State Of The Bundesliga – Part Two
February 5, 2016 Boring, broken league?
All of that was nice and interesting but what exactly does it have to do with the Bundesliga, right? A league is more than just the few special snowflakes that can afford to be relevant on an international stage. Don’t worry, we didn’t forget about the rest. First, let’s look at the Bundesliga’s recent times compared to the other top five leagues.
Here we have the average points per match for every league’s top five teams (1996-2015). They’re all very similar, with two exceptions: Ligue 1’s top teams have been weak in comparison (in other words: the league has been more balanced) and the fight for the Champions League spots is usually much tighter and challenging in England than elsewhere. But…
Things have changed recently. Looking at those point averages of the current decade, you can spot the disgustingly high point average of Spain’s top two clubs and the extreme gap between the champions and the runners-up in Germany.
Has the Bundesliga title race gotten boring?
The point average of the league champs from 1996 to now. Things in the Bundesliga started to escalate in 2012 (so I guess you should blame Dortmund, not Bayern) and were brought to an extreme by Heynckes and Guardiola. Similarly in Spain, there was a point explosion when Guardiola took over Barcelona. So at the very least we can say that the German title race has become historically difficult and has reached a standard so high that it’s unlikely to be raised any further.
How about the actual gaps?
The gaps to the league champions really are the biggest in the Bundesliga. Over the last 20 years, it has been the only league where the second-placed team failed to collect 90% of the winners’ points.
While most of those gap differences aren’t big (don’t let the colors fool you too much), some of them are still significant. England’s gap from #1 to #3 is far smaller than elsewhere, while the gaps between the champs and the relegation zone are massive in Germany and Italy – possibly indicating that those leagues often have a set of completely awful teams? Speculation.
Where did it all go wrong in the Bundesliga? While I tried to show it all in one graphic, it turned out to be way too ugly so only click if you’re ready to be disgusted. Instead, we’ll take small steps. Let’s start with the title race.
Funnily enough, it appears as if both the first- and the second-placed team continue to get better. That being said, the aforementioned leap that started in 2012 or 2013 caused gaps in the title race that are far bigger than usual.
Side note: this graphic shows just how good Dortmund are this season. Their current point average would have them win the league in every season prior to 2012.
Now we look at the league’s top five. Unsurprisingly, those gaps have gotten bigger as well. While the top two (namely Bayern and Dortmund) have improved significantly over the last five years, the clubs behind them have failed to make a leap forward. Lack of Champions League money, lack of a well-executed strategy? There are many reasons, a good chunk of those self-inflicted.
Here’s the entire league. The top-to-bottom gap in the ongoing season is a historical one. Simply put, not much has changed in the Bundesliga over the last 20 years, aside from that little fact that the top two (and the top team in particular) have gotten a lot better.
Conclusion
Internationally, the Bundesliga has recovered from a crisis and looks settled now. There’s tons of potential to grow further, as the success of the (not so rich) Spanish non-giants proves. But for now, it’s an acceptable state. Nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be proud of.
Is the Bundesliga itself broken? Only if you define the championship race as the entire league, as the fight for the title has turned much more into a race of two horses (sometimes only one). Everything else has stayed the same. On an even more positive note, we used to have one really bad team much more regularly in the past. In 2004-05, Freiburg finished the league with 18 points. This season, 16 of 18 teams have beaten that number already with 15 matches to go.
The gap at the very top can be explained with the financial difference (we covered that in part one) but what about the gap between #2 and the followers? There’s a lot more to success than just the money. What else? That we’ll tell you in our third and final part of the series – the grand finale that will include tons of exclusive statements made by football experts.
PART ONE – FINANCES AND REVENUE
PART TWO – POINTS AND SUCCESS
PART THREE – TACTICS AND MENTALITY
Insightful write up