It's Futbol Season!

No, not this.


This.

Yes, welcome to my dark and sordid side of international footie. I don't believe I've explained who my favorite teams are yet, so here they are:

• FC Bayern Munich (Bundesliga, Germany) - I only started following them last season due to the World Cup. I was arbitrarily rooting for Germany, picked Lukas Podolski, Bastian Schweinsteiger, and Philipp Lahm as my favorite players, and then chose their domestic club as my favorite. At that time, Podolski was moving from FC Cologne to Bayern, so I picked well. After a disappointing season last year for the Bundesliga juggernauts (not qualifying for the Champions League and finishing fourth), they splashed the cash and picked up the likes of Miroslav Klose (Podolski's strike parter in the German NT), Ze Roberto (former Bayern star), Franck Ribery (outstanding French midfielder), Luca Toni, Hamit Altintop, Marcell Jansen, and Jan Schlaudraff. With a completely retooled team, this season could vault the Reds back into CL contention.
• Bolton FC (Premiership, England) - I don't really know too much about this team, though they are pretty okay. They're not one of the Big 4 , but they're certainly a contending mid-table team. I started following them when I began reading Kevin Nolan's, the Bolton captain, column on BBC Sport. Bolton qualified for the UEFA Cup last season, so maybe they might be playing Bayern in a match. I don't follow Bolton as much as I do Bayern, but I still keep up with their scores and such.

Bayern's first match of the season was against newly promoted Hansa Rostock. Seeing as I live about 9 time zones away from where this match took place, I can only get the highlights. Even from 7 minute clips, it looks like Bayern are a completely different team.

• Great 1-2 pass from Miro to Toni. It completely threw off the lone defender and goalie.
• So many different scoring options. Miro and Toni are both adept at using their heads as well at their feet to score goals, something that was sorely lacking last season when Michael Ballack left. More creativity in the midfield with Schweini, Ribery, and Ze Roberto.
  
• I haven't seen the Miro midair front-flip for a long time. Classic.
• We should have had way more goals than 3. Still, it's good to win.