vollraute abroad - all gladbach news in one podcast

Sorry we’re late, the internet connection kept breaking down. Your hosts Manuel and Alexis, of course, never break down.

Instead, we break down pre-season developments and bring you up to date on the transformation of the squad who are going to represent probably the greatest club in the world this season. With the departure of big names Stindl, Bensebaini, Thuram, Elvedi, and … Whatsisname (the one who does ads for beauty products and now plays for a multi-national pharmaceutical and chemicals company) and the arrival of players known only to insiders such as us, namely Honorat, Cvancara, Hack, and Ranos, one could be either fearful of what lies ahead or enthusiastic about a breath of fresh air and the potential of our youngest squad in years.

For the fourth time in five years, Borussia Mönchengladbach have started the season with a new coach, as we still struggle to cope in the aftermath of the rather painful and harrowing divorce from former sporting director Max Eberl, the man who built us up only to try to pull us down. Will Gerald Aseaone, who has an impressive track record, finally be the one who leads the team’s football in the right direction?

Find out all you need to know about the first two Bundesliga matches, the first one a (partly for the wrong reasons) breathtakingly entertaining away game in Augsburg, the second one a depressing humiliation by a group of players financed by and representing a multi-national pharmaceutical and chemicals company, a team that has never had enough supporters to fill its own 30 000 capacity stadium even though they’ve been playing in the Champions League every second year for decades.

In the run-up to the home match against Bayern Munich, we have chosen Igor de Camargo’s possibly wiliest goal as our Legendary Goal: the 1-0 against Bayern Munich in 2011 that sealed our first away win there for 15 years and kick-started one of our Legendary Seasons as well as our run of good results to this day against possibly the biggest show-offs and worst losers in the football business.

Legendary goal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYAj2WpDJTQ

Topic-Jingle: Apple/Garageband

Host: Manuel Breuer // @binger05

Co-Host: Alexis

Just wait till next year!

Sorry we're late, we couldn't find the "REC" button. So we were forced to cram the second two-thirds of the season into one programme. We start off relatively subdued and sober but we gradually pick up speed and take you on a gripping rollercoaster (ghost) ride through season 2022/23: re-live with us the mounting horror as it dawns on us that our coach is actually an imposter (possibly an alien shape-shifter?) who has never trained a football team before, the nightmarish paralysis inflicted on us by zombie-esque performances of our talented but uninterested players, the anguish and misery as we witness the buffoonery of provincial oafs at press conferences, the torture of hoping against hope that things will somehow get better although we don't know how, when or why. This is offset by the (maybe somewhat forced) admission that the season did have some nice moments, too, and at least we weren't fighting relegation, something we would have been extremely grateful for just over ten years ago. And our new sporting director didn't do everything wrong. And we still are probably the greatest club in the world.

We'll be back. See you next season!

Topic-Jingle: Apple/Garageband

Host: Manuel Breuer // @binger05

Co-Host: Alexis

Right! Sorry to have kept you waiting, but the dog ate our recording. You will have been waiting with baited breath, surely, to see whether we are still as content as we were in episode 90 with the direction the undoubtedly greatest team, club and coach in the world are going. Or are they going in a direction at all? Listen to this episode to find out if we know the answer.

In episode 91 we present a recap of 9 matches in one slim, trim podcast. The dedicated listeners to Vollraute Abroad will know that we love categorising our team's performances - this time it'll be: the unforgivable, the undistinguishable, and the unforgettable - our team has been going from one extreme to the next. On the one hand, we rejoice in the VERY IMPORTANT derby win against Cologne, which was, to our great relief, a grand success and - as Borussia folklore has it - an omen that Daniel Farke is indeed the chosen one. On the other, we indulge in horrible and gruesome revenge fantasies against the club, players, fans and inhabitants of Darmstadt. Further talking points: the alarming amount of injuries afflicting the team and, as usual, upcoming matches.

This episode's legendary goal is from a match against the valiant Champions League contenders and Europa League winners Eintracht Frankfurt who will be coming to Mönchengladbach on Saturday evening, 22nd October, and who actually weren't good sports at all the last time they showed up. But not as rotten as Darmstadt.

„So good to be back home again" - Al Green had it spot on in arguably the most tender and loving hommage ever to very probably the greatest club in the world. (Check out the lyrics - you'll see.)

You know when there's been a heatwave and you're so grateful for the first somewhat cooler day for what seems like an age?

That's what it's like to be a Borussia Mönchengladbach aficionado at the moment. After two to three years too close to the heat, everyone seems relieved to be back where we belong, with a modest and sensible coach and manager promising a return to what it means to be the club from the Lower Rhine. And, of course, it's so good to be back with you again, dear listeners.

 

The contents of our latest humble (yet brilliant) offering: the Bundesliga matches against Hoffenheim and Schalke, the first round in the national cup, the new players (especially the very promising debut by Ko Itakura), the new-old Borussia spirit once again  informing our team, developments in tactics and formation, and a look forward to the home match against Hertha BSC Berlin.

 

The legendary goal is Raffael's belter against Hertha in Berlin in 2017. Otherwise worshipped for his delicate, thoughtful and breathtaking dribbling, with which he seemed to caress the ball into goal, football god Raffael proved he could also score by thumping the ball really, really hard from very far away, too.

Host: Manuel Breuer

Co: Alexis

This weeks legendary goal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpR8foQvZKs&t=6s (Timestamp: 1:44)

Topic-Jingle: Apple/Garageband

Sorry, folks! It's been a while, but Renaissance Man Manuel was working very hard pursuing his many careers and Alexis was away meditating on the remaining terrace of the Bökelberg stadium.

Pleasantly surprised to discover Borussia Mönchengladbach (probably the best club in the world) hadn't been relegated to the second division after all, and discarding Alexis' plan to meticulously describe and then categorise every single one of the remaining eight matches in a four-hour special, we decided to attempt a synopsis of last season by describing key moments of the campaign that we think will linger on, changes in personnel included.

Furthermore, we look forward to life with a new coach and a "back to the roots" change of course promised by our new manager.

Host: Manuel Breuer

Co-Host: Alexis

Credit: Intro/Outro-Musik von Nomoredolls, Electric Sheep, http://www.jamendo.com/de/track/275278/electric-sheep

Topic-Jingle: Apple/Garageband

Legendary goal:

https://twitter.com/borussia/status/1242820367590227968

Host: Manuel Breuer

Co-Host: Alexis

Credit: Intro/Outro-Musik von Nomoredolls, Electric Sheep, http://www.jamendo.com/de/track/275278/electric-sheep

Topic-Jingle: Apple/Garageband

Borussia,Mönchengladbach,Fanpodcast,Manuel,Alexis,Hertha,Bochum,Peintinger,Huetter,Season,Abstiegsgespenst

Please, can we stop the season right now?

Well, we predicted a "difficult" season in vollraute abroad #081, but this is ridiculous!

"Everything falls apart" could be an alternative title to Vollraute abroad #087 (and "From the gut" the soundtrack) as could "50 ways to torture a football fan", or "Explain the inexplicable". We sincerely hope that you, the dedicated listeners, appreciate the superhuman mental strength it took to recapitulate every single match since our win in Munich against Bayern (just thought I'd mention that), each one in its own way an evil, sadistic exercise in crushing all hope and optimism you might have held on to as a fan of still possibly the greatest club in the world.

Our legendary goal comes from a different era, when we had a team that Lucien Favre had formed, furbished, adjusted, oiled and tweaked until it was a gleaming, thunderous, unstoppable (except through foul play - curse you, Sevilla!) machine that powered through the Rückrunde on its way to a 3rd place in the league. Max Kruse's goal in the 90th minute of the home match against Wolfsburg on 26th April 2015 (who will be paying us a visit next Saturday) is a fine example of the inexorable football that never failed to bring our opponents to their knees that season, light years away from the current unprofessional and not in the least funny buffoonery that can only serve as a warning to future generations.

Legendary goal:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1joFteNGCU

Host: Manuel Breuer

Co-Host: Alexis

Credit: Intro/Outro-Musik von Nomoredolls, Electric Sheep, http://www.jamendo.com/de/track/275278/electric-sheep

Topic-Jingle: Apple/Garageband

Borussia,Mönchengladbach,Fanpodcast,2021/22,Bayern,Rueckrunde,Manuel,Alexis

Can we play you every week?

 

Happy New Year everyone! Just when we thought we'd have to go into relegation battle mode, grateful for every measly, undeserved point we are gifted, along come Bayern Munich and make us feel good about ourselves again. Thank you, folks, always a pleasure, and we're only too happy to discuss the match in great detail. 

 

Other topics this time: a cursory summary of the three last games of the annus horribilis 2021, developments on the transfer market, financial problems our club could be facing and possibly unpleasant solutions to these, as well as a possible new "core team" for the 2nd half of the season.

 

Legendary Goal: Patrick Herrmann's second goal against our next opponent Leverkusen in the legendary 6:3 away win on 29th August, 2010, his third of altogether 46 goals in the Bundesliga for the best club in the world in his now 83 years at Borussia Mönchengladbach. Our first away win in Leverkusen in 16 years marked the start of one of those traumatic free falls that Mönchengladbach fans have to cope with every now and again, but that's another story.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjrkbGx2wks&t=18s

Credit: Intro/Outro-Musik von Nomoredolls, Electric Sheep, http://www.jamendo.com/de/track/275278/electric-sheep

Topic-Jingle: Apple/Garageband

Borussia,Mönchengladbach,Fanpodcast,2021/22,Bayern,Rueckrunde,Manuel,Alexis

Temporarily (?) out of order

 

Borussia Moenchengladbach NUUUUULL - Freiburg SECHS ... seven days after cruising to a four nil win against puny Fürth, our current squad lose the prestigious derby against a limited but hard-working Cologne team in the final fifteen minutes after suffering a nervous breakdown and conceding three goals.

The weekend after that, they go ahead and ruin Christmas, the whole season and maybe even more with a historical nightmare day at the office wherein they concede six highly avoidable, bordering on slapstick, goals at home in 36 minutes against a worthy but unspectacular opponent.

 

How could such a talented bunch of young men playing for probably the best club in the world fall apart like that a mere five weeks after destroying Bayern Munich 5:0 (see Vollraute Abroad no. 84)? Was it a freak accident, or rather a bone-chilling harbinger of developments to come? Is there a pattern there? Whose fault is it anyway? Where did it all go wrong?

 

The circumstances may be beyond our control, but you can count on us (Manuel, Alexis, Kurtz, George Best) to gaze unflinchingly into the abyss and come up with an explanation more elaborate than "the horror, the horror".

 

Sorry, no legendary goal this podcast. We weren't in the mood

Credit: Intro/Outro-Musik von Nomoredolls, Electric Sheep, http://www.jamendo.com/de/track/275278/electric-sheep

Topic-Jingle: Apple/Garageband

We are a bit blasé about it in our recording, but we have to admit that Borussia Mönchengladbach, very probably the best club in the world, produced a magnificent performance, a work of art and infinite beauty, a lesson to others that will stand the test of time.

Bayern Munich, who have been gallavanting around Europe and Germany recently, spreading shock and awe and refusing to score less than four goals per match in the Bundesliga and Champions League, were thoroughly and comprehensively beaten, thumped, dissected, annhilated, made a laughing stock and sent home crying for Mummy in the second round of the German Cup. We were too fast, too good, too aggressive for them. From now on, they can just send the points to us in an envelope.

Joshua Kimmich was on the verge of tears and forgot to whine about unfair treatment; Manuel Neuer was too distraught to claim offside after he was made to look a fool for goal 3 and nutmegged for goal 4; Thomas Müller, for once, lost his jovial demeanour and could only stammer that he had never been so humiliated in his entire career at Bayern. Aaaah, a memory to savour for all eternity, a reason to grin smugly and condescendingly the next time we meet Uli Hoeneß.

Oh yes, and we also talk about three Bundesliga matches against mediocre teams that didn't go so well, too. And we preview Friday evening's match against Mainz.

The Legendary Goal is also a work of art, a thunderbolt that woke us from ten years of rubbish football, that still brings tears of joy to every Moenchengladbach supporter: Marco Reus' first Bundesliga goal for the Masters of the (Football) Universe, against Mainz on 28th August 2009, an epic solo, the first of many until he succumbed to the Dark Side and joined the Forces of Evil.

Credit: Intro/Outro-Musik von Nomoredolls, Electric Sheep, http://www.jamendo.com/de/track/275278/electric-sheep

Topic-Jingle: Apple/Garageband