Shanghai Sauerkrauts

Hi(gh) Guys…. 

Most of us might be still “high” after so much excitement all over the weekend. Therefore, focus shall be in the initial step put on the entertainment part reflecting Sauerkrauts (btw also Krauts) strongest “Geheimwaffe”. Honestly the weekend was full with options: Soccer, Judy’s Too Anniversary and F1. Yes, most of you might thought during the weekend that all this would contribute to decreased “show up ratio”, but it seems the Sauerkrauts Squad this years manages quite well to put “business travel”, “stupid meetings” or “wifes/girlfriends shopping tours” or “non-sense excuses” to working hours and show up with 19 players! Or is it the financial crises, which already shows it first impacts keeping us less busy during the week so time for soccer on the weekend? Let me tell all of those, who didn’t join, what happened Saturday starting with soccer, with short stops at F1 and Judy’s Anniversary (Hot!). 

Arriving at the pitch in Timo’s car an hour earlier I had time to manage certain things and further improving Sauerkrauts “strategic infrastructure 2009” to follow as “Hoffenheim” mit “Directaufstieg” : 

1. In an another “Hochempfindlich Dringlichkeitssitzung” Timo’s dog has been promoted to Sauerkrauts Mascot 2008 (please understand that I will collect from each player 20 RMB for his/her food related costs”, because he/she/it “frisst” like a “Haengebauchschwein” (before actually I thought it was one, but Timo showed me the “dog passport’ that it was not. Wolfram’s Dog our old mascot has retired and found a “peaceful” place in a restaurant near XiangYang Lu [10% discount possible for the ribs, the restaurant manager told me for Sauerkrauts/Krauts [on first comes first serves basis, as our old mascot was quite “knoching”.] 

2. I thought after 9 years in China, it will stop one day that I will have this discussion, but I doubt it. I tried to explain for 15 min the pitch management that they shall put drinks not under the sun, as no one drinks hot water. He didn’t understand how we can drink cold water. Alan could u next time explain him again? Now the joke: I teached the guy, if someone asks for water and I wrote it down on a paper to show the paper, where I wrote “Cold water or Pissheisses Wasser, what u want Mr?”. Please try it out. 

With the arrival of the squad, we started to concentrate what really matters. The game was planned to be “zukunftsweisend” [as usual]. Especially Coach “Dicknoether” was quite “unruhig”, as during the week enormous pressure was put on him by “Praesi” personally. With a big surprise he was catching the team’s interest: “1-3-3-3-1 System” was going to be implemented as a solution to last weeks lousy performance meaning “Angola system” was stopped, shortly being implemented as the replacement for the “Nicaragua system” two weeks ago. Due to the high average age within Sauerkrauts, which was influencing to remember this number “13331” “Chef persoenlich” replaced it with the name “Helmut Hinterdorf System [Swabia]”..  

The game started as it usually starts for Sauerkrauts: First goal scored by the opponent after 13 minutes to let us lead by 1:0, which was coming quite surprisingly. In a quick fight back action and after a nice pass by John Zhu (you are apologized for last weeks mistake) Eric scored by header to the right corner the equalizer. What was then more surprising was that Qi Wei even increased to let the Sauerkrauts lead the game by 1:2. Everything was going on plan and with our new “Schwaben Goalkeeper” [thanks helping us out] we were quite stable in the defense. The game was very organized in the first half and everyone was keeping position. Especially Timo had great 45 minutes.  

Being honest, I have experienced several Sauerkrauts games and what I have learned is that we are sometimes “inconsistence” and things came as they often come for the Sauerkrauts: “Absturz” in the second half. After getting the 2:2 by an “unlucky action” after a free kick by the opponent striking Timo, the ball was touched so unlucky that it went trough our goalkeepers legs [was nicely tunneled in a unlucky way]. The goal was quite a disappointment for us and instead keeping things going on in an organized way I had the feeling that all of us wanted to score the next goal. Positions were not kept anymore resulting in 3 additional goals letting us losing the game by 5:2. For us the result is not within our expectations and disappointment was felt after the game, even there was “a” lot of beer, the result was not making us thirsty. As an additional result of the game “Chef persoenlich” will “Helmut die Leviten lesen”. Especially the fact having too many players on the pitch with too many changes might have be also problem for losing the game.  

Still it was a nice day and the weather was really nice. Having Judy’s Anniversary Party” on the mind, we were able to forget this disaster quite quickly, concentrate on the really matters in our lives: “Partying” at Tong Ren Lu. Not only soccer attracts us, no, I was surprised that many of us showed up at Judy’s Too Saturday, which showed our sponsor that investing in Krauts is not waste of money. When I arrived Uwe was already half naked dancing on the “Stange” with some sexy hot girls, observed by his girlfriend, accompanied by “in Hochform Praesi”.  

With all this excitement on Saturday, we were quite happy, which helped us to forget also “the worst ever performed F 1” race. I hope our guys, who were there didn’t fall asleep.  Our next game will be against Cosmos, who were beaten by Krauts last minute goal by 2:1, whereby first goal by Helge and second goal “Someone”, which really makes me happy to “ernten” the fruits of our “re-structuring”. Let’s hope it continues for a long time. 

Last Rumors: Two Sauerkrauts wifes are pregnant! Congratulations from the team! At least in this area we score massively to realize our “F-Jugend dream” team by 2020:). 

See u guys around

Chef persoenlich

It was great, it was sensational….aehmm….of course not the way we played, I was talking more about the pitch. As also I experienced it, most of us were happy to appear back to the pitch, after so long time. According to the statistics, as usual managed and prepared by “Mogul Bilgin persoenlich” average weight of the team has increased to 2.87t during the holidays, which was quite disastrous in terms of trying to keep our average speed by 3km per hour from last year. It seems some rules have to be implemented in order to be back to track from next week on. 

Our first game was planned to be the direction for the entire season: Win and eliminate the opponent and accompany our first team Krauts next year the 1^st league! But as it is usual in China, plan and strategy are always on the paper, the reality is rather different (it sucks). But as we also know it in China, there are always some excuses, if things do not work out: YES, we had new players, who did never play together; YES the pitch was new; YES El Presidente was not there; YES we still had alcohol in the blood, etc., countless reasons.  

But not this time, I will not let excuses count, as it can be definitively said that our performance was below our capabilities and it seemed that we were not on the pitch, especially the first half. We were playing against a “kindergarten” team “Qilin B” [what the *** the B stays for and what the hell Qilin means, were the questions before the game started, whereby Management was not able to response to it clearly], without the guy “aziz” the average age would have been 13 years. We started the game in a very unorganized way, positions were not kept and our strikers were not able to get any ball from the Middlefield. In the total game we had 9 fouls!!!!!, which is really nothing, showing how “nicht kaempferisch” we were playing. In good days Ralf Vogelmann does this in 10 min!  

It was only a matter of time that they would strike. In the 20 min we received our first goal by an individual player’s mistake, who tried to dribble himself at our own 16m area?. But it can happen, especially be happy that I can’t name you with your name, as I forgot who it was…hehe. 10 min later out of no where the opponent scored again, which really was a nice goal and also the 3^rd goal was right after it. What is very important for the next game: Losing the ball to a player means not to give up and not continue to chase the player, no, it means even you lose the ball you have to try to follow or in some cases “am Trikot ziehen oder fo…n” him, but please don’t stop and let the player go and simulate some reasons for not following him!. We received two goals in the same way by the mistake of the same player! 

Things changed in the second half and game control was back to our hand. Especially Marc and Eric had several good changes, but unfortunately luck was not on our side. Even with the arriving of the Krauts Squad 15 min before the end, we were not able to use this “cheerleaders” heavy support to score at least one goal. There are rumors that the cheerleaders have charged Sauerkrauts Management for the bad performance. 

In a “Dringlichkeitssitzung” “Chef persoenlich [Bilgin]” decided to give Coach Dicknoether another chance this week with his new system from “Angola”, before catapulting him back to Swabian territory in case of another loss and changing to our usual “Nicaragua Aufstellung”. It is clearly communicated in the press yesterday, that anything except a win on Saturday would cost him “seinen Stuhl” and that he will be transferred back to manage the “Krauts” new Frauen Team in Tongren Lu.  

Therefore: We really need to win this Saturday, doesn’t matter how! I am expecting from each of you [different rules for Mogul] to go to bed at decent hours on Friday, only drink 5 liters instead of the usual 9 liters’ to keep blood circulation, in order to be ready for the new battle. Via a tel conference the Management have also informed that our new acquisition Mr. Paganetti was filmed before last weeks match at 8am in the morning at Tong Ren Lu, ….zzzzzh…, detail report is expected from him by Friday! 

Next game, better luck, “definitive” victory! 

With Regards

Mogul “Sauerkrauts” China 

Due to the large amount of players of the German Krauts team it was considered necessary to establish a 2^nd team for the 2006/2007 season in order to ensure the each player would get enough playing time on the field on Saturdays.

So the “older/slower” but more experienced players formed the 2^nd team under “Shanghai Krauts”, so called “Sauer-Krauts 06” (in 2006). We might have already passed the peak of our careers but still considered that we were too fit to be playing golf!  However due to the ageing process for some of us, we decided that it might be better to play in the second division of the SIFL. Our goal was still to win as many matches as possible but understood that the fun/team spirit and a cold beer were more important now. OK, from the sporting point of view it may be considered that we did not do so well (ended up at the bottom of the division L ), but on the brighter side even a draw felt like a championship!  

Because we did not do so well on home soil, we went to Bangkok for the Easter Tournament in April 2007. Hoping that we could find a team to beat we participated with a lot of fun and success in the 25^th Anniversary tournament of the “Bangkok All Stars”. After overcoming the first problems with the hot climate (refer the aging process) our ‘old’ body systems started becoming used to it and with the special tactical instructions from our coach, Helmut we were so successful that we were able to make it to the final.  Unfortunately fate was not kind to us and we ended up coming second in the final – although we did manage to win our first little cup for the cabinet for our sponsor “Judy’s Too” and “The Spot”. 

Even that we did not get some many points this season, we had a lot of fun in our first season and would like to say thanks to our opponents and we are looking forward to beating you the next season.  

Yours

Shanghai Sauer-Krauts 06

Most important: Sauer-Krauts 06 celebrated its second season within SIFL! More successful and of course more dreaded by our opponents.  

For our newcomers in the league: Sauer-Krauts 06 originated as a “spin-off” from the German Krauts FC due to the large amount of players. The initial idea was to form a 2^nd team, which could integrate all those, who due to “speed factor” “age factor” “weight factor” “alcohol factor” and “Friday hangover factor” were mainly guarding the sidelines of Tianma, rather then scoring for Krauts FC (our 1^st team). Nevertheless rumors are still existing within SIFL that the main reason was not only the large amount of players forcing Krauts FC to have this “spin off”, no it is said that the beer consumption at the sidelines reached its peak times collapsing the yearly budget of Krauts FC and causing a record budget deficit.  

Changing from the sidelines to the pitch and finally trying to kick some ball definitively was a challenge for us in our first season 2006/2007, which was easily reflected in the league table. In several emergency meetings the Sauer-Krauts Management declared first season performance as an “SIFL Internship” to practice and learn, before starting the “real job” [Aufholjagd] in our second season 2007/2008. In another emergency joint press conference [Kampfansage] at the beginning of this season, Sauer-Krauts 06’s announced its “Strategic 5-year Plan” emphasizing that this season will mainly focus on player recruitment. Today we can proudly announced that our hard work showed first fruits: The average player age decreased from 42 years to 41.5 years and increasing our “average player speed” closed to the Japanese and our squad guarantees us always having 11.7 players in average at Tianma. The press also released that with regrets and pressure from our investors Mr. Juergen Sievers left [had to leave] Sauer-Krauts 06, who was acting as the Sauer-Krauts 06 team manager in our first season, but who will remain as a “new player scout” in a place  called Dalian [Dorf]. We would like to thank him for all his work and efforts [many many many emails]. Juergen Sievers was replaced by Bilgin Guengoermues [more experienced & more handsome], who took over team organization with his subordinates [slaves] Helmut Dicknoether & Stefan Nissl.  

The year started well [with new shirts and the best logistic company in town “Kuehne & Nagel” as our new sponsor] and we accumulated our first points showing clearly that we are moving to the right direction, especially pointing out the highest number of accompanying crowd in a game (13 spectators in one game) against the Dutch represented a club record. With a strong squad only “Force Majeure” stopped our walkover to the Premier League this year: “Snow and cold in Shanghai”, which shall be a warning to our opponents, who luckily won against us, as without “Force Majeure” the Sauer-Krauts 06 are the strongest power within the 1^st Division. Nevertheless we declare this season as very successful season [beer consumption increased by 19].

It shall be also pointed out that Sauer-Krauts 06 also made successfull debuts in the Summer Tournament in Shanghai [5^th out of 14 team] and will continues to strike in the Fantasy7 Monday Tournament League at Luwan District. With the new season approaching our 3^rd season will mainly focus on moving to the Premier League Details will be soon announced at the most sexiest and best location in town: “Judy’s Too” or “Spot Bar”  

Zicke Zacke Zicke Zacke “Premier League Sauer-Krauts 06”! Oh yeaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.....  

Yours Shanghai Sauer-Krauts 06