Just when I thought there was a chance that Uli Hoeness was taking my advice, the Bayern boss pulled a 180 and announced the capture of 22-year-old Gladbach midfielder Alexander Baumjohann.  I suppose Hoeness decided he was playing too much of a late Santa (or early Valentine?) role by selling Lukas Podolski to Koeln and surprising Bruno Labbadia with an 18-month loan of Toni Kroos, and needed to balance it out with a bit of Grinch.  Or perhaps Hoeness simply wanted to give Jose Sosa and Breno a friend with whom they could practice their German while on the bench 

Speaking of Podolskis move to Koeln, am I the only one excited about the Poldi-pixel project?  For those who are unfamiliar, its basically Koelns equivalent of a bake sale, the funds from which will go towards paying Podolskis estimated 10m transfer fee.  It is also the cutest thing Ive seen from the transfer market since Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan professed his love for Kaka with a proposed transfer fee and salary that put J. Howard Marshall to shame.  For Koelns sake, lets hope that Podolskis reunion with his youth club is more of a Return of the King story than that of this, or worse yet this.

In other news, Mesut Oezil recently earned his first call-up to the Joachim Loews senior Germany squad.  Schalke are probably kicking themselves for letting him go to Bremen, especially because it was on a free transfer and only occurred because Schalke refused to give Oezil a moderate raise in wages.  Then again, its not like Oezil would have a place in Fred Ruttens broken systemwhich brings me to my next item: 

Rutten has got to have the most defensive-minded 4-3-3-based system in the history of football.  He regularly plays three defensive midfielders who provide no support for the strikers, but do protect the back line and occasionally blast the ball 20 yards over the goal.  After starting Ivan Rakitic in midfield in his teams 4-1 DfB Pokal pounding of Carl-Zeiss Jena as well as this past weekend, perhaps Rutten is prepared to change his tactical approach.  My solution: put the Croatian playmaker in the centre, just behind the strikers.  Schalke have scored 9 goals in the 5 matches that featured Rakitic as the #10, but just 16 goals in the remaining 14 matches.  This is not a coincidence.  Especially with four struggling strikers, it is necessary to have a good link between the midfield and forwards.  Rakitic (not Engelaar, Jones, and/or Ernst) is of the right mould. 

Match of the Week (but certainly not surprise of the week): Karlsruhe 3-2 Hamburg 

There were two come-from-behind victories this week, but KSCs triumph takes centre stage for three reasons: 1) it was the more evenly-waged match; 2) a team in the relegation zone beat the team that, with a victory, would have gone first in the Bundesliga; and 3) last week, I predicted that Hamburg would drop points. 

After Hamburg went up 2-0 it looked as though theyd have an easy time closing out the rest of the match.  Then Sebastian Freis and Giovanni Frederico evened the score within four minutes.  In the closing minutes, each side had a player sent off (check out Mladen Petric doing his best Tony Jaa impression here) before Freis scored the winner at the death.  Brilliant stuff! 

Top/Flop of the Week: 

Top: Milivoje Novakovic 

Hes scored 12 of his teams 22 league goals, and may be the only reason why Koeln avoid the drop this year.  This weekends match was a great example of just how much Koeln rely on Novakovics form: Frankfurt took the lead twice, and both times he scored the equalizer.  Lukas Podolski will have the Slovenian ace to thank when he rejoins Koeln this summer.  Speaking of which, who else cant wait to see Poldakovic (Novolski?) tear apart opposing defenses next year? 

Flop: Luca Toni