Juliet, I agree very much with what you said about relying on Hildebrand. Sadly a lot of people didn’t really feel the necessity to even give Schäfer a chance.

Peter, I’m surprised myself, but it seems that Schäfer is really trying his best to get another chance and does get along with his teammates very well. Even Ulreich keeps repeating that he gives him advice about goalkeeping and tries to help whenever he can. Definitely shows his fine character.

I’m pretty anxious about Leverkusen, too, but so was I before Hamburg, so let’s just hope they’ll do a good job again.

Parker, I can try, but it’s going to take a while since I’m pretty busy at the moment.

Anyways, it’s great we got all 3 points (which I frankly wasn’t expecting) against HSV. Now we need to do the same in Leverkusen, even though this game should be more challenging for us.

Can you translate what Super Mario says after the video? He makes the whole studio laugh.

Anna, I was looking at the Sportstudio video again today and I was wondering when it was showing the hometown of Mario’s father, what was those being interviewed were actually saying? I don’t know, given Mario is half-Spanish through his father, I’m kind of curious about that.

As for the contract, somehow I’m pretty sure at the moment that he’ll stay for a while, him saying that he wants everything to be perfect before he decides to leave, which he surely will, sounded very honest.

Juliet, if there’s anything in particular of the video you’d like to have translated, I’d be glad to help.

“Why hasn’t Schafer been playing, btw? Is he injured or…?”
No. Schäfer had a bad start at the VfB already (rumours are that some fans still hold a grudge against him for demanding a red card for Meira in the DFB Cup final when he still played for Nürnberg) and then the defense was very shaky (which I still rather blame on the defense than on the goalkeeper, especially with Delpierre missing huge parts of the early season and Meira going insane, like he does every once in a while).
Anyway, there were too many goals against them and so Veh decided to have Schäfer replaced with ninteen year old Sven Ulreich. Who surely is a very talented keeper and could, if he keeps developing like this, become better than even Hildebrand, but it was a lot too early for him.
But now that things have stabilised a bit, Veh says that he doesn’t see a reason why he should change back to Schäfer again, so it seems that he’ll have a tough time there. (It’s something I’ll write a longer post about, too, because as you can guess by the long answer, I’m not very happy with the situation)

“Look-wise, his idol is Tim Wiese.”

LOL! Oh man, I’m trying not to laugh too loudly here at work. God, I wish I understood German.

Why hasn’t Schafer been playing, btw? Is he injured or…?

Oh yeah, the part where the guys were searching through Mario’s locker was my favourite. I was watching the entire interview, despite knowing almost no German at all (so I depended on what you mentioned here). At least 30 minutes to style his hair? Whoa.

‘and a folder with contract offers from other clubs – “Oh, Manchester… wait, city. Too bad.” – and an obviously fake pre-contract with the FC Barcelona.’
I was actually giggling at the first part for some reason. Outside of VfB Stuttgart, my other favourite club is actually Manchester City’s cross-town rivals Manchester United. I’m so going to flip if the contract was for real (that is if it’s my other favourite club) but then, I want to see our Mario at Stuttgart for some time before he decides what to do next.

‘Oh, and Armin Veh has announced that he’ll quit training the VfB should they reach the second place since he’s got nothing else to reach in Stuttgart. Of course this was a joke but nevertheless some tabloids have started spreading the first rumours.’
I had read about it as well. Thank goodness it’s a joke given I have to admit I was a little bit shocked when I read about it.