Bayern Munich tend to make sure they’re always on top of the Bundesliga one way or another. As cynical as it may sound, the Bavarian giants will either ensure they have the best squad in the land or, if another exists, they’ll set about dismantling it for parts.
Hoffenheim felt the full, blunt force of such a technique this summer. Borussia Dortmund famously lost their golden generation to their rivals in Munich too. And long before Jurgen Klopp was smiling on our televisions Werder Bremen, Stuttgart and Bayer Leverkusen were complaining about Bayern’s ability to snatch their best players.
However, times have changed and now the Bundesliga’s top clubs not only have to fight off Bayern and a handful of giants around Europe but also the entirety of the English Premier League. Indeed, while Karl-Heinz Rummenigge may still cherry-pick the league’s best players each summer, he now has to elbow past half a dozen English teams to do so.
Dortmund still haven’t recovered from Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Ilkay Gundogan flying off to either ends of Manchester, Schalke have seen stars such as Leroy Sane and Sead Kolasinac take off across the channel, while mid-table clubs like Monchengladbach, Wolfsburg and Leverkusen have seen world-renowned talents like Granit Xhaka, Javier Hernandez, Heung-Min Son and Kevin De Bruyne depart the league with very little done to replace them.
At the six Bundesliga clubs traditionally perceived to rival Bayern we’ve seen no less than 12 key players leave for England, while others have left for the Spanish giants, PSG or indeed the Bavarian club itself over the past five years. RB Leipzig - who have been in the Bundesliga for just one season - are already losing Naby Keita to the Premier League and may see even more players leave next summer. And the effects of this exodus are becoming all too apparent.
While business may be as usual for Bayern in the Champions League, there’s no denying that the German teams below them truly struggled against their European counterparts. Dortmund and RB Leipzig both failed to reach the Last 16, while Hoffenheim failed to qualify for the competition at all. And to add insult to injury both FC Koln and Hertha Berlin failed to get out of their groups too.
This hollowing out of the Bundesliga’s mid-table affects the league’s ability to win coefficients and therefore its standing in European football. It also does nothing but further perpetuate the notion and very real fact that the German top flight is now a one-horse race. And it doesn’t look like it’s going to get better any time soon.
