Opinion
Germany’s top-flight football competition might be the world’s best attended, yet in recent seasons the Bundesliga has been severely lacking in excitement at the top.
Seven FC Bayern titles on the bounce made the championship race as predictable as a Bledisloe Cup. However, that seems a thing of the past now.
With four genuine title contenders and a struggling giant in Bayern Munich, this might just be the most open Bundesliga title race in a while. It’s time for Aussie fans to keep an eye on proceedings in Germany while Liverpool cruise to their first Premier League title in 30 years.
No team in any of Europe’s major four leagues had been as dominant domestically as Munich giants FC Bayern. Since they took the title from western German outfit Borussia Dortmund in 2013, only black and yellow Bayern rival BVB has even come close to challenging Germany’s record champions, which in turn made the Bundesliga a somewhat dull affair.
Last season saw Bayern’s dominance crumble for the first time in years. The southern German club trailed its rival for more than half of the season after Dortmund charged ahead early only to implode towards the business end of proceedings. A resurgent Bayern side ended up securing yet another German football crown late in the year.
The current season, however, has so far been way more exciting and remains wide open. The top four teams are separated by a mere four points after 19 rounds and with 15 games to go.
Bayern had already conceded four defeats at the halfway point before the Christmas break, as many as they did in the entirety of last season. Manager Niko Kovac was consequently sacked in autumn, but his replacement, caretaker coach Hansi Flick, has not had the smoothest ride so far. The famously impatient club board is already looking for a replacement.
Borussia Monchengladbach and especially RB Leipzig have meanwhile emerged as new threats for the Munich dominance.
Eastern German outfit Leipzig might be truly despised by a vast majority of German fans. In a league that has rules barring investors from taking a majority of shares in a club, energy drinks company Red Bull was able to circumvent the regulations by exploiting several loopholes and has been running the club as a marketing vehicle ever since.
Yet their on-field performances under 32-year-old manager Julian Nagelsmann have been admired by experts and fans alike. The youngest coach in all of Germany’s professional football has led Leipzig to the top of the Bundesliga and into the Round of 16 of the UEFA Champions League.
Leipzig forward Timo Werner is the league’s second-most prolific goalscorer, with 20 goals in 19 appearances, and trails only Robert Lewandowski by a single goal. If the 23-year-old Werner continues to excel on the pitch, current leaders Leipzig might very well be on their way to their maiden title.
Old rival Borussia Dortmund sits in fourth place, three points behind Bayern and four behind Leipzig at the top. Their title challenge was dealt a huge blow when the black and yellows were thrashed 4-0 at Munich’s Allianz Arena.
Dortmund used the four-week winter break to sign Europe’s most sought after super talent. Erling Braut Haaland was reportedly on the top of Manchester United’s transfer target list – manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer once coached Haaland himself – yet Dortmund won the race for the 19-year-old’s signature.
The Norwegian striker boasted an impressive goalscoring record in the Austrian league with Salzburg and also made his impact felt in the European autumn in the Champions League. Septics doubted, though, that Haaland would be able to translate his form in one of Europe’s best leagues.
They could not have been any more wrong, and the six-foot four-inch striker made a debut for the ages. Coming on as a second-half replacement when Dortmund was 1-3 down at Augsburg on 20 January, Haaland needed only 23 minutes to turn the game on its head.
A hat-trick in just 23 minutes for the rookie turned the tide in the crucial 2020 opener in Dortmund’s favour. And just for good measure, Haaland added a brace in his second game, again coming on as a substitute against FC Koln. These two goals brought his total to five goals in 57 minutes.
With an in-form striker and a lot of momentum behind them, Dortmund look threatening despite being in only fourth place right now. But that’s the beauty of this year’s Bundesliga season, set to conclude mid-May: It’s less predictable than Europe’s rival top leagues.
The other European leagues simply don’t offer as much excitement right now, at least when it comes to their respective title races.
Erling Braut Haaland (Alexandre Simoes/Borussia Dortmund via Getty Images)
The English Premier League remains arguably the strongest in the world and by far the most-watched among Australia’s football faithful. Liverpool FC cruising towards their first domestic league title in 20 years has LFC’s fans Down Under excited.
However, Liverpool is dominating the Premier League right now at will and with no real challenger in sight. Jurgen Klopp’s side has been constantly widening the gap since the European autumn on both the pitch and the table and sits a whopping 16 points clear of closest rival Manchester City with a game in hand.
Spain’s ultra-dominant clubs, Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, are dominating La Liga – and as per usual, one might say. Meanwhile Atletico Madrid, the team that has recently come closest to breaking the deadlock at the top of the Spanish table, is slowly falling off this season.
In France the Qatar-backed ultra-rich Paris Saint-Germain seems bound for its seventh Ligue 1 title in eight seasons, comfortably leading the league ten points ahead of Olympique Marseille.
Only Italia’s Serie A has an open title race now. A resurgent Inter Milan side and Lazio are challenging Juventus’s recent dominance, trailing Cristiano Ronaldo’s club by only three and five points respectively.
Ultimately Germany’s Bundesliga has by far the most competitive race for the title this season and deserves all the attention of football fans right now.
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