Bayern's Dominance Holds Bundesliga Back from being BEST League in the World

Bayern.

The immovable force. The unstoppable machine. A squad so powerful that no other Bundesliga team can even dream of competing with them. Perhaps Germany should leap up with joy, as Bayern is such a great advert for the Bundesliga. How many teams want to grace the same pitch as this red stream of footballing dominance? A team with excellence in every position, and a bench far greater than most teams in the world?

Despite all this, I do not believe that Bayern's greatness is of any real benefit to the Bundesliga, and may in fact actually act more as a hindrance. The whole point of attracting outsiders to show an interest in your domestic league is if there is competition right the way through, from the very top to the very bottom. There is not much interest for a neutral if every other team apart from those dudes who wear red, are all playing for the right to come second.

Let's address that later and hone in on what the Bundesliga is as a footballing league. If we do, there is a strong argument to be said it's perhaps the best league to watch, for a mix of both excitement and technical quality. Those are two markers that I've chosen to use to try and identify what makes a great league. It can be such a subjective topic that the only way to at least try and get at a truth is if you pick out two objective yardsticks in which to determine how good a league is.

If we look at the technical quality, the Bundesliga is very good. La Liga may edge that slightly, but the
German league is catching up. Wolfsburg, Leverkusen and Dortmund are all really good teams who play great football and have players in their teams who soon could be heading to "bigger" clubs. De Bruyne only lasted a season with Wolfsburg and he was snapped up, and who knows how long Gundogan, Cahlanoglu and Naldo will last at their clubs? I see Gundogan along with Veratti as the best pure central midfielders in the world, Cahlanoglue IS the best dead-ball specialist there is and you won't find more dependable and consistent central defenders than Naldo, who is the General of that Wolfsburg defense.


Proof of this quality was evident by just looking at Leverkusen's performance in the Nou Camp against Barcelona. They should have won that game, and they had the Catalans by the throat. It was only a bad substitution and the quality of Barcelona that saw them lose that match, but that was an example that showed the Bundesliga teams can compete successfully with the other so-called big teams, and really play them on footballing terms rather than having all men, women and children in the penalty box, hoping for a counter to get something out of the game.

You also have teams like Schalke and Mainz who also play really good football. The former have come out of the dark ages where they played nonsensical cowboy football and got rightfully slaughtered for it, whilst the latter have really impressed me in the games that I have watched thus far with Malli being a real standout for them, again, another player who could soon be on that eager radar of the filthy rich clubs out there.










As Mainz, they play nice short quick passing, with an impetus of moving forward and creating chances. That essentially is what makes for a good football team. Of course I appreciate the great defensive units who have been very successful with their defensive ethos, but who can deny the love for watching a team use continually use great imagination and creativity to carve out a chance?


Then now focusing on the excitement; the only other league that measures up to the popcorn-inducing experience is the Premiership. I would still say the Premiership is the most dramatic league because of all the backstories, the insane media and the characters both on and off the pitch. With the Bundesliga, all that drama takes place on the pitch and in the matches that I have seen, they have been very watchable. I have yet to watch a match where a team have wanted to defend deep, or been happy passing the ball sideways and only creating a chance once every millenia. It is end to end, but still with a tactical structure that stops the game from ending up as a kids match.


So if we now measure it up both for excitement and technical quality equally, there is a strong case to be had of the Bundesliga being the top league. That is why Bayern's dominance holds it back from really being the place to watch your football if your team isn't playing. Bayern are just so much better than everyone else because of their incredible team and their depth that these other really good teams look like garbage when up against them. You really cannot tell me that Leverkusen and Dortmund this season are crap teams, but they both got roundly lubricated by Bayern, so someone would have a very strong case to say that they are in fact not as good as I make them out to be. Which is unfortunate because some doubters of the Bundesliga's quality would have tuned in to watch Bayern against Dortmund recently, and would have been convinced Tuchlel's team were overhyped and would overlook their other incredible performances in other matches.


What makes a league watchable, is the excitement of watching the season unfold and not knowing who's going to win. That is the case this season in the Serie A because of Juventus falling off. It's refreshing and amazing to see so many teams who have never come close to the Scudetto, now flirting near the top, even though it's still very early in the season. But already there is a bit of excitement, because there is that possibility there could be a new winner or at the very least by March/April next year, three or four teams can be fighting for the Scudetto rather than just one who would be a few games away from sealing it mathematically. This is what I would like the Bundesliga to be, and if it was, along with not having the cloud of bribery and corruption hanging over the league and the amazing atmosphere in the stadiums, it would easily be more desirable to watch than the Serie A.

When Klopp lead Dortmund to those two memorable titles, it was the first time in a really long time that people really took notice of the Bundesliga. You had other teams who had won the title apart from Bayern, but here was a team that won it with some style and panache. It was also for a period, despite last season, where it was two teams doing battle and there was the excitement of the title race. I would actually credit Klopp, directly or indirectly, causing there to be a higher and better brand of football being played by the other teams. Seemed to me that when his Dortmund burst onto the scene, you saw Leverkusen's young kids and now Wolfsburg both try and play this more attractive style of football.

The sad reality is things won't change anytime soon. A club doesn't decide to stop winning, so that it can give its rivals a chance. This is all about making history, and Bayern want to keep on winning again and again and again. It's about establishing a dynasty, so that in fifty years time, kids and historians as well as football aficionados can look back and marvel at the incredible success that was had during this period. I just wonder whether it would also be noted in these history books that a certain Pep took the two best players from his rivals and made his already exceptional team, even more indestructible.

I am one of the very few that won't be the first to jump up and down to lavish praise on Pep's success. Especially with Bayern, which was a treble-winning team he took over that was a perfect construction by the underrated Heynckes. He of course has improved them in attacking aspects, but without achieving the Champions League which is where he will face teams who are evenly matched against his crew in terms of quality, he will not be remembered fondly by myself. But i guess it's an unpopular view, but I am not ashamed to voice it.




I will still continue to watch the Bundesliga, and look forward to seeing more teams and identifying different talent, like the great goalscoring streak Anthony Modeste is currently on. It's just sad that I won't be able to enjoy the league properly by wondering who will lift up the shield next May. With the way Bayern are playing, especially Boateng, Neuer, Costa and Lewandowski, there is little to no chance that they won't be crowned champions next summer. If only the transfer system, not only in Germany, but in world football was fairer to all teams; it would make club football almost as enjoyable to watch as the World Cup.


HH