Bundesliga: A rising star
Ever since Borussia Dortmund’s revival three seasons ago, the Bundesliga has really taken the interest of many English fans, especially with the amount of TV time they get compared to other foreign leagues is huge (ESPN and Eurosport which together do about 6/7 of the 10 games). It is very easy to see why it has burst on to the scene so much:
First of all, you have to start off with the crowd; the atmosphere at almost every stadium is undeniably jaw-dropping (especially Dortmund’s famous ‘Yellow Wall’). If you compare this to a place like England, at times, you can hear the away fans singing, if this were to happen in Germany, even at 3-0 to the away team, I would burn £1000 on the spot. Furthermore, it brings the people of Germany together; the poor and the rich, the old and the young as most tickets are under €15. For example, for a place with a good view in Borussia Dortmund’s notorious South Stand is about €11 whereas tickets in the Stretford End at Old Trafford are priced at £39 for adults.
If you again put the Bundesliga in comparison with the Premier League, the German League tends to make its own talent as their youth teams have a much better infrastructure than most other youth clubs with perhaps the exception of Ajax and Barcelona. 3 of Bayern Munich’s starting 11 against Arsenal in the Champions League were home-bred (Muller, Lahm and Schweinsteiger). It also has to be mentioned that only 2 of Arsenal’s starters were English (Walcott and Wilshere) whereas 6 of Bayern’s were bar Dante, Alaba, Mandzukic and Ribery and Martinez, which very smoothly leads me to my next point:
The law, which has recently been introduced in the Premier League that clubs have to make a profit over time which hopefully encourages more clubs to focus on their academies and bring up more English players to the top league which may hopefully help us try and win us a World Cup again, but this was introduced after BVB’s financial fall out of which they were saved by the other Bundesliga Club; which leads on to another law that, in my opinion, should be introduced to England’s professional leagues that if a club is in a financial fall, other clubs in the league have to help them get back to a stable condition because it’s simply unfair to a football club’s fans and players that they have to suffer for something that wasn’t their fault.
Going back to the actual football in Germany, you know that every year, every team has a chance of coming in the top half or even Europe as Eintracht Frankfurt or Mainz or Freiburg have proved this season that the small teams can fight with the big boys or as Hoffenheim did a few years ago when they went on a brilliant league run and gained a place in the Europa League. However, it is also the same at the other end of the table as the big teams of yesteryear such as Stuttgart or Wolfsburg (Remember Graffiti and Dzeko?) are near the bottom and Wolfsburg, if they string a few losses together and other results don’t go their way, they could be caught up and dragged into a relegation battle.
Moreover, I would say that the quality of the Bundesliga this season has been by far and away the best in Europe. If you compare most English teams to the Bundesliga teams, they play a much worse, much more conservative style of football which for a non-biased fan (I support a team in the Championship, Come on you Addicks!) is much more boring to watch than a good game between Dortmund and Schalke which is a lot more heated than any English match is nowadays and has much better quality, is a lot more attacking, includes a lot more goals and as many, if not more young stars (Marco Reus, Hummels) than a match between United – City.
In conclusion, I would like to point out that I do enjoy the Premier League a lot and watch at least 5 matches a week-end unless I am at a game and I would say that it is still the best league in the world, but that the Bundesliga is quickly catching up, but is it time for the Prem to be knocked off is perch and allow another league to come into the limelight.
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