Remember when you first started playing footie?

You were probably 5 or 6 years old. You might have started playing during break at school, or perhaps a bit more organized at the park on the weekends. The ball looked absolutely humongous as 16 or so kids chased it around the field in one big mass of screaming, shrieking and flailing delight. Someone players on your team would always start running the wrong way while the adults on the sidelines would laugh, yelling, “Turn around, sweetie! Go the other way!”

Now, remember the other kids? There were always one or two on each team. The kid that got as far away from the action as possible. The kid who sat down and picked at long blades of grass to put between his thumbs and blow on. The kid who looked up at the sky and pointed at the shapes the clouds were making.

OK, remember Daniel van Buyten during the first half of the Frankfurt match…

You’re picking up what I’m putting down, yeah?

His first half was so shocking horrible that he had to be subbed after 45 minutes for the, ahem… virtuoso center-back Martin Demichelis. Martin, doing a bang-up job defending this season, decided that maybe up-front is the spot for him. You know, with the off-side calls and all.

I can see his reasoning, I think. The only time anybody’s had anything nice to say about him this campaign is when he came off the bench and scored a goal. So, perhaps nobody will notice how poorly he’s been playing if he puts one in the net every once in a while?

Trust me, Mr. Demichelis, we all notice.

Other than that, boys: Great match! If I may go so far as to say (and I will) that this was the most satisfactory 90 minutes I’ve seen this season.

Breno did an admirable job covering for the other half of the center-back pairing. The loan last season to Nuremberg did him nothing but good. Not that he was error-free, mind you, but the couple of balls he misjudged, he ran back, fought for, and won.

Now, I’m not convinced that the pairing of Breno and Holger Badstuber (once he returns from injury) is formidable enough to match up with the firepower we’ll be facing in Europe after the winter break… But, it’s far better than what we’ve got anchoring us currently. (And, I use “anchoring” in the lightest possible sense.)

The much-deserved game ball went to Antoliy Tymoschuk, who continues to surprise and impress this season. Impressing so much, in fact, that the general opinion seems to warrant him retaining a starting position; despite the fitness of captain Mark van Bommel.

Louis van Gaal now has an unexpected wealth of talent in the holding midfield position. And some tough decisions to make, as Andreas Ottl has also been a revelation this year.

So, WWLVGD?

Thankfully for him, he won’t have to rustle too many feathers (as if he hasn’t done that enough?) until after the winter break. With Arjen Robben still out; keeping Toni Kroos on the wing and Bastian as the playmaker opens up the defensive midfield positions to some combination of van Bommel / Ottl / Tymoschuk. Although the pairing of Tymo and van Bommel seems unlikely due to their practice pitch dust-up a couple of weeks back.

And I don’t want to call him “Super Mario” just yet, but Mr. Gomez is finally earning that nickname in a red and white kit. Long have I been enamoured of his form, but not his form. Winkwinknudgenudge. But, he’s certainly proving, given the chance, that he can score goals. Lots of goals.

We all know the turning point of last season was our do-or-die match against Juventus in Turin. And words like “amazing” and “stupendous” flowed from my fingertips as I rained glory down on Bayern Munich. I’m gonna be a bit more reticent this time around. And it seems like the team is following suit: Putting their collective heads down, working towards the 10 point minimum before the break.

We are back in the top 5. We are a stone’s throw away from Champions League qualification next season and have won our group this season. We are still in the DFB Pokal. We will stop nagging at each other because we will keep winning.

We will be lying-in-wait when Dortmund stumbles. And that’s the Bayern Munich I know and love.