The changing face of the Bundesliga

Terry Duffelen looks ahead to the forthcoming season in Germany’s top flight, a league that is changing from top to bottom.

Bayern’s reign of terror over — poor Harry

After 11 years the Bundesliga has a change of title winner. The biggest criticism of the league is the lack of competition for the title. Even when a team could overhaul the mighty Bayern Munich they would fail and the Rekordmeister would claim the championship anyway. Borussia Dortmund should have won the Bundesliga at the end of the 2023/23 season but the players choked on the last day of the season, failed to beat Mainz at home and Thomas Tuchel’s chaotic and flawed Bayern claimed their eleventh straight title. And when Harry Kane stepped off the plane to make the historic move from Tottenham Hotspur to Bayern, all but the most keen-eyed analysts felt that the Salad Bowl would be hoisted at the Allianz Arena once again in 2024.

But those keen-eyed analysts were right and despite Kane posting a massive 36 Bundesliga goals in his first season there, it was not even close to being enough to win a twelfth consecutive league and break Harry Kane’s personal trophy drought. Instead that honour went to a club synonymous for finishing second.

Leverkusen — a problematic club breaks the shackles

Up until last season, much of Bayer Leverkusen’s character was defined by the 2000/01 season in which the club missed winning the Bundesliga title, The DFB Pokal, and the Champions League within a week. Since then, B04 have been known as “Vizekusen” which is a German pun, meaning a cub that perennially misses out or finished second or “Neverkusen” which requires no explanations. Last season, under coach Xabi-Alonso, that was emphatically buried with a sensational season that saw then go unbeaten in all domestic competitions; winning the League in April and the German Cup, in May and they were 90 minutes away from a clean sweep but were denied a Europa League final victory by an admittedly superior Atalanta side.

And Die Werkself achieved this despite losing five players to Afcon and with top scorer Victor Boniface injured for much of the second half of the season. This is an achievement that not even Bayern Munich have matched, and it will be some time before we see it again, if ever.

As welcome as it is to see a different club win the Bundesliga and as impressive as the achievement was, Leverkusen’s success is and always has been problematic in the eyes of many fans, particularly those who value the 50+1 ownership principle that states that all Bundesliga clubs much have at least 51% of its ownership with its fans. Leverkusen’s ownership pre-dates that rule and is owned and funded by the big pharmaceutical company, Bayer.

Make no mistake, Bayer Leverkusen are not the richest club in the Bundesliga, and their success is based on recruiting top players who are well-coached. But the reality is that left to their own devices and without the patronage of their owners, the club would not be able to operate at the level in which they do and would at best be a mid-table club and at worst a second division side. As far as their critics are concerned and irrespective of how well run a football club, the champions have an unfair advantage.

Leverkusen are just one of an increasing number of “plastic clubs” with relatively low levels of support that benefit from a disproportionate amount of funding to keep their place in the Bundesliga.

Plastic fantastic

Bayer, like Wolfsburg supported by Volkswagen, began as a sincere attempt to provide an amenity to the town where their factories are based. But other clubs, specifically Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig are treated with more hostility by fans of traditional clubs as they are perceived as seeking to undermine the culture and ownership structure of the Bundesliga. This is all coming at a time when some of the Bundesliga’s more traditional clubs with long histories and national or international fanbases have gone into decline.

If you look down at the 2 Bundesliga you will see some big names, normally associated with the first division. Hamburg, FC Koln, and Kaiserslautern are former Bundesliga winners and Schalke were until recently a Champions League club and like Nurnberg are former German Championship winners from before the Bundesliga. Add to that list Hertha BSC who have been superseded by Union Berlin as the number 1 club in the capital and look set for a prolonged stay in the second flight plus Fortuna Dusseldorf and you have a bevy of clubs with big stadiums, massive support but just can’t get their shit together enough to sustain themselves in the top tier, let alone challenge for honours.

(Although, while they are down there, these great clubs provide widescale drama and chaos in what has become a thoroughly enjoyable division, which is only an English-style playoff system away from becoming the best second tier in Europe).

Smaller leaner clubs

In their place are the smaller clubs in modest stadiums but unlike the traditional giants know how to run their football clubs better. When Heidenheim were promoted on the last day of the 2022/23 season everyone and I mean everyone thought it was great and hoped that they enjoyed their place in the sun for a season. In fact, Frank Schmidt instilled a robust and determined style of play they not just resulted in their survival but an eighth placed finish.

In a similar vein is Holstein Kiel, a club located so far north they could be playing in the Danish Superliga. The Storks historically have occupied the lower levels of the professional game in Germany but have been a Bundesliga 2 side since 2017. They missed out of promotion to the Bundesliga in the Covid hit 20/21 season but finally achieved they topflight status last season. Ordinarily we’d expect Kiel to make a swift return to the second tier but Heidenheim and Bochum (who stayed up by the skin of their teeth in a nerve shredding relegation playoff with Dusseldorf last season) have demonstrated that clubs on smaller budgets can survive in the Bundesliga, especially with so many of the bigger clubs no longer in that division.

Cult clubs

In the absence of HSV, Schake, Koln et al, the Bundesliga does have two of what could best be described as “cult clubs,” those being FC Union Berlin and St Pauli. Both clubs are well known for having smaller but substantial fan basees with a strong left wing political views.

Union are or were Berlin’s second club that define themselves as an authentic expression of its location in Köpenick, a district of the capital. The Eisern Union have risen as sharply as Hertha have declined, playing in the Champions League last season. While their fanbase characterise themselves as left wing their president, Dirk Zingler, has been making moves that were not in step with that political sentiment. He moved the club’s home Champions League fixtures to the Olympiastadion, home of Hertha. Zingler is also one of the architects of the plan to invite private equity investment into the Bundesliga. A move that proved so unpopular that widespread coordinated protests took place across the Bundesliga last year that were peaceful and interrupted games which played havoc with the TV schedules. The campaign was successful, and the plans were scrapped. Still, the presence of Zingler at the cub seems at odds with its culture. To make matters worse they had a disastrous season and narrowly escaped relegation on the last day of the season.

St Pauli clearly define themselves as a left-wing club. They are based in the Reeperbahn district of Hamburg where’s Germany’s poorest rub shoulders with the influx of sex tourists and those who service that industry. Despite having one of the smaller stadiums, die Kiezkicker have a fanbase that stretches across the globe. This is certainly not down to the football but for the political causes that it represents. Although a number on international fan clubs have disaffiliated over their domestic counterpart’s position on Gaza. St Pauli return to the Bundesliga for the first time since 2011 but have lost their coach Fabian Hürzeler who was lured to the Premier League and Brighton.

With the number of smaller or “plastic” clubs populating the first division of the Bundesliga, the promotion of St Pauli is welcome for those of us who enjoy the colour and passion of the Bundesliga.

The decline of some of the traditional clubs and the rise of the plastics will be a matter of concern for those of us that value the contributions that these clubs make to the culture of the Bundesliga. If its traditions are to be preserved, then it needs the traditional clubs to be relevant with a strong voice in order to defend them. But their places must be earned and is they are not good enough then other clubs with less distinguished histories and smaller fanbases will replace them. Such is football.

Terry’s verdict — who will win the Bundesliga?

Champions Bayer Leverkusen made a virtue of digging deep and pulling out results, often at the last minute. If last weekend’s DFL Super Cup is any indication, then that relentlessness is undimmed. There have been no major changes to the squad, so it is really a matter as to whether the Leverkusen players have the appetite to go again or whether their rivals have enough to challenge Die Werkself. Bayern Munich, under new coach Vincent Kompany, have still got some squad rebuilding to do but only a fool would rule them out of regaining their title. Dortmund have done interesting things in the transfer market and, like Bayern, have gone for a young coach in club legend, Nuri Sahin. But there are too many uncertainties about BVB to know for sure if they will challenge but I expect them to finish in the Champions League spots. Last years runners up, Stuttgart have lost some big players over the summer and have Champions League football to contend with but they looked good in the Super Cup, and I doubt they will suffer with second season syndrome.

Terry Duffelen is a panellist on the Sound of Football and Talking Fussball, a German soccer podcast. He is also the author of Borussia Dortmund: A history in black and yellow.