The Swiss system is the Raiffeisen Super League, the Austrians have the Österreichische Fußball-Bundesliga, and in Luxembourg there is the Nationaldivision. Each European nation organizes its own top-level professional league.
Germany’s long tradition of being a powerhouse in the 90-minute game goes back many decades into history. In the modern era, that started with earning the 1954 World Cup.
By 1962, however, fans were concerned that the sport was languishing. In that year’s World Cup play, Germany suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Yugoslavia.
To ensure the sport’s future, and the quality of play, a system was designed to create a nationwide top-tier professional league, as well as a “farm team” system of two lower leagues. Previously, German soccer had been organized into an unwieldy system of regional leagues.
Originally, the Bundesliga had sixteen Mannschaften. Currently, it contains eighteen teams.
Sports fans in the United States are familiar with with the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB systems. But the Bundesliga does not have the same concepts of playoffs, standing, rankings, and league membership.
This can be, at first, confusing to American fans who are trying to watch German Fußball games.
But once you understand how it works, it’s as fun as basketball, baseball, football, or hockey!
What it means, for example, to be a member of the Bundesliga is different than league membership in the NHL, NBA, NFL, or MLB. The Bundesliga has, as mentioned, eighteen Mannschaften. But every year, it’s a different eighteen teams - the list of teams is never the same two years in a row!
Each year, two or three teams are demoted out of the ersten Bundesliga - the top professional league. The teams removed are those which have performed the worst. They are replaced by two or three teams from the zweiten Bundesliga - the highest group of “farm” teams.
To decide which teams will be replaced, a point system has been developed. For regular-season play, a team gets three points for a win, one point for a tie, and zero points for a loss. At the end of the season, the two teams with the lowest point totals are taken out of the ersten Bundesliga and placed into the zweite Bundesliga. At the same time, the best two teams from the zweiten Bundesliga are moved up into the erste Bundesliga.
The zweite Bundesliga also has eighteen Mannschaften.
While the two worst teams are automatically eliminated from the ersten Bundesliga, the third-worst team is placed into a game with the third-best team from the zweiten Bundesliga. If the third-worst team manages to win that game, it is retained in the ersten Bundesliga.
This same system also moves teams up and down between the zweiten Bundesliga and the dritten Bundesliga.
Unlike professional leagues in the United States, where a mediocre professional team can subsist at the bottom of its division for years, the Fußball Mannschaften in the Bundesliga change from year to year. This adds a special urgency for fans of teams near the bottom of the rankings.
There are other ways in which American fans will note that a different structure is at work.
Many professional Fußball players are simultaneously on the roster of two different teams. They are members of a professional Mannschaft in the Bundesliga, but they are also members of a Nationalmannschaft - a team representing their country in international tournaments. This team is also called the Nationalelf.
For example, the Mannschaft known as FC Bayern München includes, among its Spieler, two players named Manuel Neuer and Pepe Reina. As teammates, they work together in the FC Bayern München.
But these same two Spieler will play against each other at their “other job” - the national team. Manuel Neuer has German citizenship and is a regular on the German Nationalelf. Pepe Reina plays on the Spanish Nationalmannschaft.
So Neuer and Reina might play as teammates one day, and a week later face each other as opponents, only to play again on the same team a few days after that.
Differences between the organization of the Bundesliga and American sports are visible not only among the Spieler, but also among the fans. Attending a Fußballspiel at a German stadium, fans enter by separate entrances depending on which team they support. Once inside the stadium, gates and fences keep the fans separated.
The organizers of the German Bundesliga hope to avoid the excesses seen among the British and Belgian “hooligans” - soccer fans who engage in fistfights with anyone who supports a team other than theirs.
There’s at least one more aspect of Fußball that the novice spectator will find baffling: the “offsides” rule.
Viewers of American football will gain no help from the “offsides” rule found there. Offsides in American football is a different concept than offsides in soccer.
Watching a soccer game, you might see one player make a long pass to his teammate, who in turn kicks the ball smartly into the Tor. You expect it to be a point scored for the team, but instead, you hear shouts of “Abseits!”
What happened?
The Abseits rule means that at the moment when one player passes the ball, there must be at least one defensive player between the intended receiver and the defending goalie if the receiving player is to immediately make a shot on the goal.
The logic of this rule is to prevent teams from simply stationing one offensive player at all times near the goal.
Learning a few of these facts about Bundesliga play is effort well spent: it will be repaid with hours of fun watching Fußball action!
