The development of football in Germany, specifically the Bundesliga (Bundesliga)
After the Bundesliga had existed for more than 37 years, the German professional soccer league made a significant decision.
On December 18, 2000, the General Assembly of the 36 teams in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 met in a hotel near Frankfurt and voted to make the Bundesliga an independent league, marking a turning point in the history of German football.
Prior to that, the League Committee was responsible for meeting the clubs’ and German professional football’s ever-growing requirements.
This essay provides a historical overview of the Bundesliga. By analyzing historical data, we will be able to provide many answers concerning the German league (all classes from 1963 through 2020).
German League Champions of All Time
As of the 2019–20 season, 57 different clubs have competed in the Bundesliga over its 57-year history, but only 12 of them have won the championship.
The graph below depicts the German league champions from 1963–1964 through 2019–20:
As demonstrated above, Bayern München is the most successful club in Bundesliga history, having won 29 titles, or more than half of all leagues.
The next two most successful teams are Borussia Monchengladbach and Borussia Dortmund, which has won the Bundesliga five times.
Other teams, including Werder Bremen, Hamburger, Stuttgart, Koln, and Kaiserslautern, also held the distinction of multiple Bundesliga championships.
The League’s Development
Bayern München has dominated the Bundesliga since its inception, winning over fifty percent of all league competitions.
Since 2000, Bayern München has won 14 of the 20 leagues, making it nearly impossible for other clubs to compete.
Nevertheless, has Bayern Munich always dominated the Bundesliga? When did Bayern’s reign of dominance begin? Let’s use a simple plot to answer every question.
In its first seven seasons, the Bundesliga was won by seven teams: Koln (1963–1964), Werder Bremen (1964–1965), 1860 München (1965–1966), Eintracht Braunschweig (1966–67), Nürnberg (1967–68), Bayern München (1968–1969), and Borussia Monchengladbach (1969–70).
In the 1970s, the German league was dominated by Borussia Monchengladbach and Bayern München, two clubs that were not founding members of the Bundesliga in 1963.
Only these two clubs held the Bundesliga trophy from 1969 to 1977.
The 1970s were the heyday of Borussia Monchengladbach.
Instructors were Hennes Weisweiler (1964–1975) and Udo Lattek (1975–1979).
Two UEFA Cups and five Bundesliga titles were won by the Foals. They even reached the Champions League final in 1977, losing to Liverpool.
Since the mid-1980s, Bayern Munich has utterly dominated the Bundesliga. They have already won more titles than every other team combined.
Since then, however, Bayern’s reign has been repeatedly challenged.
Kaiserslautern won the second division twice in the 1990s after being promoted from the second division (1990–91 and 1997–98).
Wolfsburg defeated Bayer by two points in 2008 to win their first Bundesliga championship and become the first team in their history to qualify for the Champions League.
Borussia Dortmund, led by the charismatic Jurgen Klopp in 2012, was the last team to challenge Bayern Munich’s dominance in the Bundesliga.
Since then, Bayern Munich has won the Bundesliga eight times in a row. Bayern München is currently the most successful German football team domestically and internationally.
The subsequent graph, which depicts the number of leagues by team and decade, demonstrates all of the aforementioned points as well.