Best match day in Bundesliga!

Well, I agree he didn't look good against Rosenberg, but also again it was pretty much a collective defensive failure starting with Van Buyten when the ball entered the scene and he wasn't managing to control it.

The point that was made in the above mentioned transfermarkt.de thread is that Badstuber and Hummels, who underwent pretty much the same education, are a somewhat different kid of defender with a somewhat more playmaking outlook. Someone there made a statistic about "pre-assists", that is the passes actually leading to assists, and there Badstuber was far in the lead, so his ability to open play in a way that leads to goals or at least goal-chances is not to be underestimated. From what I gathered from interviews with the coaches, it is pretty much that kind of playing intelligence plus anticipation that makes them choose Badstuber over other, more classical looking and acting defenders.

And you can't deny that pretty much all coaches who have/had him in their team put him into their starting eleven over all other options they had, and that can't be because he is such a failure as you claim. ^^

And about failing under pressure - he is far more stable in that respect than for example Hummels, who has always crumbled in high profile (international) matches (look at EL in the former season, CL this season and even some NT matches).

I would lay the blame for the Rosenberg goal on Buyten and Neuer actually, I feel a shot like that from that distance was one Neuer should have saved and Buyten miscueing the ball like that was O.o I was actually impressed by how calm Badstuber was for that, reminded me of Beckenbauer vs Cruijf one time.