January must be the most boring month in the German football calendar! What do you guys do for the whole month when there is no football? OK, you can visit the Grandmother, go shopping with the wife or partner, play snow-balls, but is it not just a bit dull without any Bundeslega football?

I know that the weather can get a bit chilly in Germany at this time of year, but are the players not paid enough to put up with a bit of frost? If it was up to me, the World Cup would be taking place right now in January during your Winter break. That is probably the only way we Europeans could stop Brazil from winning it! Perhap there is something I should know about Germany during January. If so, I am sure someone will tell me.

The break does mean that there is time for the excitement to build up before the start of a very difficult set of matches for H96. The next few home games should show how far the team has progressed this season as Hamburg, Schalke 04 and Bayern Munich are all tough games. I cannot wait for the Hamburg match to come around, mainly because I have got myself a cheap flight from London to Hannover and back specially for the game and a friend has arranged a ticket for me (thanks Squig!). But until February what is there to do, other than grow a beard.

Please not that I have resisted the temptation to mention that English and Scottish football continues right through the Winter, which could suggest that players in Britain are tougher than those elsewhere in Europe; well, almost resisted.

Fair enough, for People not used for the winter break it may be weird, but I'd say it just belongs to the Bundesliga and makes it unique.

I don't think you Britons are tougher though, you are just closer to the Gulf stream and therefore have milder winters in general ;-)

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You are correct. Most of the top level players in the English Premiership come from mainland Europe and Africa anyway. They are probably grateful for the milder weather.

We had the crazy situation over Christmas and New Year when teams played 4 matches in 8 days! The attendances at these holiday time matches are always very high as I suspect many people have nothing else to do. Luckily, the weather was OK this year. It does not take much snow to fall here for the entire country to close down. However, in Scotland they play in even the worst conditions. Those guys really do consider themselves to be tough and I wouldn't argue with them. But as an English "Southern Softy" I would just call them mad!

Actually, most boring for me is the summerholiday of our soccercompetition. Unfortunately we don't have cricket during this time...

I am quite happy we don't have cricket. But we lack of other outdoor sports at that time of the year. When does the NFL Europe eason start, and when does it end? it would fit in there just right.

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The breaks aren't that bad, though. At least I get a chance to go on holiday without missing a game...

This year it won't work out quite so well for us, though, since our friends in Cape Town are getting married and my boyfriend will be best man, so we will miss 2 home and two away-games, but at least it'll be sunny... And I'll take my lucky jersey with me, anyway. In fact, I will probably have to wear it on the plane, since we will be flying over on a Saturday.

By the way, we tend to watch the repeats of the "Bundesliga-Konferenz" on Premiere at the moment. Not quite like the real thing, but it will do for now.

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you are happy not to have cricket? and i thought that germany was a civilised country!
mind you, maybe that is one sport where england can beat germany.

Also in Rubgy,where England in so successfull than Germany in football...

I'll give you cricket abd Rugby, but the first one doesn't even count as a sport if you ask me ;-)

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Remember Lara!

To my opinion cricket is a very nice sport. And it's really a sport. Unfortunately in Holland it's just a sport for the happy few. When I'm on Sri Lanka I always see the poor people play cricket. I like that. Personally, I like it more than baseball.

Well, if England can manage to survive the first round at the World Cup (which they should really, since there's going to be few penalties involved ), we might eventually get another England-Germany classic. And then my money would be on England, as the Germans are pretty embarrassing.

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