AMD 3: Bundesliga 101

I think it's about time someone did a Fußball post!

I have always been a huge fan of Fußball (soccer) and it's one of those things that I can't live without. I know most people tend to follow the World Cup and I'm a huge fan as well! It's how I got involved into becoming such a huge fan (in 2002 I was in Korea for the World Cup- we were a host country along with Japan! Don't laugh at the picture haha. I was young and am a huge fan!)


But the World Cup isn't enough for me because it only comes around every 4 years. And because I will die without Fußball, I take this addiction to a whole new level and watch the European leagues- it's honestly where you can see the talent anyways. Once you start to enjoy and appreciate soccer, you will learn that club football is better than the World Cup (also it happens EVERY YEAR! HURRAY!)!

Fußball is a huge part of Germany and so if anyone is interested in getting to know about the German Fußball league, better, here's an informational post!

BUNDESLIGA 101

The official term is Fußball-Bundesliga (but people call it Bundesliga for short) and it is the primary professional soccer league of Germany. It was founded in 1963 when they decided that for the future of the German soccer, a national league needed to be formed over regional leagues. The season runs from August to May and they work on a system of promotion and relegation with the secondary division of Bundesliga. The Bundesliga is one of the top national leagues as UEFA has ranked them 4th. The winner gets crowned as the "Deutscher Meister" and wins a trophy that looks like this (it's a shield!):

I feel like most people really don't follow the Bundesliga as much as La Liga (The Spanish league) and the Premiere League (British league) but if you know names when it comes to soccer, the Bundesliga has some of the best players in the World. (examples: Bayern Munich known formally as Fußball-Club Bayern München is consisted of the majority of the players from the German national team like Neuer, Philipp Lahm(one of my favorite players! That's who the number 16 jersey belongs to in my picture!), Mario Gomez, Schweinsteiger, Thomas Müller, etc etc and also other well known players like Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery. Other clubs have players like Raul, Huntelaar, and American Jermaine Jones!)

So a few things you should know about the Bundesliga:

-The scoring is the same as every other European leagues- 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, and no points for a loss :( at the end of the season, the team with the greatest amount of points are the champions or the Deutscher Meister of the Bundesliga!

-The Bundesliga has the lowest ticket prices and the highest average attendance rate out of the 5 major European leagues (Premiere League of England, La Liga of Spain, Serie A of Italy and Ligue 1 of France, and Bundesliga of Germany)

-Bayern Munich is probably the most well-known club out of the Bundesliga.This makes sense due to the amount of talented and famous players on their team and they have the record for winning the Bundesliga title 22 times which is ridiculous because other teams have won the league around 5 times or less... So yeah. They're pretty much the ruling giants of German football (although they did not win this last year- they came in 3rd place)

-Every team basically has a rival. Just as if Michigan and OSU has a huge rivalry, teams in the Bundesliga has a rival. Usually their rivals are a team that is nearby on the map and Bayern Munich. If you're not a Bayern Munich fan, you HATE Bayern is the rule I've heard. So Bayern's rival is everyone.

-Last year, Borussia Dortmund was the winner of the Bundesliga and it was a huge deal because in the past 5 years they went from 9th to 13th to 6th to 5th to winning 1st place. They have young talent like Mats Hummels and Mario Götze and no one ever thought that this team of youngsters could possibly beat out the experienced Bayern Munich.




I realize that this is a super long post but hopefully someone read it. I finish my post off with a picture of Bayern Munich wearing their lederhosen and one of the many funny Nutella commercials done by Die deutsche Fußballnationalmannschaft (The German National Football team). Hopefully this was an interesting read! If anyone is interested in talking to me about Fußball, LET ME KNOW!

Tschüss!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6qx7yXrMMs

(there are a few words you can catch here and there like nicht schlecht!)