5 things on the Bundesliga

One of the top soccer leagues in the world, the German Bundesliga has it all—the highest average attendance in the league, some of the best teams and players, and much more.

These are the top 5 Bundesliga facts you should be aware of.

1) Initiations

Germany was very late to adopt national top divisions, although this was partly due to the political history of the country. In contrast, England and Spain, for instance, have had top divisions for over a century.

A long-discussed national league wasn’t really established until the 1960s. The DFB (Deutscher Fußball-Bund, or German FA) decided to create a new top division from its regional leagues, known as the Oberliga, which represented the north, west, south, southwest, and the capital Berlin, on July 28, 1962, by a vote of 103 to 26 at their annual convention in Dortmund. Naturally, after World War II, Germany was divided into East and West Germany, therefore there were no Eastern Leagues. West Germany’s league was called the Bundesliga.

August 1963 saw the start of the Bundesliga’s inaugural season, which had 16 teams. Clubs had to apply by December 1962 via a complicated mechanism in order to get the opportunity to feature. The five Oberliga champions from 1962–1963 were guaranteed a spot, while their results over the preceding ten years were translated into points.

No city was allowed to host more than one club, according to one rule. This meant that despite of their historical standing, St. Pauli, Bayern Munich, and Viktoria Köln could not qualify once Hamburger SV, 1860 Munich, and 1. FC Cologne won their respective divisions. And this is in spite of the fact that, in the ten-year rankings, Bayern was ahead of 1860.

The Regionalliga replaced the Oberliga as the second division once the Bundesliga was established.

The league was increased to include 18 clubs in 1965–1966. Since then, it has remained in that format for all but one year. In order to accommodate Hansa Rostock and Dynamo Dresden as the two East German representatives after German reunification in 1991, the league held a one-off season in 1991–1992, consisting of 20 clubs. The next year, there were eighteen clubs left in the competition.

Bundesliga 2 was the name of the professional second division that debuted in 1974. Bundesliga 2 consisted of two divisions, each with 20 teams: the north and south. This reduced the level from five to two leagues. Bundesliga 2 was combined into a single division consisting of 20 clubs in 1981. After expanding to 24 teams in 1994 to account for the reunification of Germany, it was reduced to just 18.

2) Winners

Cologne emerged as the inaugural champions of the Bundesliga in 1963–64, defeating Meiderich by six points, a feat accomplished at a time when victories were worth just two points. In thirty games, the Billy Goats only suffered two losses.

Cologne, Werder Bremen, 1860 Munich, Eintracht Braunschweig, Nuremberg, Bayern, and Borussia Mönchengladbach were the seven different champions over the first seven seasons.

When Gladbach won the league again in 1970–71, they were the first team to defend the title and sparked an exciting era of league rivalry with Bayern. The two teams split the championship between 1968–69 and 1976–77, with the Foals winning five Meisterschale to Bayern’s four.

Since then, though, the Munich team has never failed to win the German championship for more than three seasons. In the Bundesliga era, they have accomplished this a record 31 times, with their longest run of domestic success being between 2012–13 and the present. No team had previously won the Bundesliga for more than three years running. Bayern has achieved this eleven times in a row.

With five titles apiece, Gladbach and Borussia Dortmund are second in the trophy list. That run alone has produced more trophies than any other team in the league.

Bremen leads the way with four, followed by Hamburg and VfB Stuttgart with three apiece, Cologne and Kaiserslautern with two, and the one-hit wonders 1860, Braunschweig, Nuremberg, and Wolfsburg.

Thomas Müller is the player with the most winner’s medals. Twelve Bundesliga titles have been won by the renownedly unremarkable forward, beginning with his inaugural season as a professional in 2009–2010. Robert Lewandowski, with ten between Bayern and Dortmund, holds the record for most titles won for multiple clubs.

When it comes to coaching feats, few can top those of Udo Lattek. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, he led Bayern and Gladbach to eight Bundesliga titles. Ottmar Hitzfeld then scores seven for Dortmund and Bayern.

Matthias Sammer, who coached BVB to victory in 2001–02, was the youngest person to do so. He was 34 years old, four months short of turning 35. He defeated Julian Nagelsmann by a few months; the present Bayern manager was 34 when he won his first league championship in 2021/22. On the opposite end of the scale, a few weeks after turning 73, Jupp Heynckes was the oldest when Bayern won the Meisterschale in 2017–18. 29 years have passed since his first title.

As the first coach to win the Bundesliga twice, with 1860 Munich in 1965–1966 and Nuremberg in 1967–1968, Max Merkel has a special position in history. Hennes Weisweiler, who competed with Gladbach in 1969–70 and 1970–71, was the first to win two consecutive titles.

3) Highest scoring

In more than fifty years of Bundesliga activity, there is, quite literally, just one man at this celebration. It’s unlikely that Gerd Müller’s 365 goals from just 427 games can ever be surpassed. Before the 33-year-old guy known as “Der Bomber” departed for the USA, Bayern had one every 105 minutes. All of those came for the team.

Lewandowski is second on the list, but not by much. Since surpassing Peruvian Claudio Pizarro in March 2019, the forward is undoubtedly the highest scorer among non-German players. Before leaving Bayern in the summer of 2022, he scored an incredible 312 goals in 384 Bundesliga games, or one per 100 minutes on average.

With Klaus Fischer, the podium is complete. Over the course of an incredible 535 games, he scored 268 goals in the Bundesliga for 1860 Munich, Schalke, Cologne, and Bochum between the 1960s and 1980s, averaging one goal every other game.

Jupp Heynckes (220), Manfred Burgsmüller (213 goals), Pizarro (197), Ulf Kirsten (182), Stefan Kuntz (179), Klaus Allofs and Dieter Müller (both 177) round out the remaining top 10.

Pizarro, who scored in Bremen’s 2-1 victory over RB Leipzig on May 18, 2019, is also the league’s oldest goalscorer ever at forty years, seven months, and fifteen days.

4) A ton of goals

Given their scoring prowess, it should come as no surprise that the Bundesliga frequently has the greatest goals-per-game average among the top five leagues in Europe.

For instance, among Europe’s top divisions, the Bundesliga experienced the highest goals per game in the 2021–2022 season. A total of 954 goals were scored at an average of 3.12 per match in Germany’s 306 top-tier matches. No other league scored more than three goals. The Premier League (2.82), Ligue 1 (2.81), La Liga (2.50), and Serie A (2.87) came in order. The Bundesliga scored the most goals per game among Europe’s top divisions for the fourth time in the previous five seasons.

Actually, since 1989–1990, no Bundesliga season has ever concluded with an average lower than 2.58. The most goal-filled season in history, 1983–84, had 3.58 goals scored per game; by the midway point in 2019–20, that pace has increased to 3.25 goals per game.

What about the players preventing goals, with all this focus of scoring goals? Goalkeepers in the Bundesliga have been outstanding at the back despite the team’s strong scoring percentage. The Bundesliga has won nine times, more than any other league, and Bayern has been the club with the most winners (also nine) since Jean-Marie Pfaff won the first prize for them in 1987.

5) The encouragement of youth

In the Bundesliga, developing young players is not only a matter of strategy; rather, it is a duty.

According to Section 3 of the DFL’s Licensing Regulations (Lizenzierungsordnung), all Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 clubs are required to manage their own academy with the aim of preserving a top-tier flow of young talent into the Bundesliga and national team. This means that the squads between U16 and U19 level must include a minimum of 12 players who are eligible for Germany, with 60% of those youth players being under contract.