I’m excited about every single Japanese or South Korean player joining Bundesliga clubs. I’m yet to see one whose technical skills aren’t impeccable.

Shinji Kagawa opened the door for players from the Far East and there are now about half a dozen sides to which they are crucial. Even in last night’s match between two Bavarian provincial clubs they took center stage.

Nuremberg fielded Hiroshi Kiyotake, signed this summer from Cerezo Osaka where he succeeded Kagawa. (Mu Kanazaki, signed just this winter, remained on the bench.) Augsburg fielded two Korean players, Koo Ja-Cheol and Ji Dong-Wong, both on loan from Wolfsburg and Sunderland, respectively.

All three were key to the match, if in very different ways.

Kiyotake played center midfield in Nuremberg’s 4-1-4-1 formation. Koo Ja-Cheol played as one of two holding midfielders in what I thought ended up as a pretty standard 4-4-2 formation. Augsburg has routinely used both 4-1-4-1 and 4-2-3-1 this season, but the one-match ban for skipper Daniel Baier probably prompted Augsburg coach Markus Weinzierl to move Koo into a deeper role and change tactics. Ji played in more in a striker role close to Sascha Mölders.

The result looked tighter than the match really was, due to Raphael Schäfer’s once-a-career goalkeeping blunder. Aside from a brief period ahead of its equalizer in the 36th minute, Augsburg never really managed to threaten Nuremberg’s goal. In particular during the entire second half I hardly noticed any goal scoring opportunities for the side.

In build-up play, Augsburg’s holding midfielders Andreas Ottl and Koo dropped deep and moved very close to the full-backs. In particular Koo had plenty of space here to demonstrate his impressive technical skills as Markus Feulner struggled to close him down. Koo to me was the dominating player of the match (84 times on the ball).

But Ottl and Koo consistently failed to then link up with the rest of Augsburg’s midfield and its strikers and as a result the side broke up in two parts when in possession. In between, Nuremberg’s midfield controlled the centre pitch at most times.

This is where Ji disappointed. He was hardly to be seen during the entire match as he failed to drop into the space in the back of Kiyotake and Feulner that invariably opens up when the 4-1-4-1’s centre midfielders press high during the opponent’s build-up play. Koo and Augsburg’s defender were hardly ever able to play vertical passes through Nuremberg’s midfield.

Kiyotake’s impact on the match was less tactical in nature. He impressed with his clinical finishing, his two-feet ball control as well as his dribblings (a bunch of Augsburg defenders had to resort to a foul to prevent him from penetrating the box, and Alexander Esswein netted the resulting free kick).

Augsburg struggled in particular to prevent him from linking up with left-wing Esswein.

I don’t think any of these three players will stay in Bavaria for long. Wolfsburg has already said Koo will return (never quite understood why former Wolfsburg coach Felix Magath sidelined the player last year). Not sure whether Ji would return to Sunderland but it’s difficult to see him play in Germany’s second division where Augsburg will likely end up despite its impressive run lately. And Kiyotake will also be poached next summer at the latest by a club with more financial prowess than Nuremberg.

Two teams many thought would be content to avoid relegation this season are now vying for Bundesliga’s fourth Champions League seat instead.

Both sides boast a tradition of being very comfortable on the ball, but there’s no other commonality.  Freiburg is one of the poorest clubs of the league and mostly has to do with the output of its excellent youth center (supplemented with some African players, a legacy of the passion of long-time coach Volker Finke for the continent’s players). Frankfurt has more money, but in recent history often less than it thought, and has often built its sides around outstanding individual players. Only in recent years the club has managed to move on from its past image as Bundesliga’s moody and chaotic diva.

Their encounter last night saw two very different half-times. Frankfurt clearly dominated the first half and Freiburg was lucky not to concede a goal as Frankfurt’s Austrian striker/winger Stefan Aigner left several chances unused. Frankfurt displayed its excellent passing, with the technically averse Sebastian Jung, Sebastian Rode and Pirmin Schwegler shaping passing triangles Freiburg struggled to get its grip on.

Freiburg did not once manage to threaten Frankfurt’s goal during the first half. It seemed surprised by Frankfurt’s rare diamond in which Meier efficiently worked against Freiburg build-up play. Frankfurt controlled the centre of the pitch and Freiburg’s 4-4-2 constantly looked outnumbered as a result. It works impressively well when Max Kruse and Jan Rosenthal, two midfielders, play upfront but constantly drop deep when in possession, adding numbers in midfield and dragging the opponent’s defenders out of position, making it one of the most interesting formations to watch in Bundesliga.

But last night it looked like the pure, out-dated 4-4-2. Rosenthal tried to act into midfield but his many unforced errors and weak first touch meant Freiburg struggled to get the ball into Frankfurt’s third of the pitch  second striker Karim Guede from time to time took up positions on the wings, but it wasn’t enough to shake up one of Frankfurt’s key qualities, the excellent organisation of space when not in possession. The side earns a lot of praise this year for its strong offense, but its defense lines again maintained just the right, narrow distance between each other.

When a side is inferior in such a way, change can only come from outside the pitch and early on in the match the only question was what Freiburg’s up-and-coming coach Christian Streich would do about it. The problems were so obvious I thought he would react during half-time, but it took about fifteen minutes longer for his solution, which was excellent. He replaced Guede with Johannes Flum (another graduate of the club’s own youth center), and  allowed Kruse to move into a more central and more flexible role from where he could act more efficiently into midfield and then, off the defense’s radar, move back into strike position.

This completely changed the match dynamics, Frankfurt was pushed deeper and deeper into its own half. Freiburg finally created goal scoring opportunities, even if most from set pieces, but missed four really excellent ones. During the last 20 to 30 minutes of the match the team managed to create the passing triangles its link-up play desperately needs. Now Frankfurt looked outnumbered at every turn as it suddenly failed to get a grasp on the very agile Kruse and Flum.

Where is all this going to end up? Frankfurt ranks fourth and Freiburg fifth. At first glance, Freiburg’s run looks less sustainable. The side has recently put in some unusually poor performances with very few goal scoring opportunities in particular at home, where the opponent is content defending in deeper positions. Bundesliga’s mid-section is very balanced and tight this season, with teams shuffling between rank six and twelve almost every week. But then again it’s easy to underestimate a side whose strength is based on team work and tactics, and with no individual players standing out.

England has produced the best football bloggers as well the most watched — and arguably the best — football league.

But leafing through the Euro analysis by a technical committee of the German football association DFB the other day I was struck how far behind the English national team really is.

“On defense England formed two banks of four sitting fairly deep, shuffling left and right over the width of the pitch. The two attackers up front were disconnected from the defensive block by quite a large margin, conceding space to the opposition. Active pressing geared towards winning possession was nowhere to be seen; attackers were merely “escorted”, only the player closest to man on the ball applied some pressure.

“On offense England was quite predictable and one-dimensional in their attempts to feed long diagonal balls to their wingers. In spite of pacey players like Young, Wilmer, Walcott, Welbeck or Rooney England lacked both punch and flexibility on the break. Deficiencies in creative play from the central offensive position and lack of elements of surprise were noticeable, as was lack of fitness.” (Translation JP/JJ)

Quite a contrast with the commentary on the other teams, but probably a fair assessment. England’s play was a far cry from the performances of Italy, Spain, Germany etc., but more importantly also from the innovations presented by smaller teams like Portugal and in particular Denmark.

No other player inspires officials and fans over the summer as much as the winger. Of all the new toys bought by the club’s manager, it’s the winger who sparkles and shines all over while the new centre-back is hardly noticed. The fans are all excited about the high speed one-on-ones, the spectacular dribbling and efficient crosses seen on youtube clips of the player’s previous clubs.

But a few weeks later disappointment often prevails. The new toy is no fun. The winger plays okay, lands an assist every now and then but there’s just nothing spectacular about his play. 

But its hardly his fault, as a winger depends on how he is set up maybe more than any other position in modern football. There’s (probably) three different ways to set up a modern winger of the 4-3-3 kind (and the 4-2-3-1 or 4-1-4-1 variations).

1. Ground passes in build-up play. It’s a tedious, but fairly save way to reach your winger, but it also gives the opponent ample time to shift his defense to the relevant side of the pitch. If the opposing side is well-organized, it has closed down all space by the time the ball has reached the winger (who is also facing his own goal when he gets the ball, putting him dead in the water from the start) – unless the attacking team displays superior, lightning fast passing, which is rare.

Summary: Little risk, but quite inefficient unless passing is extremely fast.

2. Wide balls from one side of the pitch to the other. This approach looks very efficient when it works, but its also much riskier as these passes are obviously difficult to control by the winger. I think in the end very few players have the ability to control these balls quickly while running at high speed whereas most need enough time to allow the opposing full-back to corner the winger until reinforcements arrive. 

Summary: Very efficient approach, but high risk of losing possession. (Which in turn does not put the side at risk as most players are behind the ball when possession is lost, unlike option 3.)

3. Vertical passes (to a lone striker) combined with passes through the opposing back-four. This approach allows the winger to gather speed off-ball in anticipation of a later pass (i.e. the opposing full-back can’t respond to this run) and then run into a ball that is much easier to control than a long pass (see 2). Even without a through-pass as the ideal finishing touch, the vertical passes of the attack’s first stage prevent the opposing full-backs from taking up wide positions, giving natural space to the wingers. Needs good passing and good fine-tuning between midfield and strikers. Also needs midfielders who don’t spend time on the ball to avoid off-side positions. But above all a lone striker who can be sought with his back to the goal.

Summary: the most efficient way to set up a winger with medium risk to lose the ball, but also the most ambitious approach. (Most top teams have developed this further into formations without classical wingers, with players on the wings  rotating with centre midfielders). 

So when your lone striker is average, by default are your wingers. In a striking example taken from this Bundesliga season and despite quite a decent performance, Werder Bremen never reached meaningful possession throughout its home match against Bayern Munich because neither its centre-backs nor its midfielders were ever able to play vertical passes to its lone striker Nils Petersen. Because option 3 was not at Werder’s disposal, the side’s midfield players made countless attempts at option 2 but none of their passes were precise enough to allow Marko Arnautovic or Eljero Elia to become effective on the wings. 

Quite an earthquake shook the Bundesliga this weekend when Dortmund coach Jürgen Klopp fielded a back–three, more or less considered extinct in Germany. And Klopp’s move (in response to several injuries) didn’t help to reintroduce this formation at all as he had to correct his mistake after just 30 minutes and as his side suffered a humiliating home defeat against arch rival Schalke 04.

I thought there were three particular problems.

1. No build-up play. The three defenders Subotic, Hummels and Bender in their passing never efficiently linked up with Dortmund’s midfield, in particular its holding midfielder Kehl. Most of their passes played out merely between themselves, which gave Schalke ample time to deny space to Dortmund’s midfield. Build-up play has never been a particular strength of centre-backs Subotic and Hummels, which became evident in this somehow static formation. They looked much better on the ball when a holding midfielder such as Gundogan or back in the day Sahin dropped between or besides them (dynamizing the entire formation as well).

2. Combining Lewandowski and Reus in a two-striker formation didn’t add value but rather stripped both of them off their individual strengths. Reus is brilliant when he can either attack down the wing or drop deep and then penetrate the opponent’s back-four at the right moment. For example by linking up with a striker who is good at operating with his back to the goal – which in turn is Lewandowski’s big asset. He has paved the way to Dortmund’s pacy midfielders such as Kuba or Götze in a 4-2-3-1 formation countless times (and did so minutes after Klopp switched to his usual formation, creating the side’s first chance of the match).

3. Jefferson Farfan is one of Bundesliga’s best wingers and Dortmund’s defense lacked width to counter his runs in the back of left midfielder Großkreutz. He didn’t really charge down the wing every two minutes, but he did set up Schalke’s crucial first goal after just over ten minutes.

There were two instances before the first goal were Dortmund clearly outnumbered Schalke in midfield when the triangle Leitner-Reus-Piszczek linked up. But the side’s passing wasn’t strong enough to exploit this natural advantage. 

The team also seemed unsure how to make use of maybe its biggest strength during the past two to three years, the pressing and counter-pressing that Klopp has drilled into the team. After the switch the side was visibly much more at ease in its usual formation, but it came too late, in particular as Schalke’s deadly counter-attack just after half-time already settled the match.

The January 2011 signing of Martin Stranzl was one of the cornerstones to Lucien Favre’s efforts to save Borussia Mönchengladbach from certain relegation. The experienced centre-back helped a great deal to stabilise the side’s back-four, until then a very shaky affair. This summer, his side reached the Champions League qualifying stage. 

In last week’s match against Hamburg, however, the 32-year old committed an awful mistake in build-up play, directly resulting in the double blow of a (unjustified) red card against the defender and a (missed) penalty for Hamburg.

Stranzl (39) receives a pass from full-back Jantschke (24) into the centre of the pitch. But instead of turning  around by maybe 140 to 160 degrees to open up the pitch and to pass the ball onto the second centre-back Felipe (15), he simply lets the ball drop back to where it came from. He unwittingly plays into the attacking team’s hand by turning the pitch into a limited zone, in which three attackers attempt to win possession from just two defenders.

Illicevic (11) is charging from behind, but he was not close enough on his heels to put serious pressure on Stranzl. He simply failed to turn on the ball, which would allowed him to switch to the completely open side of the pitch. This was the very moment when I thought something is going to go very wrong now (even though it took Jantschke’s sloppy attempt to clear the ball as well to set up Illicevic’s fateful run into the penalty area), and two seconds later Stranzl is forced to risk everything against the attacker deep inside the penalty box with his tackle against Illicevic.

Football has evolved a lot over the past ten years, not only in terms of formations and bigger picture tactics. On an individual level, more and more players are able to make almost equal use of both their feet and their first touch’s aim is to the turn towards the pitch, establishing an open position that hands plenty of options for the next pass or run. Stranzl, however, closed down the pitch by returning the ball to where it came from, something that would probably not have happened to a 20-year old Bundesliga defender. It is no longer the current generation’s first instinct to let the ball drop to where it came from but to turn towards the pitch instead, having the confidence (and technical skills) of being able to shield the ball from an attacker during the turn.