Except that you can watch the overpriced Premier League highlights for free while you must be a subscriber to watch the Bundesliga programme

The Bundesliga is certainly better as a matchday experience from my perspective...............

Except that you can watch the overpriced Premier League highlights for free while you must be a subscriber to watch the Bundesliga programme

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Last season, it was announced that Felix Magath would be leaving Wolfsburg for Schalke 04 well before Wolfsburg wrapped up the Bundesliga title.

I wouldn't be surprised if Dortmund implode and Heynckes leads Leverkusen to the title before leaving for Bayern.

Starting the 2012/13 season the Regionalliga will be expanded to five regional divisions. The Northern Division will be split into a Northern Division and a North-Eastern Division. The Western and the Southern Division will be divided into a Western Division, a South-Western Division und a Southern Division. The five Division winners along with the runner-up of the South-Western Division will compete for 3 promotions spots to 3rd Liga in a play-off round.

This has been on Wikipedia for some time:

The odd thing about the Wiki article is the assertion that the SudWest division will get a second place in the play offs, with the others having only one.
One should assume that the Nord will cover Niedersachsen, Schlewsig-Holstein, Bremen and Hamburg.
NordOst is sure to be the old East Germany - Berlin, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt and Thuringen.
One would expect West to comprise of Niederrhein, Mittelrhein and Westfalen
SudWest to be SudWest, Saarland and Rheinland
Sud to be Baden, Sudbaden, Wurttemberg, and Bayern

That only accounts for 20 of the Lander. The other one is Hessen - which actually borders on all the five of the regions as I have listed them.

Well, I see above that Tim has read something different.
There appears to be a campaign to reduce or eliminate the number of reserve teams at this level, blaming the reserve teams poor crowd pulling figures for some of the ills suffered by the First teams.

Hessen usually go south, so I'd expect them to go into south or south-west. SW seems more likely.

Anywhere else the SW having 2 places woul dbe odd but not in Germany, especially if you see the mess they make of level 5 in the north!

In Reply To

The inclusion of reserve teams was a big issue in the debate of the new Regionalliga structure. The amateur teams wanted them out because of the reason you give but the Bundesliga clubs basically vetoed that. Their argument was that they put in loads of money in development of young players (which they do, I can't remember the number but it really is a lot of money) and that they should have strong opposition to mature. The reserve sides are mainly U23 sides.

The structure with five divisions and a maximum of seven reserve sides per division was the compromise that could be agreed upon.

They have considered reserve leagues, but have not gone with the idea.
There are now Bundesliga Junior Leagues, although I have never looked into the age groups concerned. Some may as they add to the number of games possible on a day.

If Werder and Bayern II both get relegated, and none of the second teams go up, reserve participation in 3. Liga could be reduced to 1 (Stuttgart)
There are no limits at the moment lower down, but while 7 per division, (total of 35 out of 90) may be a compromise, it looks like a backing down.

I think there are currently 24 second teams in the Regionalliga (should be 54 clubs), but there are less in total in the Oberliga, even though there are nearly 4 times as many clubs. Only NordOst-Sud has a large portion, Hence the 7 per division is no real limit.

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Last season's champions, VfL Wolfsburg, ....

Three Bavarian cities will be represented in the Bundesliga next season - Munich (Bayern), Nuremberg (1. FC Nuremberg, a powerhouse in the 1920s but with only one title since the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963), and Augsburg (FC Augsburg, promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time).

I would think the decline of Bayern's dominance in Bavaria is the start of the decline of its dominance of the Bundesliga.

Bayern won the German championship only once before the formation of the Bundesliga, but have won the Bundesliga 21 times since, more than the next 5 most successful clubs put together (B. Moenchengladbach - 5, Borrusia Dortmund - 4, Werder Bremen - 4, SV Hamburg - 3, VfB Stuttgart - 3. Total - 19).

A total of nine teams are relegated from the Regionalliga. As far as I know, all are by finishing positions which means that
Havelse, E. Braunschweig II, Oberneuland and Turkiyemspor drop from the Nord Region
Homburg, Arminia Bielefeld II (but not Fortuna Dusseldorf II) from the West
Wehen Wiesbaden II, Ulm and Weiden from the Sud.

The last two of these did not finish the season
I assume Fortuna II escaped on a regional basis, as Ahlen would have been in their division if they were at Regionalliga level

The ten promoted teams are
St. Pauli II from Hamburg, Meppen (Niedersachsen), Berliner AK (NOFV-Nord) and Germania Halberstadt (NOFV-Sud) - presumedly to Nord
Fortuna Koln, Rot Weiss Essen (both NRW Liga) and SC Idar-Oberstein (Sudwest) to West
Bayern Alzenau (Hessen), Waldhof Mannheim (Baden wurttemberg) and Ingolstadt II (Bayern) to Sud.

By my calculation, Koblenz will go West and Bayern II Sud, which would require one team to transfer West to Nord - Sportfreunde Lotte?

Now I sit back and wait for corrections

Three Bavarian cities will be represented in the Bundesliga next season - Munich (Bayern), Nuremberg (1. FC Nuremberg, ....), and Augsburg (FC Augsburg, promoted to the Bundesliga for the first time).

I would think the decline of Bayern's dominance in Bavaria is the start of the decline of its dominance of the Bundesliga.

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More chaos in Germany!

Fortuna drawing 2-2 with Hertha on the night and hence going up and it appears there was a pitch invasion as I presume the home fans thought the final whistle had gone but it hadn't! It finished 30 minutes later after order was restored and the final 90 seconds were played.

Fortuna Duesseldorf are in the top division for the 1st time in 15 years.

In Reply To

Not quite there yet as Hertha have submitted a protest requiring a new game.

A decision will be made on Friday afternoon.

In Reply To

Not quite there yet as Hertha have submitted a protest requiring a new game.

A decision will be made on Friday afternoon.

The charges against players from both sides will be considered by a different DFB committee. According to Kicker, the police is also investigating the behaviour of one Hertha player.

There is quite a lot of info on Wikipedia, and it looks as if it is generally accurate

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Most interesting of all is in 3. Liga. Bottom-placed Alemannia Aachen are already down, but 4 teams are fighting to avoid the remaining two relegation spots.

If third from bottom Darmstadt win at home against Stuttgart Kickers, they climb above their opponents and are safe from relegation, unless both Borussia Dortmund II win, and SV Babelserg win by a margin 5 goals or more better than Darmstadt's win.

Borussia Dortmund II, a point above Darmstadt, are away to Stuttgart II, who have nothing left to play for. If Stuttgart II win, Borussia Dortmund II cannot climb above Stuttgart Kickers. Same if they draw, unless Kickers lose by more than 11 goals.

SV Babelsberg, second from bottom but level on points with Darmstadt, are away to Preußen Münster, who need a win to have any chance of a play-off place.

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Augsburg are in the relegation play-off spot in the Bundesliga, behind Fortuna Düsseldorf on goal difference (-20 to -15). Augsburg are at home to already relegated Greuther Fürth, while Fortuna Düsseldorf are away at Hannover. If both Augsburg and Düsseldorf, 1899 Hoffenheim can climb one point above both of them, if they win their last game away at Champions League finalists Borussia Dortmund, who are already guaranteed second place.

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Hoffenheim will play Kaiserslautern over 2 legs.

I remember Dynamo coming from nowhere 2 years ago to clinch the play-off place whilst in the 3rd tier,could be wrong(usually am)but didnt they face Osnabruck.to get promotion?