kind of players so I think he he works quite well none of that Dortmund team fell into the two champions league-y danger zone did they Kev they I felt you know they were the kind of domestic antithesis to buy and they didn't they didn't supersede, they didn't kind of transcend their own league, I don't think.

No, well, so many of them as well were homegrown.

And I was thinking for left back Marcel Schmeltzer, because he's one club man.

They got him from Magdeburg as a youngster, so he came into Dortmund's youth academy.

So he was given his debut by Klopp, like so many of those players.

And I think what is great about Schmeltzer is he was quite flawed.

We think of these kind of marauding, attack-minded fullbacks.

He wanted to get forward and he did get forward, but he went seven years without scoring a goal at one stage.

So are you talking about a guy that only made, I think, 16 appearances for Germany?

So the Dortmund fans absolutely adored him.

And

he was a player that he had a few injuries towards the end, which was a bit of a shame, actually.

But in general, again, German clubs love that identity figure.

And he was absolutely that for them.

I like that.

Speaking of sort of subtypes of Bundesliga Manund, Dave, that we want to use sparingly, but make sure we have them in our 11.

I am still quite resistant to the idea that Borussia Dorman right back Rieson isn't a Brazilian who's been in the Bundesliga for eight years.

How is he not Brazilian?

No one ever says his first name, ever.

We will get to the Brazilians, and there will be some, I think.

I saw somebody mention on the Reddit, I think, that we should possibly have a pair of brothers.

And the Bundesliga can be quite brothery.

What a great adjective.

league.

Which one of the benders is a fullback, Kev?

Is it Lars or Sven?

Well, Lars tended to play midfield.

He ended up being a centre-back, really.

So we kind of have to squeeze Sven into the centre-back position, I think.

He's made the Iron Man Sven bender.

I see him very, very high up our priority list.

Here's one for left back, Charlie, Zay Roberto.

Yeah.

So he

like he's one of those guys who I think works quite well because

you never think of him really in an international context.

I know he did play for Brazil, but he was never a player you cared about for Brazil.

You know, your eye was always drawn to more glamorous names.

He was always there with Bayern and Leverkusen.

So I think, and obviously we want to fill, you know, we want to have some Brazilian representation.

The other option for left back is like a tarnat, someone like that, who, again, I know played for Germany, but I don't remember him massively.

Or Christian Zieger, but I think Zieger's two Premier League-y.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah.

But like that type of sort of up and down hammer of a left foot is quite important.

Yeah, fond memories of Tarnat's ludicrous free kicks.

Actually,

I think we do need to have a Brazilian in the back line.

I think I would prefer our Brazilian to be a centre-back, which we can come on to.

But I think a Brazilian defender who played barely any games for

the Selacao or whatever it's called, but played something mad like 300-plus games for one of the big Bundesliga teams and one player of the season or something a few times, I think is key.

And there are a few options.

Didi is one from

Dede from Dortmund, but there are some good centre-backs as well in that category.

Okay, well, so who are we going to go for at left back?

It's between Schmeltzer and Zay Roberto.

Do we want to use our Brazilian sparingly?

I think go Schmeltzer, I think.

Okay, slotting in at left back then is Marcel Schmeltzer.

Let's go to centre-backs then.

Dave, time to bang that drum for your Brazilians.

Who are you going for?

Well, so you've got like Lucio, who was maybe the original one of these sorts of players, but I then I think maybe is a bit to 2002 World Cup as well.

100 plus caps.

Yeah, yeah, a bit too much of a proper sort of top-level elite Brazilian centre-back.

Then you've got Dante,

who only played a few games games for Brazil, but played a lot of games for Bayern Munich.

There's a player who I confess to

never having heard of before, but looking back through the Bundesliga team of the season for the last sort of 10 years or so, a man called Naldo pops up a few times.

Get him in there.

Get him in there.

Played for Schauka, I think, Brazilian centre-back, and has only got a couple of caps for Brazil as well.

four caps for Brazil, but has played over 300 plus games in the Bundesliga.

So somebody like that, I think.

Naldo is definitely going into our back line, Kev.

Roddy Saint writes in and says: Never the most reliable defender, but with an insane cannon of a shot.

Absolute master of those laid-off shots from a set piece, which people have yet to agree on whether they count as a free-kick goal or not.

Play for some absolutely classic Bundesliga sides, like that Werder team under Thomas Schaff that reached the UAF Cup final, that Wulsberg team with De Bruyne that finished second, and the Schauker team in terminal decline from CL side to relegation fodder.

46 Bundesliga goals for Naldo.

6'6.

I like it a lot.

And he made me look good once, and therefore he goes in

because I was at Rafir Derby once against Dortmund.

It was at Schalker.

It was one of the most extraordinary moments that I've had.

So he lines this free kick up, which is miles out, but you know it's him.

He's the only show in town.

Everybody else has moved away.

And I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I said, Can Naldo produce the magic?

And he runs up, and it was one of those weird moments in a stadium where all of the noise for like half a second gets sucked out of it and it goes deathly and he hits it bang straight in oh yes he can and everybody goes insane can naldo produce the magic

oh yes he can

well

what a strike by naldo

So on that basis alone, he gets in.

He scored a goal as Schalker came back from 4-0 down once in a Raffir Derby against Dortmund and drew 4-4 and he scored right at the end.

And he was just a really stylish, but not too good.

He was good, but he wasn't like top, top level.

And therefore, I think he's a great candidate, I think.

He was a wonderful player to watch.

Really exciting.

I'm really glad

we looked over Zay Roberto and got Naldo in as the Brazilian in our back line.

To partner him in central defense, Charlie, you know, here's a nice nice chunk of names for you.

We've been through Sven and Lars Bender already.

Jonathan Tarr, Nico Schlotterbeck, Karsten Ramelo.

But Adam Webster storms in with this.

Nevin Subatich.

Are we going to Dortmund already?

Yeah, we do.

That is the thing, having both, both are fullbacks to Dortmund, aren't they?

Yeah.

Yeah, Ramelo was a name that jumped out to me.

I couldn't remember.

I thought he was more of like a DM.

Yeah, he's a central midfielder, really.

He was

play that deep kind of screen.

Should we have one of the benders then?

I think so.

I think we want to have, like,

the fact there are two of them as well.

Are they actually centre-backs though, Kev?

Sven was, yeah,

Sven played a lot there.

Lars Bender could play fullback, but could also

play in that midfield role.

I would fly the flag slightly for Benedict Herbertus as well, because I know people will say, oh, but he was such a big part of them winning the 2014 World Cup.

But throughout that entire World Cup, people, myself included, were going, well, he's the wink, we clink.

Yeah, he is there.

This is ridiculous.

What?

Him against Messi.

This is going to be an absolute disaster.

And he was brilliant all the way through.

He was at Schalker for a long, long, long time

in their youth system.

And he has that wonderful thing of as soon as he left Germany, the whole thing fell apart.

He went to Juventus.

And I remember him going to Juventus and thinking, that feels like a stretch.

And he had lots of injuries, only played a few games, then did a random season at locomotive Moscow.

I don't remember any of this.

Yeah, I think he won the cup there as well.

I think he won a trophy when he was there and then went, I don't want to do this anymore and came back.

So,

and

I was just working on a documentary about Ruhr clubs and about that whole region.

And

there was a part on him and how the fans still regard him so highly.

And Norbert Elger, who's

basically a genius of youth development at Schalker, all of those kids who've come through the Knappensmieder Academy there, that's him, basically.

He set the whole thing up, really.

He was one of his his favourite players.

He said, whenever I think of him, I smile.

Really good guy to deal with.

So he's still very popular in the Ruhr.

Is he our first umlaut as well?

Ah, yes, he would be.

Yes, he would.

He is a little 2014 World Cup for me.

Just putting that as

a kind of mark against him, because I do remember him being quite, he was significant, like you say, Kept, because he was seen as that weak link.

And he came in.

Wasn't that because they moved Lahm?

And because he didn't Lahm start in midfield They needed somebody to fill that position.

Yeah.

He'd been largely a satisfied.

I mean, he was always seen as somebody who was quite versatile, I think, but he wasn't expected to play there.

He looked pretty lumbering, I seem to remember at fullback.

Well, that's another reason for him to be in.

That's true.

Like that meme of the guy walking with his girlfriend and seeing the person walking past.

My attention has been drawn away from Svenbender, and now I'm looking at the tremendously named Benedict Hervades.

I like this.

Locomotive Moscow aside.

So let's slot him in alongside Naldo in the heart of our back four.

That's our defense and goalkeeper taken care of.

We'll be back very shortly with our midfielders.

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oh look at that

that is wonderful

Welcome back to football cliches.

This is the pure Bundesliga 11.

So far we've got hands your butts in goal, a back four of Kevin Grosskreutz, Naldo, Benedict Hervades, and Marcel Schmeltzer.

Into midfield, a very fruitful area of the pitch, I suspect.

Kev, I put it to you straight away.

Unlike Lukas Piscick, Jakob Blazikovsky isn't eligible for this 11 on the basis of being 2 Euro 2012.

Yes, and also...

Yeah, I think he's...

I think partially because of the name, maybe it's just me being a nerd, but it kind of that did get him noticed outside of Germany, I think, because you had that whole Kuba thing that's a bit flashy isn't it really he's got his own nickname on his shirt um so yeah i i didn't actually think of of putting him in and he played out wide a fair bit as well um so i did kind of use this slot as an opportunity to get an asian player in there because i think with the bundeslieger

whether it's Korean players, Japanese players, you know, there's been a really strong tradition that goes back a long time, actually,

of having Asian players in there.

So, Makoto Hasebe elbowed his way into the defensive midfield position because

he was around for ages.

He won the league with Volfsborg.

A lot later in his career, he won the Pokale and the Europa League with Ainschrutt-Frankfurt.

But nobody would remember him as one of the star players because he was just so unfussy and consistent and just got on with it.

And also, he justified my love of wasting time and having a bath, effectively, because he said when he was asked how do you carry on how have you managed to carry on for so long and you know last until you're 40 went I have a bath every day with bath salts so that was my excuse for basically grabbing a book getting a coffee and having a bath I could go well if Makoto hasabe can do it then it's good enough for me I think any any sort of Japanese player who comes to the Bundesliga and plays over a hundred games for two different clubs has clearly become part of the furniture Charlie so I feel like we have to allow for this sort of subcategory of players so I quite like this here are some other midfield names for you um Hammett Altintop says Skinner's steamed hams is pure Bundesliga but possibly a bit too Euro 2008 so I agree with that he's out on that basis alone King Canary though says Tim Borovsky meat and potatoes Bundesliga midfielder a solid upper mid-table Bundesliga team one season at Bayern then straight back to Verda literally never played in another league I do like meat and potatoes midfielders yeah I mean that I I had Carsten Ramelo, the aforementioned, as well.

Jens Jeremy's, again, one of these players I don't really know a huge amount about, but just seemed...

Ratty little man, isn't he?

Yeah, just seemed to sort of pop up a little bit.

A German gattuso, I think.

Right.

It's a great shit.

Yes.

Then there's the sort of...

Well, there are two different kind of British options because you've got the kind of Sancho

type, exciting winger.

Then you've got the guys like Gittens and Masiala who are like, is he English?

Is he German?

Am I really thick for not knowing this?

Because it kind of seems like he's English, but he plays in Germany.

I'm not really sure and I don't want to ask.

Then you've got the kind of Paul Lambert, John Collins thing, Lewis Holtby, who is another kind of Anglo-German hybrid midfield guy.

And then there's another kind of just all on his own thing is Hassan Salahamazic.

Because he's just so,

I don't, I don't think of him as having a great Champions League moment, particularly.

I'm sure he would have done that I'm not aware of, but nothing massively mainstream and certainly not at international level.

And also, a kind of tick for him is that he's now, what, sporting director of Bay Munich, or he was the sporting director of Bayer Munich, so he's kind of got that like football admin role as well.

Yeah, this wouldn't be a Bundesliga 11 if we're not giving sort of constant shout-outs to executive-level former players

sticking their nose in.

But the crucial issue with Hassin Salihamidzich, Kev, is whether he's two Champions League for this team.

I think he's just the right side of this.

And if so, he has to be a fixture.

Yeah, I'm still distracted by the idea of Lewis Holtby, though.

I agree with you about Salehamidic, because he worked with Khan, actually, at Bayern.

And they both got the push.

And I seem to remember they got the push the day, either the day they won the league or the day after.

They fired

Yulian Nagel's man in a kind of really transparent effort to save their own skins and got booted anyway, even though they delivered the league on the final day of the season.

So he could be like the right winger and the sporting director of this team.

This is true.

I'm not sure he was a very good sporting director, though.

Nobody knows what they do.

Don't worry.

Exactly.

But Louis Holtby,

I would push forward as well, simply because

he had a bit of a kind of weird journey in German football.

Because when he first broke through, when he was at Mainz, he was this kind of quite and Aachen before that, but he was this quite progressive, attacking attacking player.

And then he came back later in his career, having been at Spurs and he'd done all that.

And then he came back and he'd remodeled himself into this kind of scrappy-doo figure that he was kind of this little pocket rocket who was going around trying to fight everybody.

So he was at Hamburg for a bit and then he's still doing it for Holstein Key.

He's still only 34 for them.

He's completely changed his game.

Yeah,

there does feel like something very Bundestiger about him for the different clubs he's played for and the different roles he's had.

Ambiguity of nationality is a huge issue in this team.

And I think Lewis Holtby just edges out Aaron Hunt for English parentage but actually full German.

So I yeah, so Lewis Holtby's got a big, big sort of shout for this team.

But Dave, where would you want to what kind of avenue do you want to lead us down as well?

Two things that I want to mention.

One, I think we need to nod to the sort of Turkish element within the Bundesliga, which is quite strong.

There's some dual nationality players there as well, sort of, you know, big names like Erzil or Gundewin.

But I think we should consider Nuri Sahin, who part of that, again, part of that Dortmund team, but flopped at Real Madrid and Liverpool, like didn't...

didn't do it when he got his his moves away.

So I think he's definitely a candidate for the midfield.

I also think we need to sprinkle some glamour on this team.

Like we can't, we can't be playing into the Bundesliga stereotype of it being two meat and potatoes.

I think we need to consider Thiago Alcantara.

Because

he basically, if you look at his whole career, obviously he signed from Barcelona, went to Bayern with Pep and was like a big part of the Pep Bayern team, which we haven't mentioned at all yet.

He's not won anything with Spain and he obviously came to Liverpool and had that sort of late career spell with Liverpool.

But his pomp was at Bayern

in that sort of all-conquering Pep Bayern team, which famously didn't win the Champions League.

But he missed a year of 2012 through injury, which would have been the tournament he could have won with Spain.

I think, yeah, I think he's surely he's got to be up right up there with one of the Bundesliga's best ever players, Kev.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, he was a joy to commentate on.

He was a wonderful, wonderful player to watch.

I just wonder if he's a little bit too stylish.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I agree with you about falling into that trap.

No, but I'm thinking, do we need, I'm thinking, do we need a Fürungspieler?

Now, what I mean by that is that term in German is one of these

Effenberg Mateus types who says, You're all rubbish, I'm going to win this game.

And I thought about Effenberg and I thought about Matteus, and then I landed on Michael Balak.

And the reason I landed on him, even though, again, he might be a bit too show-biz,

the thing with him is that he was part of that Leberkusen team that was one of the most tragic Bundesliga teams of all time because they got beat in the cup final, they lost the Champions League final to Real Madrid at

Hamden with that Zidane volley.

And also they finished second in the league.

And he kind of managed to bounce back from that.

But I think he did the same at Chelsea.

I think he maybe finished second in all three trophies with Chelsea.

He feels very, very Bundesliga to me, at least to start with, because he also represents a theme in German football, which is Bayern looking across at a player and going, well, you're too good to play for them.

You need to come and play for us.

And so they did that a lot.

So he's one of those that they just went yoink and put him in their team.

So he felt like kind of the Führer and Spieler that I would choose.

That is a compelling case.

What I liked about Balak, specifically in terms of his German-ness, was the puffed-out chest, which was very Andreas Muller.

Yes.

There was something very Muller about that kind of implied arrogance about him.

But unfortunately, my abiding image of Mikhail Balak, despite being this perennial runner-up, is him running after Tom Henning of Raybo in a Chelsea shirt during that infamous game against Barcelona in 2009.

That rules him out.

And as for Thiago Alcantara, I mean, I want to get too tactical about this, but German football, does German football really ever embrace that kind of metronomic kind of sort of pass merchant in that sense?

I think they do.

I think they have done more since.

I think Quadiola did change it, actually, a lot.

And I think teams did realise that if you had, I mean, he's as luxury a kind of tempo setter as you could have, isn't he, really?

But I think that kind of player did become a bit more fashionable.

So, but he's as deluxe as you can get.

So, we need more arrogance in this team.

Yeah, but maybe I am doing the Bundesliga down a bit.

Maybe we should have some stardust in here instead of people who'll just kind of slam into people at high speed.

Although I felt like Balak was kind of a good mix of that, because

he had all those German values, but he had a fair bit of stardust on top.

It's the age-old question as well.

Do we go 4-3-3 or 4-4-2 here?

I guess we can see

how the strikers shake out.

But I guess the fundamental thing with Tiago is

whether we want to kind of recognise that pet period or whether we think that was just a complete mad outlier.

Because I do think of it like that.

I have to say, and that's not Bayern being Bayern.

I just, yeah, I just think it was such an anomalous period.

I mean,

I often forget that Guardioli was even at Bayern.

I have to say.

It just seems like those mad Champions League semifinals.

Yeah, but yeah, it just felt like he just transported himself and his world into that.

And it was just this little moment in time.

That definitely happened.

And it's all, I mean, Mario Goetz is one that people will wonder about as well, actually.

But

he's an interesting player in the sense that I feel like his spell at Bayern gets written off.

I think there's a lot of revisionism about his time at Bayern.

People go, oh, he was a real failure at Bayern.

And then you look at the numbers and some of the football he played.

And the first two

third season...

He was injured and he didn't play that much and didn't play particularly well.

First two seasons, he was great.

We can't have a World Cup final.

No, no, no.

I'm not suggesting him to you, but

it's just an illustration, I guess, of how that Guardiola period is quite an odd one.

I've just remembered Juan Arango, by the way.

Why not?

He could easily be a Wimbledon Stalwart, couldn't he, Charlie?

As well?

Yeah, more a Clay Court player.

Yeah,

pure Claycourt.

Really never going to be on the second round at Wimbledon.

But he was a phenomenal player, Arango.

And in your La Liga episode, you had that German commentary where they went, The streets will remember, or the streets will never forget.

And he is streets will never forget player, a Rango.

People, he was only there for five years at Gladbach.

He didn't actually score that many goals.

He averaged out like five goals a season.

They are almost exclusively absolute bangers.

It's ridiculous.

Like, all left-footed.

He was Venezuelan.

He came in.

He'd been pretty much a journeyman before then.

Came in three kicks, 40 yards, swerving drives, volleys, you name it.

And people, people still talk about him even now.

It did make me think, actually, German commentary has a habit of doing this, that kind of spell of German and then throw an English phrase in.

And we were talking about tennis just now.

I watched Angie Kerber against somebody in a Grand Slam final.

I can't remember what, but I was in Germany at the time.

Had the commentary on, and there was this long rally, and Kerber managed to win it.

And the commentator had done it all in German, and then for no reason, just went drama, baby, drama, and went back into German.

It was sensational.

That's actually genuinely one of the most uncool things I've ever heard of them play.

Well, I mean, yeah, does that voyage into English every now and then?

Do you know what?

I haven't even opened the can of worms marked Mimit Shoal yet.

Too good.

Too good.

Way too good.

Yeah, way too good.

Oh, right.

Way too good.

I was watching back that Champions League final for something when Bayern played United.

He was so good when he came on.

Like,

I mean, Bayern should have won that game six times earlier.

I still can't believe they didn't win it.

But he feels too good for me.

Wasn't he quite big in the United States Germany team as well, Mehmet Schaal?

Yeah, he played, yeah.

He was an absolutely tremendous player.

I think if you're thinking of Bundesliga, and when I think of Bundesliga players who pop up on those compilations all the time and who I think of as like, wow, what a player he was for a bit.

Arango maybe feels more appropriate than Scholar.

I don't know.

No place for Mark Van Bommel.

Just too good.

He

good.

To

other slough.

Yeah,

Netherlands.

Yeah, two games.

To that game where everyone got sent off in the same game.

Yeah.

It's a tricky idea.

This midfield is perhaps lacking a little bit of stardust.

We can still return to it.

It's not locked in.

But Makota Hasebi, Hassan Salihamidzic, and Louis Holtby are our midfield trio for now.

We'll be back very shortly with our forward line.

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They're reviewing the American Revolution.

The British were initiating force, and the Americans were retaliating.

Okay.

Where did they initiate force?

It started in their taxation without representation.

Why is that wrong?

The purpose of a government is to protect individual rights, and by encroaching on individual rights, they cannot protect them.

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welcome back to football clichés this is the pure bunders league 11 we're at the business end of this team onto our forward line we've got as it stands we've got a front three we've got lewis holtby in midfield so we can't have aaron hunt up front you know we've got the age-old debate of wolf kirsten but is olive marshall i mean who do you pick uh kevin karanyi came up in dispatches quite a lot, Charlie.

How do you feel about Kevin Karanyi?

Yeah, I mean, it was definitely one of those names I thought, great shout, not a name I've heard of for a while.

I mean, I really like the graffiti, you know, because it was him and Jeko, wasn't it?

They formed this like incredible partnership for Wolfsburg, I think.

Yeah.

And I'm, or was it Wolfsburg?

It was, wasn't it?

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

They were title winners in 2009.

Those two, Jacko, yeah.

Sensational.

He feels like he's got a really good shout.

There's Giovanni Elber as well, because he never never really did anything for Brazil.

Then guys like Claudio Pizzaro, Mario Gomez, and then keeping in the, depending on the structure of it, the kind of, is there room for a Sancho type character?

And then also the other sort of trope, I suppose, is the kind of formerly elite striker who's slightly winding down and thinking you're Van Nistelroys, you're Rauls, those kind of guys.

We can't have Raul in the Bundesliga 11.

There would be, I think people would genuinely unsubscribe from Dreamland if they heard that Raul have made it into a Bundesliga 11.

Charlie's lost it.

Charlie's lost it.

He's lost a yard of pace.

Yeah, I don't mean specifically, but you know, those kind of people, or Klas Jan Hunterla, someone like that.

Maybe he's more kind of appropriate.

That's weird.

I never think of the Bundesliga Kev as a place where people go to spend their twilight years at all.

Not just because it's, you know, high octane or anything like that.

It just doesn't feel like the place that players would go to spend their last couple of years.

Raul seems quite strange in that respect.

Raul's a real outlier, just in general.

It was just generally weird that that he was there.

And Shalker fans absolutely loved it.

And that kick was great as well.

Yeah.

Massive numbers and letters.

And he scored some great goals when he was there.

There was one particular one where he lifted the ball over the goalkeeper from close range, and that gets played in combilations endlessly.

But he's far too showbiz for this.

Far too showbiz.

Can I get two things out of the way before we come back to

some of those names?

I think, again, Kev,

we've got to not be afraid of Stardust here.

We've got to bang the the drum for the Bundesliga's elite level credentials.

Thomas Muller and Robert Lewandowski, you could both dismiss them as being

too World Cup for Muller, too Champions League for Muller.

Lewandowski's too sort of disappointing at major tournaments.

Now he's at Barcelona.

But I saw, who is it, Vermilion Dynamite on Reddit made the case for Muller, saying he's so uniquely Bundesliga, even at his own position within the Bundesliga that seemingly no one else has ever taken up outside of that role.

You associate him with the sort of, you know, Pratt falling around after Bayern of one another title, throwing beer, wearing the Lada hose and doing his stand-up on the pitch.

Like he, yes, he has done, he had the big moments in World Cups and in Champions League, but he...

revels in being like the Bayern guy in the all-conquering Bayern team who just winning 10 titles in a row, he loves every single one as much as the others sort of thing.

I think he does embody something uniquely Bundesliga.

And Lewandowski as well, still, to me, looks weird in a Barcelona shirt.

Never really done it in a major tournament, just but you always hear of him going into the major tournaments because he just plundered so many goals in the Bundesliga as well.

I would say Muller is pure, unadulterated Bundesliga.

Like,

he just, I would say he has to be in there because

he, for a start, he is so fiercely Bavarian.

Like, he's from the region.

He was picked up at 10.

He'd scored like 100 goals in one season for PAL, which was his local team.

They brought him in, and

he is kind of, he does represent.

So, one of the reasons that he should go in there is because he really aligns with kind of the way Germans kind of operate.

And what I mean by that is, yes, it's about where you come from, but it's about your region as well.

And Germany's very federal.

It's very, oh, you're from Bavaria.

You must be like this.

Oh, you're from, you know, North Rhine-Westphalia.

You do this.

It's very kind of fiercely federal and he is ultimate bavarian and i think the fact that the whole ramdeuter thing the fact that they came up with a long german word just to try and explain what he did um the ultimate competitor so i think he embodies a bit of german society that mere san meer thing we are what we are at buyer but also that kind of journey towards modernity that i think german football's had and he's quite good fun you know and again you look at him and you just think, is he an elite footballer?

Yes.

An athlete?

No, absolutely.

What is this?

And then you realize how absolutely incredible he is.

So, yeah, I think he absolutely has to be.

That fun aspect is important as well, I think, because over the last few years, we've become more aware of the fact that German footballers, there does feel something a bit more accessible about them somehow compared to often the slightly robotic way that footballers are presented in the Premier League.

You know, like you'll see an interview with a player like Frimpong's done a lot of great interviews.

And you're like, oh, yeah, these guys seem a lot more sort of grounded and accessible.

And Muller is a really good example of that.

It's something the league's worked really hard on in the last few years.

Yeah, from kind of the...

They want to bring those stories out.

They want to kind of, and Muller's great for that because he's quite honest.

He's very engaging.

I'm glad Dave mooted Thomas Muller here at the risk of, you know, being pilloried for picking a man who is too international football.

He's not.

And you know what?

He's perhaps not even polished enough to be pure Champions League either.

And given, crucially, that I can't imagine him playing in any other league in his career, Thomas Muller is going into our front three.

Now, we have to return to our Brazilian options here because James Robertson says we've got to have a Brazilian kicker Toyega Canona winner in here.

Either Marcio Amoroso, Grafica, Giovanni Albert or Aielton.

Now, I think it comes down to Graffit or Ailton for here.

Ailton was the first foreigner to win the German Player of the Year.

He was quite fat for a footballer, says Frederick Stuver.

Won Werde Bremen a title in 2004, and was talk of him becoming naturalised to solve Germany's perennial striker problem.

So we've got two issues at play here.

Naturalisht Brazilians who like settled in Germany so well that they became part of the furniture.

One, and quite obscure names as well.

And two, Germany does seem to have this kind of slight parallel problem with English footballers.

Occasionally, we run out of strikers, Kev, and there's just nobody to fill the gap.

They've had as many jobbing journeymen number nines nines as we have in their squads, going, What are you doing here?

And it does feel like we share that kind of scarcity sometimes.

Yeah, it's a really interesting one, actually, because German football a few years ago got really obsessed with this idea of where are all the centre-forwards?

Where's Mario Gomez?

Where, you know, guys like that.

And actually, they've managed to find a few, but where they found them is guys that were there all along that weren't really doing anything for ages.

Nicolas Volkrug, who bless him, has had like four knee operations, and he's been a really late bloomer.

So he came into the team and was suddenly absolutely tremendous for Germany.

His goal scoring record is crazy, but he was that old school, not closer type necessarily, but a genuine nine.

And Tim Kleindienst is the other one.

Tim Kleindienst in the season just gone.

I mean, he was playing second-tier football a couple of years ago.

Now he's in the Germany squad, and he's probably going to be at the World Cup as long as he has a decent season.

He probably will be there because, again, he's that, you know, big, tall, good-in-the-air centre-forward that German fans absolutely recognize as somebody as you need in your team at some stage.

We've surely got to have Claudio Pizzaro, though.

Surely, we can't overthink this.

The bloach played for Werder Bremen four different times.

Yes, that's true.

He's the oldest ever scorer.

No, well, he stopped for

German football, I think, at 41, maybe.

He's the oldest ever scorer in the Bundesliga.

Yeah, he had that spell at Chelsea, didn't he?

Didn't he?

Because he didn't do anything at Chelsea.

Max Cruzer's another.

Sorry, I just have to force in Max Cruzer there because he is a player that, again, you look at and think, that guy's a professional footballer, right?

And then you see the ball go to him and go, ah, yes, that guy's a professional footballer.

Like, Maverick doesn't do it justice.

This is a guy who left tens of thousands of Euros of poker winnings in the back of a ticket once and lost them.

Got dropped by Germany for various reasons.

Was addicted to Nutella and had to be told by

his, I think that was, I think it was at Volfsborg, maybe.

He got told, Alver de Bremen, one of the two, he got told, you have to cut out the Nutella.

This is ridiculous.

We need our players to be in top shape.

So he got told to come off that.

Journeyman, to some extent, was at lots of different clubs.

Was really popular at most of them.

And also has that Bundesliga tick against his name of having been bombed out by a taskmaster coach

because when he was at Volksborg, Nico Kovac came in and went, hmm, how can I make a statement?

You.

So he ditched him.

And he also underlines this link that players have with the tabloids.

He is in built, which is kind of, you know, one of the most recognizable tabloids in Germany all the time.

Right.

Because he's always slagging off coaches, slagging off players, going on reality shows.

He was on the Turkish version of The Voice when he was at Fenerbace.

And his his wife's quite glamorous as well, so she's always in the tabloid.

So they're kind of like a rubbish posh and bex, really.

So I just, this is astonishing.

You should be an agent the way you talk about some of these players.

Max Kruser wasn't even on the radar here.

He's one of my favorite ever players.

Okay, well,

I want to stick with this tangent then.

Let's stick with these kind of curious, sort of middling German characters up front.

Max Kruser may well be in the prime position here, but the overwhelming shout amongst our listeners, Charlie, for R Striker.

So many people came out with this, but Elliot Cobb perhaps summed it up best.

Stefan Kiesling, for me, played in the Bundesliga his whole career, can't knock a name with an S S.

Nothing glamorous about him.

Just lump it up to him in the box and he'll do the rest.

Ben Dunks, Kiesling, got to be in there.

Banged in a ton of goals over the years, but everyone knows if he got a £50 million move to Everton in 2010, it would have resulted in seven goals in 40 appearances and a return to Leverkusen, so he had to stay an internal Bundesliga Mund.

I mean, I know next to nothing about Stefan Kiesling, but I'm already very convinced he should be in and around this team.

Yeah, I mean, the fact that he was at Leverkusen for this long over that period and has made such little impact,

I guess, is to his credit that he kind of did it all.

I mean, and what, six caps for Germany?

Right then.

It's time to make some decisions.

Dave, I'm going to give you the decision to make between our South Americans.

We're going to either go for Grafic, who scored that ridiculous goal for Volsberg, let's not forget.

Having that kind of singular moment really does lend itself to any themed 11.

You've got Big Fat Ilton, who the first foreigner to win German Football of the Year, or you've got Claudio Pizarro.

Who are you going for?

Could we, before I make my decision, could we perhaps go full Garth Crookes and play some sort of mad 3-3-4 formation or something?

Absolutely not.

Okay, fair play.

I do like Graffita and that sort of playing for a Wolfsburg.

lots of people went for him amongst the listenership, Dave.

Don't let the listeners down.

Playing for a Wolfsburg team that won the league.

Can I have one quick interjection on behalf of Grafische?

And it is relevant to commentary, by the way.

One of the iconic commentary moments in Bundesiga history came from one of his goals.

So a colleague of mine, Gary Preston, who is an extraordinary character, love him dearly, he's a great guy, and he's been Bundesliga commentator forever, for years and years and years and years.

Grafische scores is this incredible goal against Bayern.

He glides past about five players and then he scores with a back heel into the opposite corner.

It's an absolutely amazing goal.

Gary's commentary, he does it and then he says, after Grafisch scores, I'm going to do a Brazilian one now.

Go!

And he does that for no apparent reason.

Grafische.

Still Grafische tight knots in the complete defense.

Brilliant stuff.

Oh, it's got it for the goal of the season.

What a goal.

I'm going to do a Brazilian one here now.

Go!

And that's become one of the kind of iconic Bundesliga commentary moments.

So I thought I'd just add that in there to boost graffiti.

More grist to the graffiti Jamil.

Yeah, definitely.

I think that edges him ahead of Aylton with some regrets.

So it's between him and Claudio Pizarro now, Dave.

I feel like I'm apologising at the end of a blind ranking, but I'm sorry, Claudio.

Mate, I'm sorry.

I've messed this up, but we're going to have to go graffiti.

Talk, man.

Well, that leaves it over to you now.

Kevin Hatchard, it's going to be Max Cruiser or Stefan Kiesling.

I think I know who you're going for.

Cruz is getting in there, but Kiesling has a couple of things going for him.

Not only executive level, because he's gone up at Labour Cousin, but he also scored a Phantom phantom goal.

He scored a phantom goal against Hoffenheim once.

It went through the net on the other side and nobody picked it up.

It was extraordinary.

But that doesn't matter.

Sorry, Stefan.

Max Cruz is getting in.

Right then.

Well, that concludes our lineup business.

Hans-Jorg Butt in goal.

A back four of Kevin Grosskreutz, Naldo, Benedict Hervades, and Marcel Smeltzer.

A midfielder of Makota Hasebi, Hassan Salihamidzic, and Louis Holtby.

Up front, Thomas Muller, our captain, I would suspect, alongside Grafita and Max Cruiser.

But this team would be an aimless, rudderless bunch without a man to lead them all.

Who is our manager?

Charlie, you've got Wolfgang Wolf.

You've got Hoob Stevens.

Who are you going for?

Klaus Topmuller.

Just

feels absolutely right for this.

Felix McGatt, as well, I saw mentioned, but I don't know if he's too Fulham and...

Rubs cheese into Fulham players' legs for me uh warren heyman agrees with you though um klaus totmuller has an umlaut in his name had a moment in the sun with lever kusen before managing at a raft of german clubs including bockham an 80s 90s friday night dfs favourite alongside duisberg plus three caps of west germany and a brief failed role coaching georgia Perfect.

Can you?

And just look at the guy.

He just, he's just perfect.

So German.

He's so German.

And his son's a manager now as well.

Yes, Dino.

He

loses German football.

Can you make any advances on Klaus Tottmull or anybody?

I don't think I can.

I think that's a really great shout, actually.

Unless you want to drag it into the sort of modern era of kind of highly rated

children who are managers.

Off-linked coaches to jobs.

Also, a bit of a red ball merchant, Marco Rosa, who is currently at Leipzig, I think, isn't he?

He was let go by Leipzig late in the season.

He seems to be constantly getting sacked, Marco Rosa, or about to be sacked, which I think he's had a rough run.

Yeah.

He's had a Kev was worried, Dave, about picking managers who are too recent, too new, but you know, Bundesliga is all about new young hip coaches.

And when I say hip, they're hip in a football sense, but obviously they dress slightly just underneath the acceptability for looking fashionable.

There's something slightly wrong about the way they're dressed.

It's those crisp white trainers with the Chinos,

and just it's a terrible look, but also quite forward-looking situation, isn't it?

Nagelsman turning up to training on the skateboard or whatever it was.

Yeah, try-hard does sum it up quite well, I think.

Oh, Knucklesman's the ultimate in that.

I mean, some of the stuff he wore in that first Champions League run with Hoffenheim was extraordinary.

Outsized waistcoats.

Very odd.

Very, very odd.

But yeah, let's go classic.

Let's go for Klaus Top Muller.

I've really enjoyed this.

Thank you so much, Kevin.

That was amazing.

Oh, it's been great fun.

It's been great fun.

Getting me talking about old school Bundesliga, as you've discovered, it's very difficult to shut me up.

Yeah, I do fear without you, we would have had a sort of like one of of those joke combined 11s.

We basically would have had the entire 2011 Dortmund team.

If that's one thing you can take away from this episode, it's that you managed to steer us away from being pure Dortmund.

And thanks so much, Kevin.

Pleasure.

Thanks to you, Charlie Eccleshare.

Thank you.

Dankershare to you, David Walker.

Thank you.

Thanks to everyone for listening.

We'll be back on Tuesday.

See you then.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.

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