It's a wrap

Bayern Munich may have hoisted the trophy in the end, but the start of the season was more about squabbling than celebrating. In the first week of November, the Bavarian giants were eighth in the table, and coach Louis van Gaal, now hailed as a genius, was regarded as an incomprehensible, vaguely unpleasant oddity one loss away from losing his job.

The prospect of another year without any silverware was too much for mild-mannered Philipp Lahm, who criticized everything from transfer politics to on-field tactics in an interview with a Munich newspaper.

It's rare to see Bayern players publicly questioning the team. That's because management essentially controls everything they say. And it was almost unthinkable that the source of such straight talk would be Lahm, a player who used to call home after every match to ask about the welfare of his pet rabbits Milky Way und Brownie.

Bayern bosses were hopping mad, handing Lahm a record fine and then basically following his advice. Van Gaal got the team playing a modified version of total football, players who didn't fit the 4-3-3 system were benched or shipped out of town, and Bayern cruised to a 22nd German title.

It's unlikely Bayern President Uli Hoeness ever admitted to Lahm that he was right, but the diminutive defender deserved such an admission. Cuddly he may be, but Lahm showed some serious cojones when most Munich players were skittishly trying to hide in the next best hole.

No-names were the stars

The MVP of the season was Arjen Robben, who brought a whole new level of class to the Bundesliga, but otherwise this was not a good year for marquee players.

At Bayern, van Gaal decided he could largely live without Luca Toni, Miroslav Klose, Mario Gomez and Anatoliy Tymoshchuck, whose services had cost Bayern at least 66 million euros ($86 million) in transfer fees.

Instead, he gave starting jobs to two homegrown teenagers: Thomas Mueller and Holger Badstuber, and Ivica Olic, a journeyman striker Bayern picked up for free from Hamburg in the off-season.

Over at Schalke, coach Felix Magath was still more radical in his promotion of unknowns. Even hardcore Royal Blues fans had to consult their programs to find out who Joel Matip (18 years old), Christoph Moritz (20), Lukas Schmitz (22) and Levan Kenia (19) were. They'll be playing in the Champions League next season.

Cologne probably should have followed their example. Hopes were high on the Rhine with the return of Lukas Podolski and the arrival of Portugese star Maniche in the summer.

But the two combined for only four goals this season, and Cologne's best stretch came when the not-so-dynamic duo were injured or otherwise unavailable.

Kuranyi fever

Prior to the season there was no player Bundesliga fans enjoyed ridiculing more than Kevin Kuranyi. Maybe it was the silly facial hair or the lisp that often makes him sound thicker than two short planks, but the Schalke and former German national striker could do no right.

But under Magath's tutelage, Kuranyi unexpectedly morphed into a scoring machine. Suddenly, people everywhere were urging Germany coach Joachim Loew to take Kuranyi to the World Cup in South Africa.

It was a fairytale in the making, and a soap opera that went on for months, but Loew spoiled the fun by telling Kuranyi, in essence, to get stuffed.

The striker rewarded Schalke fans on the last day of the season with an impromptu strip-tease - and rewarded himself hours later with a massively lucrative contract from Russian side Dinamo Moscow.

Comedies of errors

2009-10 will also be remembered as the year established clubs found new and innovative ways to lose. No one was better at this than Hertha Berlin in round 8.

Having dropped six in a row, Hertha had made a brave start under a new coach against then joint-table-toppers Hamburg. But their hopes of a turnaround were crushed when back-up keeper Sascha Burchert twice bravely came out of his area to head away balls, only to see Hamburg fire them back into the net from the midfield line.

It was a metaphor for a season that saw Hertha get relegated, making Berlin the only major European capital without a first-division football team.

But the Dada match of the season was hands down Moenchengladbach versus Hanover in round 16. Hanover scored six goals in that encounter but lost 5-3 since three of their strikes went into their own net.

Fullback Karim Haggui even chalked up a brace with a pair of blunders in what was probably one of the worst days ever for a professional defender.

Foreign objects

After Hanover goalkeeper Robert Enke committed suicide, there were lots of calls for a kinder, gentler football culture, with more respect for the players as human beings. But, perhaps predictably, the sermons were instantly forgotten once Enke became yesterday's news.

In fact, sometimes German football resembled professional wrestling, with a variety of objects being enlisted to help individuals express their dissatisfaction.

In Bochum, a security official was clobbered with a chair, as fans realized they, too, had been relegated. And down in the second division, Hansa Rostock supporters hit their own goalkeeper with a tossed firecracker.

But one player fought back. Hamburg striker Paolo Guerrero beaned a supporter with a water bottle after some unappreciated criticism. It was one of Peruvian's rare appearances - he missed 28 games due to injury, fear of flying and suspension.

"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro," wrote the late, great Hunter S. Thompson. But 2009-10 was a year in which once the season got going, the pros turned weird.

Author: Jefferson Chase
Editor: Nancy Isenson