#28 - Holger Badstuber

Well, he is also the player with the 3rd most passes (1374/17 matches) in the BL (behind Lahm (1615/17 matches) and Freiburg's Julian Schuster (1448/16 matches)) and he has the 3rd best passing accuracy (93.51%) behind Schalke's Metzelder (95.42%) and Luis Gustavo (93.56%).

(Can 't really link this as the numbers are given within diashows at Sportbild.de, but you can take a look here nonetheless: http://sportbild.bild.de/SPORT/bundesliga/2011/12/24/hinrunden-statistik/die-besten-passgeber-zweikaempfer-ballkontakter.html )

Our playmaker.

Or atleast what van gaal was trying to do

Interesting thing if you can understand German: Badstuber explains the dos and don'ts of defending 1 on 1 situations at the official UEFA website (German part): http://de.uefa.com/trainingground/stars/starskills/video/videoid=1652311.html

As he is used as example of how to do it, it is pretty obvious that his way of defending is currently seen as the desirable modern way. The points that are used against him in many discussions (that he doesn't go aggressively in tackles and possibly risks getting booked and instead "only" runs alongside attackers to force them out of the best scoring positions) is actually considered the "how to do it" nowadays, it seems.

rwo power wrote:Interesting thing if you can understand German: Badstuber explains the dos and don'ts of defending 1 on 1 situations at the official UEFA website (German part): http://de.uefa.com/trainingground/stars/starskills/video/videoid=1652311.html

As he is used as example of how to do it, it is pretty obvious that his way of defending is currently seen as the desirable modern way. The points that are used against him in many discussions (that he doesn't go aggressively in tackles and possibly risks getting booked and instead "only" runs alongside attackers to force them out of the best scoring positions) is actually considered the "how to do it" nowadays, it seems.

Bull Crap; I rather have a defender that will run after an attacker and tackle him, how many times have I see strikers turning Badstuber inside out as a result of running after them instead of tackling and going for the ball.

I really do not want to continue stressing this, but if Badstuber continue playing like he's doing, then I am certain in 2 season time he'll be playing for a team like Heartha Berlin and out of the national team.

I hope he improve but I seriously doubt if he can or maybe he should be trained to start playing as a Defensive Midfielder, I feel that may suit him better.

But as a CB this dude will fail miserably

100% agreed with Idriozet.

Its quite funny seeing him explain the do's and don'ts of defending considering even Van Buyten is better than him.

Yes, everyone knows he is a ball playing CB yet his main job is to DEFEND and with his clumsy positioning and lack of intelligence to read the game he has cost Bayern many many times in crucial games as well and I still wonder how Jupp retains faith in him. (Similar to SAF with Evans.)

How he was rated alongside Hummels is beyond me.

I can name 10 other CBs in the BL who were better than him.

Bayern need a new CB

The interesting thing is that experts (the guys from the kicker magazine earn their money with their football knowledge) and at least five coaches (Tiger Gerland, Ralf Rangnick, Louis Van Gaal, Jupp Heynckes and Jogi Löw) consider him the best CB in Germany (Tiger Gerland refused to sell him to the side that Ralf Rangnick coached when he was still in the U19 because he considered him to be too good to lose him to another team), and he was a starter with LVG, just as he is a starter now for Heynckes and for the German NT (there before Hummels and Höwedes). I wonder why that is the case then if he is such a bad player as you claim.

I have mixed feelings on this one. While he indeed can have some awesome games, he can also have terrible ones. His form during the goaless run at the start of the season was great. Any backline consisting of van Buyten and Badstuber is destined to fail every now and then due to the complete lack of pace. Boateng with Badstuber is better, IMO, but with van Buyten's great form and Rafinha inconsistent Boateng is shifted to RB.

As RWO said, you just can't deny the talent that backs him. I just eagerly await for that explosive season when all that talent shows up, even though if he doesn't exactly show the potential

He was doing well under van Gaal before his confidence was shattered, in his defense.

Well, he's still just 22 years of age, so he is certainly not yet in his prime. I think with more and more experience he can become really formidable.

What I don't really understand is how he manages to polarize people so much. In the transfermarkt.de forum there is a thread about him where you can practically see people coming to blows (in words, of course) about him. The guys who are against him there act and write as if Stubsi personally did something bad to them and they want to get back at him for that. Not even Gomez got so much abuse just after he went to Bayern and experienced his drop in form or Schweinsteiger when he still played as winger and wasn't as good as he could be.

rwo power wrote:The interesting thing is that experts (the guys from the kicker magazine earn their money with their football knowledge) and at least five coaches (Tiger Gerland, Ralf Rangnick, Louis Van Gaal, Jupp Heynckes and Jogi Löw) consider him the best CB in Germany (Tiger Gerland refused to sell him to the side that Ralf Rangnick coached when he was still in the U19 because he considered him to be too good to lose him to another team), and he was a starter with LVG, just as he is a starter now for Heynckes and for the German NT (there before Hummels and Höwedes). I wonder why that is the case then if he is such a bad player as you claim.

I've already acknowledged the praise he gets from managers yet ball playing CBs are notoriously praised over the more functional and defensively astute ones simply because they stand far more.

Lippi said the same for Marco Motta along with others, Trappiatoni with De Ceglie SAF and others for Evans and countless other managers overhyping youngsters based on their more "tangible" attributes. I don't need to tell you how they are rated now.

I'm talking about his performances and not his talent. If this was a measure of talent then I have nothing to debate here.

I've also acknowledged the talent he has yet at the age of 22 which is an age where CBs are expected to bloom within their talent and reach consistent levels, Badstuber is only showing flashes of talent here and there and must reach consistency. He has cost Bayern time and time again with his lack of awareness, precision, reading, naivety and overall tendency to crumble under pressure.

You can show me all the stats you want on his passes completed or shots taken but lets not forget we are talking about a CB here. No need to bring up kicker or any other journalist sites as kicker is the one who rated trasch very highly. Funny how he was named among goal.com's best cbs of the first half considering Subotic, Hummels, Boateng, dante, howedes, were all better comfortably.

Personally, I think you've gotten the wrong idea of how I perceive Badstuber as this is understandable considering you dont come across how I rate him within the goal forums. Quite the contrary as I've always closely watched stubsi simply because I AM a fan of him. My criticism is more out of disappointment than snobbery as admittedly he has disappointed in many aspects similar to how I have been towards Marko Marin.

So I will give my personal benefit of the doubt as he has been good in his positioning and anticipation yet thats about it for now. Another would be that being paired with DvB doesn't exactly make you look good as with Boateng he has looked far better as well as the fact that since Van Gaal his confidence hasn't exactly been high.

Until then, while he has all the talent, he must show better performances against bigger teams, (aside from Dortmund in which he was great) and improve his mentality which DOES lead to improvement in the aspects he has been failing at.
But FOR NOW, he is nowhere near Hummels or Howedes' level as that would be comparing a Westphalian Ham to to a local bavarian Brothchen.

I simply wrote this just to make the situation clear us on Stubsi as I'd be happy more than you when he does perform due to my support (although cynical support) for him.

Maybe he is a late bloomer, I mean look at Ignazio Abate, do you know how us Milan fans felt about him before Allegri? Funny story that is.

@Arquitecto
I'm glad to read a more level headed post of yours this time. I guess I'm a bit more fervent in defending the guy as I perceive a lot of criticism he gets more as plain bashing than proper criticism. I mean, criticism is valuable and can be discussed, but when I read pretty aggressive rants about him, I just feel like I need to protect the boy

IMO his performances in the start of the season (when Bayern set up their club-intern clean sheet record) where pretty good, althought one has to consider that Schweinsteiger wasn't out of commission and it really shows how much he is missing for the Bayern game.

Later on there were some matches were Stubsi did make mistakes, but there were also matches where Hummels players abysmally (Marseille comes to mind first). So I think in the end one should possible consider them on par if one looks at what they actually did during the first half of the BL season, in the NT and CL.

Höwedes' problem is that he couldn't really excel in all matches either - in the EL he had some not so convincing matches (especially against Helsinki) and in the BL it was the same.

I think one should try to forget Badstuber's bad last season and just concentrate in the current season, and there he was indeed not the worst CB. Heck, even DVB managed to play pretty well this season - Heynckes really worked wonders telling the boys that defense isn't overrated like LVG obviously thought

Just as I threatened in another thread, here's my translation of an interesting interview/article with Holger Badstuber. I think it is a pretty interesting read and IMO he is refreshingly different from many attention seeking players.

"The mind is always in action"
Author: Mounir Zitouni

He's a lateral thinker, Holger Badstuber (22) says about himself. He already went through quite a lot of things in the few years of his life so far. His father died, he hit the ground running at the FC Bayern. This left its mark on him. Here's a guy who doesn't look for the limelight.

It is difficult to write a story about a person without talking about the most important things with him. But Holger Badstuber has his principles. He doesn't want to talk about the early death of his father in March 2009.

"I think this is a private matter, and I want to keep this to myself", he says.

But someone who had to bid farewell to his father at the age of 19, just four weeks after he signed his first professional contract with Bayern München, had to cope with hard times.

"His death put a mark on me of course", Badstuber says. But that was obvious, of course. "There are many people who are good for a laugh, but that's not really the way I am", the defensive player states. His coach Jupp Heynckes confirms this, too: "Holger is very serious and has an old head on young shoulders."

Hermann Badstuber, who was youth coach as SSV Ulm and VfB Stuttgart among others, and who died of cancer at the age of 53, was the most important person for his son. When he says today: "I have started very early to practise passing with the left foot and worked for years to hone my skill, as passing is one of the foundations of playing football and one should start practising that as early as possible", then one can imagine that his father always urged him on. "The willpower and the dream to become a professional footballer was already there when I was only 10 years of age", Holger Badstuber recounts. But he had to do without a lot of things.

When he was 10 years of age, the boy from the town Rot an der Rot in the Allgäu went to the VfB Stuttgart, when he was 12, he switched to the youth academy of FC Bayern. All the time he lived in Rot, and so his parents drove him almost every day to Stuttgart (150km) and later to Munich (130km) for many years. "I was prepared to invest a lot of time. Long car rides, not being able to meet friends, strict schedules for the weekends. I had to forgo a lot of things", Badstuber says. "But football had top priority for me." This shows that the defender has been serious for a long time.

This shows in his talks with journalists as well. Holger Badstuber always appears highly focused, as if he closely listens to his coach who prepares him to play against a Zlatan Ibrahimovic or a Wayne Rooney. All the time he nods to the statements of his vis-à-vis, commenting them with a "yes" to show how he follows the intentions of the questioner. Even here, the young man wants to do everything right, and that when he already did so many things right in his life.

His path is a storybook career. Professional player with 19, starter with 20, double winner and world cup participant with 21. "I always knew where I wanted to go", Badstuber states. He feels an overwhelming ambition within himself. But: "Sometimes I'm a bit too ambitious", he admits. Heynckes, too, thinks that his Number 28 often overdoes his self-criticism and that he'd be better off with a slightly more relaxed attitude. "That's true", Badstuber agrees. "But it was worse earlier on. I had to learn not to think about football all the time. One has to relax and unwind once in a while. Now I'm doing things a little bit different from two years ago."

But still complacency is but a foreign concept for him and he finds it difficult to find praising words about himself. It is always possible to do things better, faster, more focused. Badstuber's mind is always in action, he questions many things where other people would go the path of least resistance. "I'm a person who thinks about many things - on the pitch, but also in normal life. Other people probably don't do that, people who live for the day, who don't reflect on things as much. I'm quite the opposite of that. One could say I'm a lateral thinker. That's what my father gave me to take along. Sometimes people wonder what I'm thinking about all the time."

While in Qatar, the defender looked past the playing field, too. "Of course one perceives how the common workers have to drudge day by day in the heat of the summer under the worst climatic conditions. You can see a lot of wealth here, but also the most glaring opposite. The gap is pretty large."

Such complicated thoughts can be a hindrance in the business of football, though. A person who always questions things, who lacks the superficial and testosterone-driven manners of the average football player, sometimes can stand in his own light. Badstuber, who finished school with a vocational diploma (Fachabitur), knows contemplative situations, but he is not a person to bury himself in such moods or to run away from them. The German international works together with a mental coach, but he also exchanges views with Philipp Laux, the psychologist of the Bayern team. "He has a good influence on me. For me this belongs to the preparation for a match."

Badstuber appreciates the conversations as they give him insights how an outsider sees things and they help him focus on the things that are important at this moment. "One reflects, one listens to different perceptions. That's very important for me. I'm a person who wants to do it this way." This kind of exchange also helped him to get over the phase in the last season when injuries and loss of form pushed him out of the starting eleven. "This time was very important for me, because I got to know this side of football, too - especially how the media deal with you in such a time. Just as fast as they put you onto a pedestal, they slam you. But I learned the lesson. I returned after the bad year and I'm more confident now."

The experts agree: Badstuber has a great future ahead. When there were doubting voices about the German international from the Bayern board in the last Spring, the new coach Heynckes laid down the law: "When he was put into question, I challenged the Bayern board right from the start and told them that I would see to it that Badstuber would play top football again and would deliver top performances again under my tutelage." All important persons in the football environment enthuse about the youngster, and he has bright prospects with Jogi Löw, too.

Still the populace doesn't share this positive image. "I'm probably not the person who looks for the limelight. People are different. That's why people don't see much of me and don't know much about me. But the most important thing is to deliver top performances, then one can convince even the last doubters. I always got great feedback from the coaches of the national team and at Bayern, and this made me proud. I played many important matches and the people who are important for me know what they have in me. It just takes a while to convince the populace."

Badstuber has grand plans. He doesn't want to relinquish his starting place anymore. "I know what I can do and where I want to go. With 22 years of age, my development hasn't ended yet. I have a very positive outlook and want to win more titles." Does he want to win them for a certain person? Badstuber: "I want to keep it secret to whom I dedicate things." But one can guess who that might be.

Source: kicker Nr.4, 09.01.2012 (print version, so no link available, sorry)
Translation: my humble person

Great translation, RWO

Didn't know about his father and his old man attitude. The Bieber hair always made me think he was a goof.

If he's as dedicated as it's said in that article, and then I know he'll develop as Henyckes and Löw are expecting him to do, and maybe we'll have a class CB someday who commits minimal errors.

Driving 150km daily... damn.

Thx

And yeah, when I read that article, I was pretty impressed. I think he will continue to work hard (and probably it is that attitude that always convinces his coaches) and become really excellent.

When I posted the kicker.de GK ranking, I remembered I wanted to post the CB ranking, too. Here it is - kicker's CB ranking for the first half of the Bundesliga season 2011/12:



Source: http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/startseite/562535/2/slideshow_badstuber_zieht_an_hummels_vorbei.html

heard Hoeness promised his father on his sick-bed that Badstuber will always start, don't know how true it is...

LOL. I really doubt that. But nice story

Idrisozet wrote:heard Hoeness promised his father on his sick-bed that Badstuber will always start, don't know how true it is...

That would explain a LOT
Source by the way?

BTW, if you continue to bash poor Stubsi by such insubstantial slander, I shall dig out a couple of nice youtube videos featuring him to balance that a bit

stubsi vedios

Well, I guess I'll post the vids I found at YT anyway. They are actually slideshows, but there are some rather cute pics among them

LMAO RWO.

I felt like a 15 year old girl watching those videos. I thought you had videos of game performance, now I see you trying to get Idrisozet jelly by Stubsi's boy band looks.

if i was a girl and well i had jacob ronaldo beiber and stubsi


ill take stubsi right away

Sushi Master wrote:LMAO RWO.

I felt like a 15 year old girl watching those videos. I thought you had videos of game performance, now I see you trying to get Idrisozet jelly by Stubsi's boy band looks.

I know I'm evil - but it feels so good

rwo power wrote:

Sushi Master wrote:LMAO RWO.

I felt like a 15 year old girl watching those videos. I thought you had videos of game performance, now I see you trying to get Idrisozet jelly by Stubsi's boy band looks.

I know I'm evil - but it feels so good

He's not looking so though now, but seriously your love for Badstuber doesn't reflect on the pitch there are other attachment.

Badstuber will never perform besides van Boiten since they are unaware of their positioning. Benni Hoewedes and Badstuber should be the central duo of Bayern

Well.... Van Buyten seems to perform well alongside Boateng, Bayern haven't draw or lost a match when the two pair each other and they total out-class City defense.

Van Buyten have score 4 league goals already this season, only Ribery and Gomez are ahead of him