Sigh. Well, the match against Wolfsburg didn't go exactly as planned, but it wasn't horrible either. Strange to say that about 90 minutes where Philipp Lahm missed a peno, Schweini gave up an equaliser and Franck Ribery found something new about his knee to destroy.

The eventual draw against the Wolves also means that, for now, winning the Bundesliga is quite unobtainable. There it is. Playing for second place is not the end of the world, however, as we're still in the driver's seat in the DFB Pokal and Champions League competitions. Solidifying a second-place finish, with direct Champions League qualification, seems to me to be a readily obtainable goal.

The Good.

Louis van Gaal looks to be, once again, a wise sage promoting Thomas Kraft as Bayern's Number One. Kraft's reflexes seem to be an uptick over Hans-Joerg Butt's; evidenced by his nifty save of Grafite's penalty shot towards the end of the first half.

This one match seemed to quell alot of the reservations that many Bayern fans had about the switch. However, as reports of financial woes in Gelsenkirchen keep rolling in, expect Kraft to start the rest of the season, and then (finally!) Manuel Neuer to take over in the fall.

The central defenders, Breno and Holger Badstuber, looked comfortable with each other and in their roles. And yes, mistakes are still being made, but I have a feeling they'll be getting much better as the season progresses. I haven't felt so comfortable about our center "D" since the 2007 pairing of Lucio and Martin Demichelis.

I am still wondering what we'd be looking at had we kept Hummels, though...

The Bad.

I just hopped on the Mario Gomez train, so I'm not willing to hop off of it--- yet. Had he not failed to finish, we'd have walked away from this match with three points. But, I'll consider this match a one-off and wait patiently for the goals to come against Kaiserslautern on Saturday.

Josue's taking down of Franck Ribery on 17 minutes had me actually laughing ruefully. ("Hahaha. Figures!" I posted in the blog comments.) And then looking at the re-play, I thought, "Knees are not supposed to do that." Ouch. But, the bright spot in Franck's limping was seeing Arjen Robben warming up on the touchlines, and running out half-an-hour earlier than expected.

And really, be honest, you were excited too...

Thankfully, Ribery's injury is not as serious as initially thought. And the return of Robbery is only delayed for a couple of weeks. Franck will be back in time just as Arjen is hitting his stride, I think. Perfect.

The Ugly.

It pains me to say that this category includes two of my all-time favorites: Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm.

I always think it strange when a striker doesn't tee up for a penalty. Because, essentially, that's what they are there to do. Strike. And while Lahm had Benaglio beat to the right, he beat him a little too far, in what would prove very costly in the end.

"WTF Schweini?!" reverberated through various media as Bastian allowed himself to be out-muscled on the goal line by Wolves captain Marcel Shaefer. Shaefer then passed across the front of the goal to Sascha Riether, who easily slotted home the equaliser.

Not that getting juked on doesn't happen, but he did have an opportunity to make a clearance that he didn't take. And only being up one goal means the clearance would have been the correct decision to make. He's so awesome all the time, though, that this transgression will be forgotten.

Also qualifying as ugly: The pitch. And the referee-ing.

So, what to expect on Saturday versus Kaiserslautern? Schweini moving back to the 6 spot, for one. Which means, rightly or wrongly, Tymoschuk will be on the bench. Thomas Mueller should start in the 10 slot, and Danjiel Pranjic in Ribery's place. Also, I'd expect to see a full 90 minutes out of Luiz Gustavo opposite Lahm on the defensive flank.

Kraft - Lahm, Breno, Badstuber, Gustavo - van Bommel, Schweinsteiger - Robben, Mueller, Pranjic - Gomez

'Slautern will be rue-ing Srjan Lakic's red card last week, as he's scored 11 for the Roten Teufel this year. (And speaking of Red Devils, just who are the real ones? Bayern? Manchester United? Kaiserslautern?) He'll be replaced by Nemec.

At the beginning of the season, 1.FCK up-ended an exhausted Bayern Munich 2-0. I don't think that will be the case here. We're a much better team now than we were then. And, we're at home. So, I'm pretty sure the Suedkurve will have three points to celebrate tomorrow afternoon.

The match will be broadcast in Spanish (huh?) on ESPN3. How do you say "Auf gehts!" in Spanish again?