A testament to how crazy this Bundesliga season has been was the final Saturday when I used every platform in my arsenal to keep track of 5 games concurrently. GolTV was showing the Dortmund - Frankfurt match. I had the ESPN3 feeds of Bayern Munich - Stuttgart and SC Freiburg - Bayer Leverkusen playing on my desktop and notebook, following Wolfsburg - Hoffenheim on my Android pad and the Moenchengladbach match on my phone. Exhausting.

So, a very young and very excellent Dortmund squad won the Bundesliga after grabbing first place in the autumn and never letting go. Leverkusen managed not to do what they're known for and held on to second place, while we reached our minimum target of third place: a Champions League qualification spot.

Meanwhile, Hannover and Mainz have surprisingly found their way in to European competition. And Nurenberg and Kaiserslautern both had quietly excellent seasons, finishing just out of the top 5.

At the other end of the table, St. Pauli and Frankfurt go down and Moenchengladbach plays to stay in top flight with Bochum. We welcome back Hertha Berlin next year, as well as Augsburg.

After our double- and one match away from the treble- last season, only Mario Gomez bringing home the Torschuetzenkoenig title keeps our trophy cabinet from being empty. What a revelation he was this season, finally becoming worthy of his transfer fee: 28 Bundesliga goals, another 11 added in Pokal and Champions League competitions. His 5 hat tricks this year come up just short of the record held by Gerd Mueller (1971-72). And on receiving the trophy, he was quick to praise his teammates, "Mario Gomez is the name on the trophy, but it's a trophy for the club and the team... ...I've had 28 superb passes this season."

Mario also wins my very unofficial Bayern Munich player of the year award. Although, had Arjen Robben been healthy the whole year, this might have gone differently. The Dutchman had a truly stellar second half. Also in consideration, the rest of the midfield attack: Thomas Mueller and Franck Ribery. Thomas slowly got back to his wonderful World Cup form, scoring 12 goals and assisting 11 more, while Franck Ribery, only featuring in 25 games, scored 7 and also assisted 11.

My best and worst moments of the year strangely came within a week of each other. After watching Bayern get beat at home by Dortmund and away at Hannover in late February / early March, I flew to Munich for the Hamburg match and the return leg of the Round of 16 versus Inter Milan.

Although we got off slowly in the Hamburg match, there was a flurry of offense right before Arjen Robben's opener on 40 minutes, with Munich striking the bar or the post three times in succession. Arjen ended the day with a hat trick as 69,000 gleefully sang "Tulpen aus Amsterdam" multiple times. Ribery and Mueller completed the rout, as the Bayern faithful were standing and singing for pretty much all of the second half. It's not very often that you get to see 6-0: It was a special, glorious day in Munich and bode well for the mid-week clash with Inter Milan...

...Or so I thought.

Giddy over the destruction of Hamburg, the packed house at the Allianz was looking to avenge the loss of the Champions League final last season, especially after beating Inter 0-1 in Milan. After Samuel Eto'o opened the scoring clearly offside, Mario Gomez and Thomas Mueller got Bayern back leading after half an hour. The domination continued after the break until Sneijder scored to level, and then it all went rapidly downhill from there.

The crowd was still positive until Hamit Altintop was subbed in for the injured Robben. And I could physically feel the mood in the stadium drop, as suddenly, no one felt we were going to make it through. Inter's aggressiveness, built on the mood shift, proved to be Bayern's undoing as Pandev scored in the 88th minute to nail the coffin on our dreams of a spot in the final 8.

What were your best and worst moments of the season?

As we say goodbye to Hamit Altintop (Real Madrid), Mehmet Ekici (Werder Bremen), Thomas Kraft (Hertha Berlin) and Andreas Ottl, I'm curious to see what will happen in the case of Miroslav Klose. It would be a shame if his shocking (and viral) miss from half a meter against Stuttgart was how everyone remembered him best. But, as he's gearing up for EURO next summer, I fear he'll need to play regular first team football, and I don't think he'll get that at Bayern. He's also asking for a two-year contract, which die Roten don't usually grant to players over 30.

And, now, as I'm finishing this, word has just come that Nils Petersen, leading scorer in the 2. Bundesliga has agreed to terms with Bayern Munich. Wonder what that will mean for Miro? It's a crowded forward line with Petersen, Klose, Olic and Gomez all in the mix.

My next post will most likely be after the weekend, when Schalke formally announce the transfer of Manuel Neuer. And there I will address the transfer rumours in whole. It's difficult to sift through the information, solely because we're constantly linked to everyone that can spell "football". And, most of it is utter nonsense. However, if there's a question I can specifically answer, throw it in the comments below or shoot me an email.

My friends in Germany make my experiences over there not-so-typically American ones. I am blessed. Don, Tom, Frank and Georg: Thank you for all that you do! I look forward to the fall and our next Stammtisch. The Bosch family: You included a strange girl you didn't know in to your group in Madrid, and extended your hospitality this season. It has been a pleasure to call you friends. Michael and Achim: I'd be dead / maimed if you wouldn't have saved me from the mob in Stuttgart, taking me in to the club and then out on the town.

Thanks to Dom Raynor, my editor here at Soccernet. Your timely emails nudge me the right way. And to Uli Hesse: You are an inspiration. Eloquent, and humorous to boot. No one writes about Fussball better than you.

And finally, thanks to all of you, the readers. Week in and week out, you offer up great opinions and criticisms. This blog would be nothing without you! I heartily look forward to next season and sharing our triumphs and tribulations together. We cross a myraid of social lines and countries... continents, even. But, the one thing we have in common is our passion for football. Our passion for FC Bayern Muenchen.

"To say that these men paid their shillings to watch twenty-two hirelings kick a ball is merely to say that a violin is wood and catgut, that Hamlet is so much paper and ink." -J.B. Priestley. The Good Companions.

Tweet



Follow ESPNsoccernet's Football Correspondents on Twitter