The Lonely Dreamer

When i started of supporting the German NT, Bayern or the whole Bundesliga as a league in general, i used to spend alot of time surfing for articles on the internet which could catch my imagination to the beautiful world of German football. Blogs,websites,columns,forums or even wikipedia. Reading was all i used to do all day. Of writers who cover the bundesliga, three would easily stand out to be not only mine, but almost everyone's top favorite. Raphael Honigstein , Clark Whitney, and the one and only Uli Hesse Lichtenberger!! Uli Hesse Lichtenberger   Uli Hesse Lichtenberger was born in 1966 in Dortmund, Germany. He is a freelance writer , editor and author who writes on football. Since 2002 he has been he is a regular columnist for ESPNsoccernet. As by now you may have already known how big of a Klose worshiper i am. And so it happened during Euro 2008, i was surfing the internet on Germany's performances when i came across a article on Klose by Uli. So much was the ...

Unlike counterparts in England, Spain or Italy, German clubs have a knack of adorning their date of foundation with great importance. They treat their foundation date with such reverence that it almost always forms a part of the official club name – 1860 Munich, Schalke 04, Bayer 04 (Leverkusen), Mainz 05, BVB 09 (Dortmund), Hannover 96. Many more at least carry the dates in their club badge, like Bochum, Düsseldorf, St. Pauli or Duisburg do. VfB Stuttgart’s logo read ’1893′ but not ‘Stuttgart’ until 1999. These dates mark an important era of the beginning of football in Germany. Long before football arrived in Germany, gymnastics dominated the country. Most early clubs were created for exactly this purpose. Back in the old days, football in Germany was considered as the ‘English disease’ and only took its roots later in the 19th century. When these clubs were founded, they were never solely for football, but were multi-sport, non-profit associations offering its members sports suc...