Bayern bask in winter warmth

The German Bundesliga season has reached the halfway point and champions FC Bayern München have again been the dominant force in a campaign which has set a new crowd record, with more than six million spectators passing through the turnstiles.

Bayern rule
Bayern began the new season as they had finished the old, and have won 14 of their first 17 league matches to hold a six-point advantage over nearest challengers Hamburger SV heading into the winter break. Felix Magath's team also harbour ambitions of lifting the UEFA Champions League trophy and reached the last 16 - where they will play AC Milan - in untroubled fashion.

Hamburg strengthened
The success of second-placed Hamburg has been based on the league's best defence, which has conceded only nine goals to date. Thanks to a potent mixture of summer signings such as Dutch international Rafael van der Vaart and Cameroon's Thimothée Atouba and established talents like Daniel Van Buyten and Sergej Barbarez, Hamburg have overtaken the likes of FC Schalke 04 to emerge as Bayern's main title challengers.

Bremen attack
Werder Bremen lie third and have the country's most potent strike force having mustered 46 goals so far, with German international Miroslav Klose (16 goals), strike partner Ivan Klasnić (8) and midfielder Tim Borowski (7) leading the way. Schalke, who have been largely disappointing, and Hertha BSC Berlin will spend the winter occupying fourth and fifth position respectively.

New records
There have been two notable records in the first half of the 2005/06 campaign, with the number of fans attending games passing the six-million mark for the first time; in total, 6,125,913 spectators saw 153 matches. Eight coaches lost their jobs in the first portion of the campaign, another new record. Perhaps the most high-profile of those was Klaus Augenthaler, although his replacement at Bayer 04 Leverkusen, Michael Skibbe, has been unable to guide the team higher than 12th position at the winter break followingt his appointment in October.

Coaching cull
Also leaving their jobs were Wolfgang Wolf (1. FC Nürnberg), Ewald Lienen (Hannover 96), Michael Henke (1. FC Kaiserslautern), Norbert Meier (MSV Duisburg) and Uwe Rapolder, who left 1. FC Köln after the worst first half of the season in the club's history. The promoted side won just 12 points and have gone 12 matches without a win to leave themselves deep in the relegation mire and level on points with MSV Duisburg and bottom side 1. FC Kaiserslautern.

Surprise packages
Remarkably, Kaiserslautern's Halil Altintop is one of the league's leading scorers having managed 13 goals in 17 appearances. Other surprise packages are seven-placed VfL Borussia Mönchengladbach, Eintracht Frankfurt in tenth and DSC Arminia Bielefeld a place below. BV Borussia Dortmund, meanwhile, have put a positive spin on their financial troubles, as Dutch coach Bert van Marwijk has turned to promising youngsters such as David Odonkor, Marc-André Kruska and Uwe Hünemeier while the club's 17-year-old Turkish international Nuri Sahin became the youngest goalscorer in the history of the Bundesliga.