The Bundesliga: Everybody’s second favourite league in 2013/14 (Video)
This week’s announcement that Pep Guardiola will be re-starting his already illustrious managerial career in the Bundesliga as opposed to the Premier League next season appears to have shocked many football journalists and supporters on our shores, who fully expected Guardiola to take a seat in the dugout vacated by either Rafa Benitez or Roberto Mancini. However, should we be so surprised that Pep has elected to test himself in Germany?
It can be argued that the Bundesliga is the most competitive of all the major European leagues, having had 5 different champions in the past 10 years, more than the Premiership, La Liga and Serie A, albeit this season Guardiola’s future employers are currently 9 points clear in first position and look certain to finish top of the table come May under the stewardship of current incumbent Jupp Heynckes.
It could also be argued that the Bundesliga is the most watchable league in Europe, with each match averaging 2.86 goals per game, the highest figure of all the major European leagues this season.
Bayern’s main rivals Borussia Dortmund have undergone somewhat of a renaissance since the appointment of highly regarded young manager Jurgen Klopp in May 2008. Although they are currently 12 points adrift of Heynckes’ Bayern, Klopp led Dortmund to successive Bundesliga titles in the 2010/11 and 2011/12 seasons and are many people’s dark horses for the Champions League this year, given their performances and results against Real Madrid and Manchester City in the group stage.
Both Dortmund and Bayern can point to their youth academies as one of the main reasons for their recent successes, in what is a very exciting era for youth development in Germany – to the benefit of both the Bundesliga and the Nationalmannschaft.
The German Football Association elected to re-vamp youth development in the country after the National Team’s famous 5 – 1 defeat at home to England, coupled with failures in both France 98 and Euro 2000. The German F.A.‘s decision appears to have been vindicated as in recent seasons the country has produced the likes of Mesut Ozil, Thomas Mueller, Marco Reus and Mario Gotze. Given Pep Guardiola’s fine record of developing products of La Masia academy with Barcelona, there will be great appeal for him to replicate this with emerging German talent in what looks set to be a golden age for German football.
Will Guardiola be able to replicate Barcelona’s ‘tiki-taka‘ style at Bayern Munich however? This is destined to be the question on the lips of every football supporter around the world in the coming months. One thing is for sure, given Pep’s appointment at Bayern, their ongoing duel with rivals Borussia Dortmund, the extraordinary pool of gifted young footballers in Germany at present and guaranteed goals every week, spectators of the Bundesliga in 2013/14 are in for a treat!
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