League profile

Bundesliga

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Bundesliga
League info
  • Sport: Soccer
  • Country: Germany Germany
  • Founding year: 1963
  • Teams: 18
  • Teams promoted / relegated: 3

The German Bundesliga is the highest level of Germany’s football league system. It was originally established by the German Football Association and is now operated by the Deutsche Fußball Liga.

German domestic football was initially an amateur league and it became only semi-professional in 1949. Calls for making the German top flight fully professional continued gathering momentum after that. A professional Bundesliga was finally created on July 28,1962 and the 1963-1964 season was the inaugural season of the Bundesliga. The new German league was constructed on the structure of the English league system. Qualifications to the top flight at the time was quite complex but things have become relatively simple since then.

18 teams complete in the German Bundesliga and play one another twice every season, once at home and once away from home. A victory counts as 3 points, a draw as 1 point and a defeat has no point accredited to it. The team that garners maximum points in a season is adjudged as the winners of the Bundesliga for that season.

The top two teams from the Bundesliga move into the UEFA Champions League automatically while the team that finishes third move into the qualifying rounds. The fourth and the fifth placed teams in the German Bundesliga play in the qualifying rounds of the UEFA Cup.

The 17th and 18th place teams in the Bundesliga are automatically relegated from the first division to the second division while the 16th place team have to confront the third place team from the 2nd Bundesliga to sustain their top flight status.

Standings table 2012/2013

Rank Team G W D L GF GA Pts
1 FC Bayern Munich FC Bayern Munich 34 29 4 1 98 18 91
2 Borussia Dortmund Dortmund 34 19 9 6 81 42 66
3 Bayer 04 Leverkusen Bayer Leverkusen 34 19 8 7 65 39 65
4 FC Schalke 04 FC Schalke 04 34 16 7 11 58 50 55
5 SC Freiburg SC Freiburg 34 14 9 11 45 40 51
6 Eintracht Frankfurt Eintracht 34 14 9 11 49 46 51
7 Hamburger SV Hamburger 34 14 6 14 42 53 48
8 Borussia Mönchengladbach Mönchengladbach 34 12 11 11 45 49 47
9 Hannover 96 Hannover 96 34 13 6 15 60 62 45
10 1. FC Nuremberg 1. FC Nuremberg 34 11 11 12 39 47 44
11 VfL Wolfsburg VfL Wolfsburg 34 10 13 11 47 52 43
12 VfB Stuttgart VfB Stuttgart 34 12 7 15 37 55 43
13 1. FSV Mainz 05 1. FSV Mainz 05 34 10 12 12 42 44 42
14 Werder Bremen Werder Bremen 34 8 10 16 50 66 34
15 FC Augsburg FC Augsburg 34 8 9 17 33 51 33
16 TSG 1899 Hoffenheim Hoffenheim 34 8 7 19 42 67 31
17 Düsseldorfer TuS Fortuna 1895 Fortuna 34 7 9 18 39 57 30
18 SpVgg Greuther Fürth Greuther Fürth 34 4 9 21 26 60 21

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  • Latest discussions

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    The promoted SC Freburg defeated Hertha Berlin 4 - 0

    For Hertha Berlin, the defeat was humiliating. It brought the club to the foot of the Bundesliga ...

    Posted by arbey over 3 years ago

    Join the discussions in the Bundesliga forum.