The Bundesliga is back today, your first taste of elite football for weeks. Thanks to resident German football expert Raphael Honigstein’s in-depth reporting you know what to expect. Now it’s time to invest a little bit of emotion into football’s return by picking a team to follow: your chance to sample silverware or experience the drama of a relegation battle.
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Here our writers nominate one side each, appealing to fans of underdogs, losers, glory hunters, kebabs, Tony Yeboah… and costly shopping trips.
Augsburg — Roshane Thomas
Panic buyers of the world unite behind Augsburg, who will be without their coach Heiko Herrlich this weekend after he broke quarantine rules to go out and buy toothpaste.
Should you need any further reasons to support them against Wolfsburg, then how about cheering on one of English football’s lost prodigies? Reece Oxford had the world at his feet and Mesut Ozil in his back pocket following an impressive Premier League debut against Arsenal in 2015. Still only 21, he is trying to rebuild his career, as he explained to The Athletic last year.
The former Arsenal defender Stephan Lichtsteiner also plays for Augsburg and was part of the side who led Borussia Dortmund 3-1 in January, only to fall victim to Erling Haaland’s 23-minute debut hat-trick off the bench.
Hertha BSC — Kieran Devlin
Their Berlin rivals Union might have the recent progressive credibility, but Hertha are the team for hopeless romantics. For all their history as the biggest club in Germany’s capital and a founding member of the German FA, they’ve only won the German title twice (in consecutive years in 1930 and 1931) and have never done anything of significance in Europe.
Yet during the Cold War they were an outlet for passion and expression for fans on both sides of Berlin, with hundreds of fans in the East devoutly standing by the wall to follow the roars from Hertha’s Stadion am Gesundbrunnen.
The club nicknamed Die Alte Dame (The Old Lady) bask in unfulfilled potential, in boundless hope and doomed disappointment. Take this season: new and substantial investment in the club last year seemed to herald an ambitious new dawn. Jurgen Klinsmann arrived as a high-profile head coach in November and spent more than £60 million on the likes of Milan striker Krzysztof Piatek — yet Klinsmann left 11 days after the end of the transfer window. Hertha sit 11th.
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For people who are perpetually optimistic and perpetually underwhelmed — two of football’s classic emotions — Hertha is your team.
Union Berlin — Phil Hay
The right answer here is obviously Union Berlin. What you see now is not what you got when I went there with Leeds United for pre-season in 2007: grass growing out of the terraces, classic rusty fences holding in the away crowd and rudimentary stands which made them look like the third-tier club they were. Oh, and police dressed like stormtroopers who were just asking you to have a go as you walked back to the nearest S-Bahn station.
Good fun, though, and good lager — and nice to see Berlin’s less fashionable club planting a flag in Hertha’s back yard. It’s the hipster’s choice to some extent (Atletico Madrid over Real Madrid, that sort of thing) but it’s also a nice tale of rags to riches, straight from the woods of Kopenick. A few more results and survival is theirs. Get on board.
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Werder Bremen — Jack Pitt-Brooke
There is nothing in German football quite like the walk along the Weser river to a Werder Bremen game. Bremen is one of the great one-club cities of Germany — think Newcastle or Leeds — and on a match day it feels as if the whole city has come out to walk or cycle along the winding water to the game.
Like many of the Bundesliga’s provincial giants, Werder Bremen focus on regional pride these days, rather than trying to knock Bayern Munich off their perch. They won the domestic double in 2003-04, but the current team is not part of a golden age. Their best-known player is a 41-year-old Claudio Pizarro (below) in his fourth spell at the club and, after spending the last decade resolutely stuck in mid-table, they have a real relegation battle on their hands this season.
(Photo: TF-Images/Getty Images)
But they can boast Mesut Ozil, Per Mertesacker, Diego and Kevin De Bruyne among their recent alumni. So keep an eye out, you might see a future world-beater — or at least the next Marko Arnautovic.
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Borussia Dortmund — Simon Johnson
Watching football is about being entertained and seeing the ball hit the back of the net. That’s why Borussia Dortmund stand out from all the rest in the Bundesliga. No team has been involved in more action at either end of the pitch than them. So far a total of 101 goals (68 for, 33 against) have been scored in their 25 games — an average of more than four goals per fixture.
Aside from the goals, it is worth tuning in to see their star individuals. Jadon Sancho will obviously be of great interest to England followers and also to fans of clubs who have been interested in buying him, such as Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool.
And then there’s Europe’s 19-year-old striking phenomenon — Erling Haaland. He has already scored 12 times in 11 matches since joining from RB Salzburg for £17.1 million in January.
Fortuna Dusseldorf — Chris Waugh
They may be relegation-threatened, sitting perilously in the demotion play-off spot, but that is all the more reason to commit your remote support to Fortuna Dusseldorf.
For a start, once all this is finally over, you will definitely want to visit Dusseldorf. Not only can you watch Fortuna at the impressive 54,600-capacity Merkur Spiel-Arena, but you can also sample the city famed in the UK for being the setting of the first series of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. The local tipples, Altbier and Killepitsch, ensure a night at an old-fashioned beer hall is a must.
If you want to get a name on the back of your shirt, then ex-Burnley forward Rouwen Hennings is their top scorer with 11 league goals, while No 10 Valon Berisha is a high-profile loan signing from Lazio.
Those Manchester City, Southampton and Leeds United fans among you may also be pleased to learn that Uwe Rosler is Fortuna’s head coach, so there’s another reason to follow the underdogs.
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Eintracht Frankfurt — Charlie Eccleshare
Twelfth in the Bundesliga and in the German Cup semi-finals… so why should you support Die Adler (The Eagles)? Well, firstly that name alone is surely enough to convince any Crystal Palace fans. And sticking with the nickname theme, one of their sobriquets is the Launische Diva (Moody Diva), which reflects the never-a-dull-moment feel of a club often frustrated by a sense of underachievement.
Their most successful period came at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s when they won the Bundesliga in 1959 and then reached the European Cup final the following season. These past glories have been twinned with recent heartbreak, none more acute than throwing away the 1992 Bundesliga title on the final day by losing to Hansa Rostock, who were relegated despite the win. More recently, though, they did win some silverware by beating Bayern Munich to take home the 2018 German Cup.
So if you like faded glory, heartbreak and the promise of the occasional triumph, then Eintracht Frankfurt are the team for you. And if you’re still not convinced: Tony Yeboah used to play for them.
Freiburg — Liam Twomey
I know what some of you are thinking: “Freiburg, Liam? You must have been late to reply when Bundesliga teams were up for grabs”. And you’d be right. But I consider myself lucky, because Freiburg happen to be a great club to get behind.
On the pitch they have consistently punched above their weight since returning to the Bundesliga in 2016, led by Christian Streich, the philosophically minded son of a butcher who has been manager since 2011 and involved in the club in some capacity for the past 25 years.
Freiburg have doubled up on sporting directors to ensure they make smart decisions in the transfer market and boast a well-regarded academy. They’re fun to watch, too — particularly Luca Waldschmidt, the silky left-footed forward acquired from Hamburg for just £4.5 million in 2018 and now attracting the attention of much bigger clubs.
Oh, and they have a startled griffin head on their crest. What’s not to like?
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Hoffenheim — George Caulkin
I know nothing about Hoffenheim and, chances are, Hoffenheim know nothing about me, but like the scrawny kid who is last to be picked for the PE football game, we’re lumbered with each other. My quicker, fitter, more alert colleagues got all the plum clubs for this project, so I’m left with the unpopular one. Fine. I know what it’s like to be hated, to be shunned. I’m unpopular, too.
According to Wikip… my sources, Hoffenheim are disliked because they are bankrolled by billionaire Dietmar Hopp, because they come from a small town and have no tradition or fans. But in 2000, they were playing in the fifth tier. By 2018, coached by the smart, young Julian Nagelsmann, they finished third in the Bundesliga, qualifying for the group stage of the Champions League. At present, they’re ninth. That’s good enough for me. Nobody likes us, we don’t care.
Cologne — James Horncastle
Incredibly, no one fought me for the privilege of supporting Cologne. Our group of writers instead lost face and dignity scrapping it out to pick Dortmund (predictable) and Union (hipsters). Mugs the lot of them. How could they overlook the GOAT, Hennes IX, the long-horned, uncastrated teenage Bunte Deutsche Edelziege.
Hennes IX, in the days when football had crowds (Photo: Jörg Schüler/Getty Images)
It behooves us all to answer his bleating and raise a nice chilled Kolsch and another and then another in proud mimicry of the ups and downs of German football’s yo-yo club par excellence. If we lose, fear not. We will not go quietly into night, swapping our Jhon Cordoba shirts instead for the fancy dress of Carnival.
As dawn breaks over the cathedral, as we curse Fortuna and mutter our disdain for Big Pharma Leverkusen, all that’s left for the cult of Koln to do is visit the shrine of our god, Prinz Poldi, and order another doner from Lukas Podolski’s kebab shop. Who’s with me?
RB Leipzig — Tom Worville
RB Leipzig’s playing style is one of the most entertaining in the Bundesliga. Julian Nagelsmann has refined Leipzig, mixing a more considered press out of possession with a more patient approach in possession. The result? They’re five points off leaders Bayern in second place, boasting the joint-best defence and third-best attack in the league.
And while they’re collectively excellent, Leipzig have some of Europe’s standout individuals too.
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Timo Werner has 21 goals so far, and is going to take Robert Lewandowski (25) all the way in the battle for the golden boot. Christopher Nkunku has four goals and 12 assists, and is shining as a versatile utility man after his transfer from Paris Saint-Germain. Patrick Schick has rediscovered the form that made him — and his chiselled jawline — such a coveted prospect at Sampdoria back in 2016-17. Next season, Dayot Upamecano could be anchoring a Premier League backline. Peter Gulacsi is the best-shot stopper in the league.
Messrs Laimer, Sabitzer and Klostermann deserve column inches too, but you get the point. Pick Leipzig.
Bayer Leverkusen — Carl Anka
Here’s the story: between 1997 and 2002, Bayer Leverkusen managed to finish second in the league four times. Their most famous season comes from 2001-02, when with the team five points clear in the league with only three games to go, Leverkusen somehow snatched defeat from the jaws of victory and let Borussia Dortmund sneak the title. They followed that up by losing 4-2 in the German Cup to Schalke, and four days later that they fell to Real Madrid in the Champions League final.
Why are we telling you to support a side that blundered a potential treble? The English press called them “Neverkusen”, the team that could never get the job done. Why are we urging you to support a team who turned noble defeats into an art form? Because God loves a trier, and despite never winning the Bundesliga, Leverkusen try, try and try again.
Based to the north of Cologne and bankrolled by the pharmaceutical company Bayer AG (the company that patented aspirin), Leverkusen are one of the old boys of German football, operating since 1904.
Counting Michael Ballack, Lucio, Toni Kroos, and Artuto Vidal among their former stars, and boasting new kid on the block Kai Havertz in their current team, Leverkusen also have a knack of picking up stars of the future today. The team will resume the season in fifth place, and with a semi-final against fourth-tier FC Saarbrucken in the German Cup lined up.
Oh and the German version of the Neverkusen nickname? Vizekusen. Bayer Leverkusen trademarked that, too. They’re a clever bunch.
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Mainz — Richard Sutcliffe
A month spent trekking by train from Berlin to Cologne and Hamburg to Munich — plus plenty of stop-off points in between — during the 2006 World Cup served to cement what had always been a big admiration for German football.
But it took David Wagner’s arrival at Huddersfield Town during the autumn of 2015 to direct my gaze beyond the big city clubs. Suddenly, signings were arriving in Yorkshire from Dynamo Dresden, Ingolstadt and Kaiserslautern. Another arrived from 1860 Munich, a club I’d watched in the old Olympic Stadium as a top Bundesliga side but now seemed perennially locked in fights to stay up in the second tier.
It was Mainz, however, where a true affinity developed thanks to Wagner’s anecdotes about his shared time with Jurgen Klopp. Such as the rows over his team-mate, now Liverpool manager, smoking on away trips in their shared room or, later, the game against Mainz for Gutersloh when Wagner scored a hat-trick after plying his good friend — and marker — with mountains of food on the eve of the vital relegation battle.
Borussia Monchengladbach — Rob Tanner
In 1984 I became a Borussia Monchengladbach fan. I was a football-mad 11-year-old and my father was posted to Rheindahlen. I made friends with kids from all over the country, but I was particularly close to two brothers from Glasgow and we would walk from our little estate down to the old Bokelberg Stadion to cheer on “die Fohlenelf”.
We would pay 14 Deutschmarks for entry, less than £3, and stand on the concrete terracing in the crumbling stadium to watch Jupp Heynckes’ side. I hadn’t heard of any of them before, but I can still recite the team, which included Uli Sude; Michael Frontzeck; Hans Gunter-Bruns with his black and white mullet; moustachioed Uwe Rahn, who became German player of the year; Frank Mill, who we thought might be British (he wasn’t); and Ewald Lienen, who looked like a musketeer.
That team caught my imagination. I collected the stickers and merchandise, and I loved everything about match days. I always got a programme, even though I couldn’t read German. I bought a hotdog, which was a foot-long sausage encased partially in the smallest bun so it drooped down either side. I wore the shirt, learning enough German to ask for one. I cherished that Puma Erdgas shirt so much I still buy one every year now. And I still follow Gladbach’s fortunes, and so should you.
Bayern Munich — Sam Lee
I get it, nobody wants to rep the big club. Nobody wants to be a glory hunter or a plastic. You don’t want be going around wearing a Yankees cap and a Man United shirt. But there’s a lot to be said for supporting one of football’s real big boys. The whiff of arrogance is magnificent. Bayern absolutely reek of superiority. They belong at the top table and they know it. You’re getting the best football coverage around, so why not go all in on the football itself?
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Bayern have got thousands of true, hardcore fans, and what a life they must live. They’re born in Munich, they HAVE to support them, they are life’s lucky ones. If you pick them up now, you’re not going to get any hipster points. But who needs hipster points when you‘ve got trophies?
You’ll read all sorts of nonsense reasons for supporting another German club on here. “Oooh, they’ve got a train that drives around the pitch with sausages on it”. Pathetic. At Bayern they’ve got blokes dressed like sperm in the shape of the T-Mobile logo sat near the corner flag. Maybe they’re doing that at home now, maybe you can do it too!
And it’s a good title race this year, so sit back in your weird sperm suit, enjoy the ups and downs of being part of it, but know deep down that you’re gonna win. And don’t let anybody make you feel ashamed of that for a single second.
Paderborn — Andy Jones
Just picture it. The final game of the 2019-20 Bundesliga season. Paderborn have a corner in the last minute. Up comes goalkeeper Leopold Zingerle. He rises highest. The ball hits the back of the net. Pandemonium. Survival accomplished. While that might be far-fetched, the fairytale is the exact reason you should be supporting Paderborn, who are currently bottom of the Bundesliga table on 16 points, 10 off safety. Rooting for the underdog is fun.
This wouldn’t be just any revival story though. In 2014, at one point, Paderborn topped the Bundesliga. Fast forward to 2017, they finished 18th in Germany’s third division. They survived the drop to non-professional football because 1860 Munich hadn’t obtained the licence necessary to continue as a professional club. Back-to-back promotions followed.
They may have lost four in a row before football was postponed and have only won four all season, but it just adds to the story, the drama. They could be the footballing feel-good story to help lift your mood in these difficult times.
Schalke — Adam Crafton
Schalke have repeatedly sought to rediscover happier times, yet under former Huddersfield boss David Wagner, they are tip-toeing their way upwards once more. Last season was spent struggling against the drop and last summer only saw a £7 million net spend. But the Wagner era has started brightly, with the club up in sixth.
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It’s not all hopeful though — no wins since January 17, Schalke failed to score in five of their previous pre-pandemic fixtures and lost 5-0 against Bayern and Leipzig in that period.
There’s some lingering Premier League interest — former Manchester City defender Matija Nastasic, on-loan Everton defender Jonjoe Kenny and former City kid Rabbi Matondo. Defender Salif Sane, meanwhile, is being watched by a number of leading Premier League teams.
Historically, Schalke have Champions League pedigree and a famed production line, mining talents such as Manuel Neuer, Leroy Sane, Mesut Ozil and Benedikt Howedes in recent times. Stars new and old — and now a new fanbase.
Wolfsburg — Michael Bailey
Even in a request at The Athletic to write why each Bundesliga club deserves your support, VfL Wolfsburg were among the last snapped up. Unlike the sheen of owners Volkswagen and their globally popular cars, Wolfsburg are the unfashionables. The fans in attendance are mostly the workers from the factory. Only three clubs had lower average attendances this season. The level of appreciation from German football fans arguably ranks lower.
But everyone loves the VW Beetle, right? And how about a club that wins the German title for the only time in its history with the help of a goal like this?
Grafite’s work of art came in a brace as Wolfsburg beat Bayern Munich 5-1 on their way to the 2008-09 Bundesliga title. That goal — and victory — came in game week 26: the same point at which the current Bundesliga restarts. Surely an omen?
Wolfsburg have yet to be knocked out of this season’s Europa League and remain in contention to finish in the Bundesliga’s top six. That would earn a Europa League spot for next season, so there’s plenty to get excited about.
And if you’re more superficial, this season’s home kit looks like an Xbox advert.
So there you have it, 18 Bundesliga teams looking for your support. And if you still can’t decide, here’s Oliver Kay with one last alternative, celebrating the return of Bundesliga 2, too. Don’t say we don’t offer you depth.
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Hamburg, by Oliver Kay
OK, I’ll be honest. I was beaten to my first choice, but I did have a notional soft spot for Hamburg when I was growing up. I can offer a number of reasons for this:
1) I had heard of them, probably due to the fact that Kevin Keegan had played there
2) They won the European Cup in 1983, so they were clearly pretty good. There haven’t been many better European Cup-winning goals than Felix Magath’s
3) They had a very cool Adidas kit, even though, disappointingly, they were wearing a Bayern-like red number when they won that European Cup
4) I just really, really liked hamburgers
It’s a great city, too — better still if you look beyond the seedy parts. Hamburg have lost their way since their glory days, but things are looking up. They’re pushing hard for promotion, they’ve still got a great Adidas kit, still getting huge crowds and their 55-year-old coach Dieter Hecking doesn’t seem to have a single grey hair. And I still love burgers.
This weekend’s fixtures
Saturday (all times BST)
Borussia Dortmund v Schalke, 2.30pm
Augsburg v Wolfsburg, 2.30pm
Fortuna Dusseldorf v Paderborn, 2.30pm
RB Leipzig v Freiburg, 2.30pm
Hoffenheim v Hertha BSC, 2.30pm
Eintracht Frankfurt v Borussia Monchengladbach 5.30pm
Sunday
Cologne v Mainz, 2.30pm
Union Berlin v Bayern Munich, 5pm
Monday
Werder Bremen v Bayer Leverkusen
Oh, and here’s Hamburg’s game
Greuther Fuerth v Hamburg, Sunday, 12.30pm
(Top image designed by Tom Slator for The Athletic; images: Getty Images)
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