Bundesliga preview: A league home to the very best in the world

Ryland James 06:19 21/08/2014
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  • Prized assets: Bayern Munich captain Philipp Lahm lifts the Bundesliga trophy last season.

    The new Bundesliga season gets under way on Friday with German football riding the crest of a wave following the national team’s tri­umph at the World Cup in Brazil.

    That thoroughly deserved vic­tory, given to Joachim Low’s side by Mario Gotze’s extra-time strike in the final against Argentina, saw a unified Germany crowned as world champions for the first time.

    But at club level, the Bundes­liga has been leading the way for some time. It averaged 3.16 goals per game last season, considerably more than any of its major Euro­pean counterparts, while average gates were over 42,000, making the German top flight the best attended league anywhere.

    “In my opinion, the Bundesliga’s the most attractive league in the world,” Borussia Monchengladbach coach Lucien Favre said. “The hype in Germany is amazing, and now they’ve won the World Cup so it’s not going to tail off in a rush.”

    Nevertheless, the biggest prob­lem facing the Bundesliga, as ever, is how to counter the dominance of Bayern Munich, who have romped to the title and added the German Cup in each of the last two cam­paigns.

    They have seen Toni Kroos and Mario Mandzukic depart and lost Javi Martinez to a serious knee injury in last week’s SuperCup defeat to Borussia Dortmund, but the Bavarians remain favourites.

    And yet the rest can draw some hope from the very fact this is a Bundesliga season immediately fol­lowing a World Cup, and that has not tended to help Bayern in the recent past.

    After Germany hosted the 2006 World Cup, Stuttgart went on to win the Bundesliga, while in 2011 Dortmund pipped Bayern to the ti­tle. In 2009, after Germany reached the Euro 2008 final, it was Wolfs­burg who were champions.

    Six members of Pep Guardiola’s squad played in the World Cup final, including Gotze, while Dan­te and Arjen Robben were also involved until the latter stages in Brazil. That is why chairman Karl- Heinz Rummenigge wanted the start of the new season delayed in order to give these players longer to prepare, but that request was unsurprisingly turned down by Bayern’s rivals.

    Guardiola has added to his squad with compatriots Juan Bernat from Valencia and Pepe Reina. But the marquee signing was Robert Lewandowski, a prolific goalscorer for Dortmund in the last four years.

    However, Dortmund have moved to replace the Pole by signing Italy striker Ciro Immobile from Torino and Colombia’s Adrian Ramos from Hertha Berlin.

    Stability is key at the Signal Iduna Park, where coach Jurgen Klopp, who led Dortmund to back-to-back titles in 2011 and 2012 and a Champions League final defeat to Bayern in 2013, is entering his sev­enth season in charge.

    Beneath them, Schalke, Bayer Leverkusen and Wolfsburg will again be hoping to contend for Champions League qualification.

    Schalke have kept Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Julian Draxler, while few teams can boast a mid­field as strong as Wolfsburg, with Kevin de Bruyne, Luiz Gustavo and France’s Josuha Guilavogui.

    Bayer have signed Swiss striker Josip Drmic from Nuremberg and have a new coach in Roger Schmidt, back in his native country after winning the Austrian title with Salzburg.

    Hamburg will be hoping for a sta­ble campaign after narrowly avoid­ing relegation last season.

    There are new coaches at Mainz, Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart, who have reappointed Armin Veh, the architect of their 2007 title tri­umph, while Koln are back among the elite and Paderborn are in the Bundesliga for the first time.

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