Bochum-Dynamo Dresden preview

They’ve beaten West Ham United 3-0 and held English Premier League champions Manchester City to a 0-0 draw this summer, but such morale-boosting results will count for nothing if Dynamo Dresden don’t produce the goods on the pitch against Bochum this weekend. This is the first match of the 2012/13 2. Bundesliga season for these two sides, both of whom harbour promotion aspirations, and have the history to back such claims up: Bochum have spent seven of the last ten seasons in the top-flight, while Dresden are moving in the right direction after a decade and a half of difficulties following their relegation from the Bundesliga in 1995.

After an unbeaten pre-season, and with a victory at the RewirPower-Stadion already under their belts this calendar year (2-0 in March… preceded by a 2-1 home victory in September), Dresden will be the more confident of the two sides coming into this game (even if club captain Cristian Fiél did take the decision to step down from the role during the week for personal reasons, and promising young attacker Hasan Pepic was sentenced to seven days in a youth detention centre for fare-dodging on Wednesday). Bochum, meanwhile, have not been in the greatest form this summer (culminating in a 4-1 defeat at the hands of Borussia Mönchengladbach last Saturday), and star player Takashi Inui has left for pastures new (Eintracht Frankfurt).

Advertisement

Duisburg-Hansa Rostock preview

Two of the early season strugglers meet tomorrow lunchtime in the 2. Bundesliga, as newly-promoted Hansa Rostock travel to Duisburg. After a surprise defeat to Paderborn on the opening day of the new league season, Rostock have gone on to draw three successive games – 1-1 against Dynamo Dresden and 0-0 with Bochum in 2. Bundesliga, and a 2-2 draw and penalties exit to Bochum, again, in the cup. Therefore, Peter Vollmann’s East German outfit boast one more point than last season’s cup-finalists Duisburg, who stopped a losing streak of two games by beating Babelsberg in the cup, before drawing 0-0 away at FSV Frankfurt last weekend (despite putting in a lifeless performance).

I noted before Duisburg’s game against FSV that it’s surely only a matter of time before Duisburg bounce back; not just because of the size of the club, but also because of the players they’ve managed to bring in this summer.

FSV Frankfurt-Duisburg preview

The third round of the new 2. Bundesliga season continues today, with last season’s cup finalists travelling to one of the division’s smaller sides. Nevertheless, Hans-Jürgen Boysen’s FSV Frankfurt have made a better start to the season than their more illustrate opponents – taking one point from a possible six, compared to Milan Šašić’s Duisburg, joint bottom and yet to take a point. Nevertheless, it’s surely only a matter of time before Duisburg bounce back, not just because of the size of the club, but also because of the players they’ve managed to bring in. Some of the more notable additions include Jürgen Gjasula, acquired from FSV, Florian Fromlowitz (Hannover), Vasileios Pliatsikas (Schalke), Valeri Domovchiyski (Hertha BSC), Džemal Berberović (Litex Lovech), Jiayi Shao and Emil Jula (both Energie Cottbus), and Sergei Karimov (Wolfsburg). Essentially, therefore, they’ve brought in the spine of a brand new team. Thus, it’s going to take a while for these new players to gel, but as they have been added to an already strong 2. Bundesliga squad (albeit one which has lost five players of note in striker Stefan Maierhofer, goakeeper David Yelldell and midfielders Olcay Şahan, Ivica Banović  and Filip Trojan, who chipped in with seven assists last season), when it clicks, they’ll be up there challenging for promotion.