Hot on the trails of the traditional summer excitement ("A new
league is like a new life," poetised Die Zeit), a new brand of German
angst has turned down the feelgood volume ever so slightly. It is the
fear that last season's Champions League finalists have rendered the
playing field so small that all the millions in the stadiums and at home
will find themselves watching a version of table tennis instead:
Bayern, Dortmund. Bayern, Dortmund. Dortmund, Bayern. Bayern, Dortmund.
The
apprehension is not entirely unfounded. In terms of sporting quality,
media attention and financial muscle, the duo seem to be on a different
planet. The champions are about to post another record turnover,
rumoured to be more than €400m, and so will the Black and Yellows
(approximately €250m). Put together, Bayern and Dortmund will have
accounted for almost a third of the league's €2bn turnover in 2012-13.
Plenty of proud, storied clubs – Hamburg, Stuttgart, Bremen – feel
marginalised.
"We can't complain about the
Bundesliga
not winning anything internationally for a long time and then dislike
that there's more coverage for the Champions League finalists,"
countered the Bundesliga's chief executive, Christian Seifert. "Before
that, there were complaints that the league was missing a worldwide
glamour appeal."
Seifert cannot say it for political reasons, but
the comparative disadvantage of the rest of the league is not a
structural problem per se, but one of incompetence and mismanagement.
Schalke 04 or Hamburg, for example, only have themselves to blame for
making (relatively) little of their resources – there is no intrinsic
reason why they should not be at least on Dortmund's level, and by
extension, more serious rivals for Bayern. "If we want to keep belonging
to one of the top three leagues, if we want to see some of the best
players and teams in the world, a turnover of €2bn won't be enough in
2023," Seifert told Die Welt.
The hope is that all this unrealised
potential in the league will eventually come to the fore with the help
of a new TV deal (on average, €502m will be divided by the 18
top-flights teams each year) and a wave of very good young players.
Better international marketing – by the league and the clubs – is also a
must. Seifert: "No club, with the exception of FC Bayern in some years,
has even remotely done as much as the English or Spanish clubs to
become more popular in Asia, the US, or elsewhere."
Another key
question is whether the league will be able to grow without upsetting
its hardcore supporters. At Bayern, sadly, the answer seems to be no.
"If the club are trying to get rid of us, they're on the right track,"
Wolfgang Martin told Münchner Merkur. Martin is the spokesman of Club
Nr. 12, the association of the Reds' most loyal fans. The Club Nr. 12
members are unhappy that electronic gates will restrict the access to
the two noisiest blocks in the Südkurve terrace to ticket-holders. Since
many of the most committed supporters cannot get tickets for these
sections, they used to get "smuggled" in. Bayern initially turned a
blind eye. Now, they are pointing at safety concerns but Martin feels
that this is just an excuse for the clamp down on the ultras.
After
the repeated setting off of flares in away games, the club also
cancelled 400 away season tickets in the Champions League and the DFB
Cup. Worst of all, from the fans' view, 300 newly available tickets for
the Südkurve have not been reserved for the loudest and most committed
fans but will be made available in the online shop. There is talk of a
singing boycott ahead of the first home game against Borussia
Mönchengladbach on Friday night. "A boycott? It's no longer possible to
make proper noise anymore anyway," Club Nr. 12 member Stefan Viehauser
told Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Südkurve believes that Bayern are happy to
follow the lead of Barcelona, who have not had a dedicated block of
ultras for years.
Some Premier League fans would probably wish to
encounter similar problems. The Südkurven controversy aside, Bundesliga
season tickets for those standing still cost only €140 at Bayern (VfL
Wolfsburg offer the cheapest season tickets, at €130). And the stadiums
will be full, despite every single game from both top leagues being
available live on German pay TV for less than €30 per month, and a
terrestrial (studio pundit free) highlights show at 6.30pm on Saturdays.
Best
of all, any lack of competitiveness at the very top will be offset by a
mighty scrap in the Hinterland. Schalke (at Hamburg) and Leverkusen (at
home to SC Freiburg) look good enough to get into the top four again
but behind them, more than a dozen teams cannot be quite sure if they
will be fighting for Europe or against relegation.
The two fallen
northern giants, Hamburg and Bremen, will have particularly exciting
seasons, even if it is not clear for what particular reason. Curiously,
the new HSV sporting director, Oliver Kreuzer, seems to be convinced
that the squad's penchant for Italian designer wear was responsible for a
demoralising 4-0 defeat by (the Bundesliga 2 team) Dynamo Dresden. "All
I see is Gucci here, Gucci there," said the former Bayern defender. "We
are travelling by private jet, there's a five-course buffet. We are
doing everything to give the team the best conditions. All we're asking
is that they give a good account of themselves."
Hamburg's
neighbours Werder had an even less auspicious start: they were dumped
out of the DFB Cup by the third division side Saarbrücken. Their new
coach, Robin Dutt, was forced to order extra training and video sessions
that would have been worse than sitting through a sextuple-header of
Saw. "It hurt but was necessary," said the striker Nils Petersen ahead
of the opener away to Eintracht Braunschweig.
Torsten
Lieberknecht's new boys are widely tipped for instant relegation, the
services of Ermin Bicakcic notwithstanding. The Bosnian centre-back has
been dubbed "Eisen-Ermin" (iron Ermin) by Lieberknecht, "because he can
put a dent into railway tracks with his head", as the coach explained.
Will the Bundesliga award points for such vandalism, though?
The most negative take on the new season, however, comes courtesy of Frankfurter Rundschau. "
Bundesligastart mit viel Müll"
(Bundesliga starts with a load of rubbish) was the headline to its
preview piece for Mainz 05's opener with Stuttgart on Sunday. A harsh
but not entirely unfounded appraisal perhaps, especially if the
Swabians' dire showings in the Europa League play-offs against the
Bulgarian champions PFC Botev Plovdiv (1-1, 0-0) are taken into account.
It turns out, however, that Rundschau was referring to the new
beer-serving arrangements in the Coface-Arena, not the expected
performances on the pitch.
Due to security concerns, the reusable
plastic cups are being replaced by lighter, one-off vessels. In
environment-conscious Mainz (the club claim to be climate neutral), this
has not gone down well. There is talk of supporters covering the
playing field with the new cups in protest – even though they are made
from biodegradable starch. What the Stuttgart coach Bruno Labbadia – who
in the past complained of managers being the "dustbins of all people" –
will make of all this is anyone's guess. You had better tune in to find
out.
Toronto
Food Events rounds up the most delicious events, festivals, pop-ups,
winemaker dinners, supper clubs and other food related happenings in
Toronto this week and next. You can find us here every Friday morning.
