German Bundesliga 2011-2012 Preview: Bayern Munich, Bayer Leverkusen Favorites, Schalke Dark Horse

Bayer Leverkusen

Leverkusen finished second last year edging out Bayern Munich for the final automatic Champions League spot. It will be their first appearance in the Champions League since a Round of 16 sighting in 2004-2005. Defender Sami Hyypiä decided to retire, but he is going through the process to obtain his coaching badges to return to the club. The other key component that they lost was midfielder Arturo Vidal. The saga that was selling him this summer was exhausting. Without going into too many details here, Leverkusen refused to sell him to league rival Bayern Munich and sent him to Juventus in Italy. Losing Vidal is going to cause some pain in that midfield, and Lars Bender is going to need to play at an elite level to fill that void. Leverkusen's biggest signing this summer is easily André Schürrle from Mainz 05. Schürrle was amazing for Mainz last year finishing with 16 goals and 4 assists. Look for him to add some more spark to the Leverkusen attack this season. Michael Ballack is in the final year of his contract with the club and will need a great year for Leverkusen to repeat their finish from last year. Unfortunately for Leverkusen they're going to be going into October without starting goalkeeper Rene Adler. Adler is out with a right knee injury. The club will be turning to David Yelldell in the meantime and hope that he can provide a stopgap until Adler returns.

FC Schalke 04
Last season for Schalke was a disaster. There's no other way to describe it really. They finished only four points out of the relegation places. The one saving grace is that they put together a great run and were able to win the DFB Pokal. Talking about Schalke's summer transfers starts with Manuel Neuer. The transfer tango that Schalke did with Bayern Munich finally came to an end when the club sold the goalkeeper to Bayern for €18 million. Schalke went right out and purchased Ralf Fährmann from Eintracht Frankfurt. Fährmann was excellent last season on a bad team, and he's already shown his worth in the DFB Supercup win against Borussia Dortmund. Centerback and captain Benedikt Höwedes anchors a defense that has a lot of potential for the upcoming season. I myself am a huge fan of Kyriakos Papadopoulos and think he can be a really special player for them. Christian Fuchs returns from his loan spell at Mainz and will add some depth and skill to the Schalke backline. Jermaine Jones, Jan Moravek and Lewis Holtby are all returning from successful loan spells. Schalke have one of the deepest midfields in the league, and manager Ralf Rangnick is going to have to find the right formula to get this team playing up to their potential. Jefferson Farfán was outstanding for the club last year and won't be in the squad at the beginning of the season due to an injury he picked up in training for the Copa America. Rangnick appears to favor Dutch striker Klaas Jan-Huntelaar as his target forward. With another month left in the transfer window, we'll have to wait and see what happens with Spanish legend Raul. Rumblings have been coming out for days now that Raul is unhappy and wants to return to Spain. Raul was excellent for Schalke last year, but he isn't vital to their success. At the end of the year we could look at Schalke and talk about how they snuck in and won the league or how they fell on their face and finished outside of the European places.

FC Bayern Munich
One thing is going to determine the season that Bayern Munich has and it is the health of Arjen Robben. The Dutch winger missed the entire first half of last season. In just 14 matches, Robben scored 12 goals and had 8 assists. If Bayern can keep Robben healthy enough for 23-25 starts this season, they could probably begin to turn some of their draws into wins. Thomas Müller's continued development playing underneath the superb Mario Gomez will be a joy to watch this season. Last year he finished with 12 goals and 11 assists. Gomez scored 28 goals last season in the Bundesliga and 39 goals in all competitions. If the front four of Gomez, Robben, Müller and Franck Ribery stay healthy this year, we could see a ton of goals put into opposition nets. The board tried their damnedest to bring Arturo Vidal to the club, but they were unable to complete the transfer. The big question now is who pairs with Bastian Schweinsteiger in the middle of the park? Is it Luiz Gustavo or Anatoliy Tymoshchuk? I think manager Jupp Heynckes might be leaning toward Gustavo. The Manuel Neuer transfer saga was finally completed and all the supporters would love having the world's best goalkeeper in the net, correct? Wrong. A group of supporters vehemently decried his signing and protested loudly at the Ligapokal friendly tournament in Mainz. I would imagine that a few good performances by Neuer will slowly begin to silence their complaints. For the last several years weakest part of the Bayern team has been the defense. Louis Van Gaal refused to address this last summer, but the Bayern board have been sure to address it this time. Genoa right back Rafinha was brought in to the club, and the decision was made to move Philipp Lahm to left back. Lahm is a world class fullback at either position, and he solves the left back problem. The club also purchased Manchester City centerback Jérôme Boateng. He is expected to step right in and be a starter from day one. The two starting centers are likely to be Boateng and Holger Badstuber. This doesn't begin to install fear in the mind of any offense, but it is a better combination than Martin Demichelis and Daniel Van Buyten.