Bundesliga Preview 2012-13 Season

by Niklas.

The German Bundesliga celebrates its 50th anniversary. With an overall record transfer market, German teams spent more than €240m on new players, this season promises to be one of the best.

Borussia Dortmund

The German champion and cup winners are big favourites for the title this year as well. They sold only Kagawa to Man United and retained the rest of their squad, despite huge interest in players like Lewandowski and Götze. With Piszszcek, Hummels, Subotic and Schmelzer; they arguably have the best defense in Germany.

New signing and one of the stars of the last season, Marco Reus, has already shown his enormous talent. Dortmund always state that Bayern are the favourites for the title, but the team in black and yellow are the most favourites to win the Bundesliga title for a 3rd consecutive time.

FC Bayern München

No title for more than two years. Unimaginable, and unacceptable, for a club like Bayern Munich.

They came second in every competition they played in last season – be it the Champions League, the Bundesliga or the German Cup; they were the best losers of last season.

However, with record Bundesliga signing, Javi Martinez, plus Swiss wonderkid, Shaqiri, they have signed two players who not only strengthen their team, but also give them a lot of tactical ploys to use.

In Mandzukic and Pizarro, they finally have strikers who could be great back-ups to Mario Gomez. If Schweinsteiger stays fit and the duo of Robben and Ribbery get back to their best, then Bayern will of course fight for the Bundesliga title.

After the two lost CL-finals against Inter and Chelsea, it is apparent that the team still haven’t found their winning mentality, so Jupp Heynckes has a job to do – to inflict the winning mentality.

FC Schalke 04                                                                                                                                                           

No money at Schalke. They are in a bad financial condition and need to save a lot of money. That means no big signings but also no big sales. Despite a 20m Euros offer from Zenit for young defender

Papadopoulos and interest in striker Huntelaar, Schalke refused to sell them.

They have, however, brought in Ibrahim Affelay from Barcelona on loan and he can help them a lot as he is a great player when fit. The team is good enough to fight for a CL-spot, with a bit of luck they can actually win Bundesliga.

Borussia Mönchengladbach

Gladbach sold the backbone of their team in Reus and Dante. It needs to be seen if new signings Luuk De Jong and Alvaro Dominguez can fill in the huge boots left by the departures of the former 2 players.

They are a young talented team, maybe to inexperienced to repeat last season’s heroics. With European football this season the team needs to be competitive on both fronts; and I skeptical about their chances.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen

Leverkusen will compete in the Europa League. However, they have lost plenty of experience with

Rene Adler, Michael Ballack, Tranquillo Barnetta and Eren Derdiyok all heading for the exit door.

However, they have also signed some young talented players, like Daniel Carvajal – a promising right-back from Real Madrid’s B team. They have signed 17 players (6 on loan) and only 5 of them are over the age of 21 – that shows their emphasis on signing young players with some experienced players as well.

Joint-coaches Sascha Lewandowski and Sami Hyypia will need to cut out last season’s inconsistency if they are to do well this season.

VfL Wolfsburg

The season’s surprise package could well be 2009 champions Wolfsburg, who again start a full

season under Felix Magath, the man who masterminded the historic campaign four years ago.

‘Die Wolfe’ have no European commitments and boast an impressive forward line after the signings of

Ivica Olic, Eredivisie top-scorer Bas Dost and Czech winger Vaclav Pilar. An improvement on last year’s modest 8th place finish is on the cards.

SV Werder Bremen

Werder meanwhile, have suffered key losses in Naldo, Claudio Pizarro and Tim Wiese. A rebuilding operation looks like manager Thomas Schaaf’s main priority. The sleeping giants of yesteryear will probably have to settle for mid-table mediocrity and hope for domestic cup success once again

Hamburger SV

With Mladen Petric leaving for Fulham and the charismatic Jose Paolo Guerrero jumping ship to

Corinthians, Hamburg will have to start from the scratch during a transitional period at the Imtech

Arena. New signing van der Vaart might as well save them from getting relegated – but that is not a certainty.

Others

Both Stuttgart and Hannover 96 look well set to at least build on last year’s upper mid-table

positions and will again count on impressive home records to help them on their way.

Elsewhere,

Hoffenheim have recruited well with the likes of Derdiyok, Wiese, Mathieu Delpierre & the extremely talented Joselu – who scored 40 goals in 72 games he played for Real Madrid’s B team - and head

a host of teams looking to push on from the bottom half of the table.

Lastly, promoted clubs Eintracht Frankfurt and Fortuna Düsseldorf have been particularly busy in

the transfer market in the hope surviving the dreaded drop, whereas Augsburg may well suffer from

‘second-season syndrome’, and for these three, along with Bundesliga newcomers Greuther Fürth,

avoiding relegation will be the one clear objective in mind.

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