Prior to it's formation football in Germany was played on a regional basis. In 1949 there were five regional 'Oberligen' formed across the old West Germany.
In East Germany a separate league was established in 1950 called 'DS Oberliga' which was renamed 'Football Oberliga DFV' in 1958.
Sixteen teams were selected for the first Bundesliga season from the five regional divisions who were Eintracht Braunschweig, Werder Bremen, Hamburger SV, Borussia Dortmund, FC Köln, Meidericher SV (now renamed MSV Duisburg), Preußen Münster, Schalke, FC Kaiserslautern, FC Saarbrücken, Eintracht Frankfurt, Karlsruher SC, FC Nürnberg, 1860 Munich, VfB Stuttgart and Hertha BSC.
In 1991 following the re-unification of Germany clubs from the East German system joined the new German football system with the Bundesliga still being the top division. FC Hansa Rostock and FC Dynamo Dresden joined the top tier.
The Bundesliga is actually comprised of two divisions. "1. Bundesliga" and "2. Bundesliga" are the top and second tier of German football.
"3. Liga" is the third tier of the game in Germany but is not referred to as the 'Bundesliga' as the divison is run by the German Football Association as opposed to the German Football League who run the top two tiers.
1.FC Koln (or Cologne in English) were the first champions in 1963/64. They won the title again in 1977/78 and have been runner's up a further five times.
Since the 1997/1998 season they have been a real yo-yo club with six relegations and six promotions back to the top level. They were in tenth place of the Bundesliga when football was put on hold in early March.
Eintracht Braunschweig were champions in 1967. In 1985 the club were relegated and suffered a further relegation to step three for the 1987/88 season. The club were in ninth position on the 3.Liga when football was put on hold in early March.
1.FC Saarbrucken were founder members of the Bundesliga but were demoted with just six wins in thirty games played. The club have a somewhat unique history having played in the European Cup but not representing Germany. After World War II the state of Saarland (where Saarbrucken is located) was occupied by the French. Various efforts were made to become an independent state wnich is sport saw a team representing Saarland in the 1952 Olympics and also the 1954 World Cup Qualifiers. FC Saarbrucken played in the French Second Division as guests for the 1948/49 season under the name of 'FC Sarrebruck' and actually won the division but were refused promotion due to objections made by other clubs.
1.FC Saarbrucken played in the first European club (1955/56) as Saarland's representative. They were drawn against the giants of AC Milan and actually won the first leg 3-4 but then lost the second leg 4-1 to go out 7-5 on aggregate.
They made they way back up to the top division in the mid 70s but by the early 80s they had slipped back to level 3. They had two more seasons in the Bundesliga in 85/86 and 92/93 but were relegated back down again.
Die Molschder, as they are nicknamed, were top of the Regionalliga SudWest (fourth tier) when football was put on hold in March. Kickers Ofenbach were also playing in this division - their highest placed finish in German football was a seventh placed finish in the Bundesliga in 1972/73.
1.FC Saarbrucken made some more history this season as they became the first fourth tier team to to reach DFB Pokal (German Cup) semi-final stage after beating second tier sides SSV Jahn Regensburg, 1.FC Koln and Karlsruher along with Bundesliga side Fortuna Dusseldorf who are managed by Uwe Rosler in the quarter-finals. They are due to play Bayer Leverkusen in the semi-final when or if football gets back underway again.
Up until the end of the 2017/18 season there was only one team in Bundesliga history that had never been relegated from the top tier since the league was formed in 1963. Hamburger SV were demoted to the 2.Bundesliga for the first time and they have since finished fourth and in third place when football was put on hold in March.
Legendary goalkeeper Sepp Maier played an incredible 442 games in row for Bayern Munich from 1966 through to the end of the 78/79 season. He was named German footballer of the year in 1975, 1977 and 1978 as well as being part of the iconic Bayern team who won three European cups in the row in 1974, 1975 and 1975. Maier made a total of 473 appearances in the Bundesliga for Bayern. He is not the record holder for most games played though. Defender Karl-Heinz 'Charly' Korbel played for Eintracht Frankfurt from 1972 to 1991 clocking up 602 appearances!
Bayern Munich are not just one of the giants of German football but of World Football. Their first campaign in the Bundesliga came in the third season 1965/66. Since then they have been champions on 28 occasions and won the German cup 18 times since 1965. They had one previous Cup win in 1957
Their European record is exceptional with only Liverpool, AC Milan and Real Madrid ahead of them on 6, 7 and 13 wins -
European Cup/Champions League
Winners: (5) 1973–74, 1974–75, 1975–76, 2000–01 and 2012–13.
Runner-Ups: 1981/82, 1986/87, 1998/99, 2009/10, 2011/12.
In addition to these 10 finals they have also been knocked out at the semi-final stage a further 9 times and at the quarter-final stage 10 times.
UEFA Europa League / UEFA Cup
Winners: (1) 1995–96.
Semi-Finals: 1979/80, 1988/89 and 2007/08.
UEFA Cup Winners' Cup
Winners: (1) 1966–67.
Semi-Finals: 1967/68, 1971/72 and 1984/85.
Quarter-Finals: 1981/82.
Since their sixth placed Bundesliga finish in 1994/95 they have never been placed than fourth and have won the last seven titles.
Jadon Sancho is the most famous British player in the league at present. He has scored 14 times for Borussia Dortmund as well as providing 16 assists up until football was halted this season. We all have read that many Premier League sides want to sign him with eye watering transfer fees being mentioned. The £8,000,000 fee Dortmund paid Manchester City for his services in 2017 looks a good bit of business. There are plenty more English players plying their trade in Germany some of whom you may or may not of heard of:
Jonjoe Kenny, 23, is on loan with Schalke 04 from Everton. The right-back who came through the ranks at Goodison Park has been a firm fixture in the first team at Schalke this season. He has played for England at u21 down to u16 level.
Kenny's team-mate is Rabbi Matondo (attacking midfielder/winger) who born in the same city as him - Liverpool! Matondo moved to Cardiff with his family when he was very young so is now actually a full Welsh International. He started with Cardiff City before a move to Manchester City in 2016 for a fee of £500,000. He never made a first team appearance for City and moved to Germany in January 2019. Schalke paid a reported fee of £11,000,000 for his services and he signed a contract to take him up until the the 2023/24 season.
Keanan Bennetts came through the ranks at Tottenham Hotspur and is also an attacking midfielder/winger who usually plays on the left. The 21 year old is currently on the books of Borussia Monchengladbach. He has yet to make a first team appearance but has played for their second team who currently play in the Regionaliga West (Step Four). Unfortunately he was out injured from September 19 to January 20 with a ruptured Thigh Muscle. He has an 18 year old brother Jayden Bennetts who plays for Watford and was part of The Hornets team in their recent FA Cup game away at Tranmere Rovers.
Anthony Evans is another Liverpudlian playing in Germany. The 21 year old attacking midfielder was with Everton from a very young age but never made a first team appearance spending time on loan with Blackpool and Morecambe. He joined SC Paderborn in late January - they are currently bottom of the 1.Bundesliga.
Ademola Lookman is currently with RB Leipzig. The winger rose through the ranks at Charlton Athletic before a £7.5m (whch had potential to rise to £11m) move to Everton in 2017. He played 36 times for The Toffees before a loan spell and a permanent move to RB Leipzig. Born in Wandsworth he is now aged 22 and has played for England at u21, u20 and u19 level. He is also eligible to play for Nigeria at International level.
Many English fans will recall Reece Oxford bursting onto the Premier League scene back in August 2015 when as a 16 year old he became West Ham United's youngest ever player in their 0-2 win at Arsenal. He signed a four and a half year contract with The Hammers on his eighteenth birthday in December 2016 and then spent time on-loan with Reading in the Championship. He had two spells on loan with Borussia Monchengladbach in 2017 and 2018. He then joined FC Augsburg on loan and made the move permanently in August 2019. Born in Edmonton, North London he is a central defender/defensive midfielder and has played 8 times for Augsburg this season.
Clinton Mola was also born in North London - Camden. The 19 year old midfielder is a product of the ultra successful academy at Chelsea but did not make a first team appearance at Stamford Bridge. He made the move to VFB Stuttgart in January 2020 and has since played six times for his new club who find themselves in 2.Bundesliga following their relegation from the top level at the end of the 2018/19 campaign. Whilst at Chelsea he was part of the squads which were runner's up in the UEFA Youth League in 2018 and 2019, won the U18 Premier League in 2017 and 2018 and won the FA Youth Cup in 2017 and 2018.
Nathaniel Phillips, 23, is currently on loan with VFB Stuttgart from Liverpool. The defender joined at the start of the 2019/20 campaign but was recalled back to play in the Merseyside derby FA Cup victory over Everton in January. He moved back to Stuttgart for the remainder of the season and has made 7 starts in the total for them altogether. He is son of Jimmy Phillips who is most well known in his playing career for his time with Bolton Wanderers and Middlesbrough.
Jordi Osei-Tutu, 22, is currently on loan to 2.Bundesliga side VFL Bochum from Arsenal. The full back has made 12 appearances in total this season as well as appearing as an unused substitute 14 times.
Xavier Amaechi, 19, also came through the academy system with The Gunners. He had played for England at u16, u17 and u19 level. He joined 2.Bundesliga side Hamburger SV in July 2019. He has only made one appearance for the first team and also been an unused substitute a number of times. He has also featured for their second team who play in the Regionalliga Nord (Step Four) where he has scored 3 goals in 4 games. Two of those goals came in a game against Altona 93 in October. He started for the England u19 game in Bosnia Herzegovina in November but was replaced by another Gunner's academy player Tyreece John-Jules who recently moved on loan to League One side Lincoln City. If your thinking I recognise the surname of 'John-Jule' you'll be right as Tyreece is the nephew of actor Danny who is most famous for playing The Cat in Red Dwarf.
Jake Hirst is a name not many football fans will have heard of. The 23 year old striker is currently with FC Giessen in the Regionalla SudWest (Step Four). He was born in Germany to English parents and came through the academy system of Eintracht Frankfurt and then had spells at FSV Frankfurt and TSG Wieseck before a move to Kickers Offenbach where he scored 9 goals in 22 games in the 2018/19 season. He has scored 5 in 11 games for Giessen this season.
Ethan Ampadu has 13 full Welsh caps to his name already at the very young age of just 19 years old. He is currently on loan from Chelsea to RB Leipzig where he had made only 3 full appearances so far. The centre-back clearly has a huge future in the game and should be part of the first team set up at Chelsea within the next few seasons I expect.
James Lawrence, 27, was born in England but has six full Welsh caps to his name. He came though the Arsenal and QPR academy before in 2008 his family moved to Holland and he spent time with the youth systems of HFC Harlem, Ajax, Sparta Rotterdam and RFC Waalwijk. From 2014 to 2018 he played in Slovakia for "FK AS Trencin" who won the top division in both 14/15 and 15/16 as well as the Slovak Cup in 2015 and 2016. He moved to Anderlecht in 2018 and then on loan to 2.Bundesliga side St Pauli for the 2019/20 campaign.
The record attendance for the Bundesliga is 88,075 who saw Hertha Berlin play 1.FC Köln in 1969. The lowest crowd is 827 who saw Tasmania Berlin host Borussia Monchengladback in 1966. Tasmania Berlin's one season stint in the top division for 1965/66 was an eventful one!
SC Tasmania Berlin 1900 to give the club it's full title were promoted to the Bundesliga in 1965 after Berlin's only side at the time Hertha BSC (they had finished 14th just above the drop zone) had it's licence revoked and was demoted for breaking the league's salary rules. The German Football Association wanted keep the City of Berlin for political reasons. Karlsruher SC and FC Shalke (15th and 16th) requested to avoid demotion due to the Hertha BSC situation so relegation was suspended foe the season and increase the number of teams from 16 to 18.
Bayern Munich and Borussia Mönchengladbach moved up and Spandauer SV refused an offer of promotion. It was then clear for third-place club Tasmania 1900 to take up the opportunity to represent Berlin in the Bundesliga — this was confirmed just two weeks before the start of the 1965–66 season. The club's name come from the fact the club's founders in 1900 were apparently going to migrate to Australia with the preferred destination being Tasmania hence the name.
They are to date the worst team in Bundesliga history as they won just two of their thirty four games played and collected only eight points as it was only two points for a win in those days - they scored only fifteen goals and let in one hundred and eight. The club also currently still hold the record for the biggest losing margin in a Bundesliga home game when they lost 0-9 to Meidericher SV in March 1966. This was close to being equaled in 2000 when Bayer Leverkusen won 1-9 at SSV Ulm - Leandro Fonseca's injury time goal for the home side kept the record in tact.
Their lowest crowd figure stated above was despite having 81,500 and 70,000 at their first two games. They never returned to the top tier of the German game and sadly were declared bankrupt in 1973.
Prior to the club being dissolved the youth and Amateur players had established their own club in the February of 1973 called SC Tasmania 73 Neukölln. Many club officials and players followed suit to support the new team in Neukölln at the end of the season. The club now known as SV Tasmania Berlin now play in the NOFV Oberliga Nord which is the fifth tier of the German game.
The highest transfer fee paid by a Bundesliga club was the €80.0 million figure paid by Bayern for Lucas Hernandez from Atletico Madrid in 2019.
The highest transfer fee received is currently €130 million that Barcelona paid Borussia Dortmund for Ousmane Dembélé in 2017. Will this be beaten when or if Jaydon Sancho leaves Dortmund?
Mario Gotze's €37 million 2013 transfer from Dortmund to Bayern is the current record for two German clubs.
RB Leipzig or RasenBallsport Leipzig e.V to give them their full title have come from step five when they were formed in 2009 to now being one of the biggest teams in the German game and qualifying for the UEFA Champions League. The club were founded when Red Bull purchased the playing rights of fifth-tier side SSV Markranstädt with the intent of advancing the new club to the top-flight Bundesliga within eight years.
They have gone from having an average crowd of 2,150 in their first season to now around 40,000 in the top league where they have finished 2nd, 6th and 3rd - they were also 3rd in the table in March.
Leipzig has a history of football with BSG Chemie Leipzig winning the DFB Pokal Cup in 1957 and 1966 as well as the DDR Oberliga (East German Championship) in 1951 and 1964. They were dissolved in 1990 and FC Sachsen Leipzig were formed. They played in the lower divisions and were themselves dissolved in 2011. Another club called LFV Sachsen Leipzig were formed in 2014 and play in the Amateur divisions.
In 1997 a new club called BSG Chemie Leipzig were formed - they were in tenth place of the Regionalliga Nordust (Step Four) in March.
1. FC Lokomotive Leipzig are thought by some to be the unofficial successors to the original VFB Leipzig and SC Sportbrüder Leipzig clubs who were established in 1896 and 1893 respectively. In 2018 they announced a merger with the bankrupt and dormant VFB Leipzig in order to be entitled to the forerunner's titles. Due to the significant breaks and turmoils in the club's history many fans identify 1966 as the year of establishment rather than 1893. Lokomotive currently ply their trade in the Regionalla Nordust (Step Four) and were pushing for the top spot when football was put on hold - they were level on points with Energie Cottbus and VSG Altglienicke at the top of the table.
3.Liga side Spielvereinigung Unterhaching (or SpVgg Unterhaching as they are commonly known) must be the only football team with a bobsleigh on their badge. In Germany the football side is only one part of the sporting club with gymnastics and other sporting activities included. The club's bobsleigh department has helped capture Olympic and World titles. They have always been in the shadow of Munich's bigger clubs Bayern and 1860 although they now play alongside 1860 who were relegated from the top tier in 2004 and slipped down to step four for the 2017/18 season as they were relegated two levels as the club failed to gain a 3.Liga licence.
Many German clubs have their year of formation in their name like 1860 Munich and SSV Ulm 1846 but the oldest club in the country is in fact BFC Germania 1888 of Berlin. Those clubs did not take up football until after the 1888 year of formation for Germania who now play in the Kreisliga B which is level 10 on the German pyramid.
Another club from Berlin are FC Union Berlin who acheived promotion to the top division for the first time in their history for the 2019/20 season. They were in eleventh place of the table in March.
In the 2019/20 2.Bundesliga it is currently Arminia Bielefeld and VFB Stuttgart in the top two promotion places with Hamburger SV in the third place play off spot - the third placed team plays off against the third bottom team in the top division with the winner either gaining promotion or staying up. SC Paderbon and Werder Bremen were in the bottom two of the 1.Bundesliga with Fortuna Dusseldorf in the the relegation play-off spot.
Really enjoyed reading this, thank you.
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