In case you haven’t been paying attention, there’s a new team atop the Bundesliga table, Hoffenheim (translation “Yeah, We’ve Got One Stoplight In This Town, What Of It?”).

O RLY? Hoffenheim is so small, the team plays in front of only FIVE THOUSAND. What’s worse? Leading a top European league and only playing in front of 5,000 or playing on a baseball field?

How did the Hoffis get to the top of the ol’ Maypole? Their very own Roman Abramovich, SAP co-founder Dietmar Hopp. It’s not quite that simple, though. Unlike Abramovich’s whirlwind upending of Chelsea, it’s estimated Hopp has invested around 100 million Euros in the club over a period of twenty years, bringing the team up slowly from the depths of German fussball. He calls himself the “anti-Abramovich.”

And what is this little-club-that-could doing to the status quo? Well, the Bundesliga’s NY Yankees (i.e. richest-club-that-buys-all-the-best-players-from-other-league-teams-and-wins-the-most-engendering-the-requisite-resentment), Bayern Munich, have struggled - but with a recent hot streak have climbed all the way to third. Which, by the way, is completely unacceptable for FC Hollywood. 

Aside: I had the distinct pleasure of living and working in Munich for a year, and by working, I mean: doing an internship working 35 hours/week and drinking a LOT of wiessbier. I asked a colleague of mine if he wanted to see the first Bundesliga match of the year - it wasn’t Bayern Munich, but TSV 1860 Munich, the city’s working-class team. He turned up his nose at me like I’d asked him to shovel Kuhdung (translation “cow manure”). I went by myself. 

So, at the end of the year, will it be the little-club-that-could? The big-rich-club-that-usually-does? Or somebody-completely-boring-like-Schalke? As Franz Beckenbauer would say, “Shau ma mal.” (translation “We’ll see.”)