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Thomas Müller can smile
Photo:
Sven Hoppe / dpa
After all: FC Bayern can theoretically still relegate.
51 points are still to be awarded in the second half of the season, the advantage of Munich on the direct relegation ranks is only 27 points.
So everything is not yet decided in this Bundesliga season.
But beyond that, the first half of the season, which ended yesterday evening with the game 1. FC Köln against VfB Stuttgart, the game with the fewest shots on goal of the season so far, confirmed all trends from previous years.
The Bundesliga is becoming less attractive, the imbalance is the norm.
The fact that there are only twelve points between third place, occupied by the honorable SC Freiburg, and 16th place, VfB Stuttgart, suggests a balance at first glance, but in reality only reflects the distorted competition in the league.
The gaps that matter are different: FC Bayern have a 14 point lead over third-placed Freiburg after the half series.
So that's more distance than the PC has before relegation.
Borussia Dortmund as second and the only remaining serious Bayern competitor is already nine points behind the top, but is still too big for the competition.
The three classes of the first three
There was a three-class society in the league for a long time.
What is new is that this already affects the top three of the table: Bayern are in a league of their own, that's nothing new, Dortmund is now too, even if BVB always tries hard, with performances like on Saturday Hertha to catch up with the teams below him.
But those who can afford a Haaland are different from the others.
Freiburg then leads the third grade.
That’s basically all the other clubs.
The success of Christian Streich's team deserves the highest appreciation, it shows what great work has been done in Breisgau for years. Elsewhere, in Mönchengladbach, in Wolfsburg, in Leipzig, wherever you have ambitions to take third place, you are just learning what continuity means. The coach roulette from the summer between the Red Bull socialized coaches has basically never paid off anywhere.
At the same time, however, the SC's success is also a sign of the state of the league, and it's not a good one.
The SC, with its persistent development work, deserves where it stands.
But you are certainly not a Champions League club yet, which Streich emphasizes at every opportunity.
It is also evidence of how exhausted the supposed top clubs in the league are.
Leipzig has bled to death due to the departures to Bayern, VFL Wolfsburg is unrecognizable, Borussia Mönchengladbach ended up in a relegation battle.
What else should Bayern do?
The Bavarians don't have to deliver an outstanding repertoire in order to march through the league like a knife through the butter - with all the problems that the record champions had in the previous weeks: Kimmich, the Qatar problems, corona cases.
What else should Bayern do to keep the league open?
It almost makes sense that Julian Nagelsmann's team is the only German team in the Champions League round of 16.
And again millions of income from the competition will flow to Munich, and again you will get more money in Munich than the others.
And so inequality grows and grows.
Hamburger SV, FC Schalke and Werder Bremen, the big clubs of yore, are no longer part of the league, and it is anything but certain that this will change in the coming season.
Fürth, Mainz, Hoffenheim cannot compensate for this, that is not a reproach to these clubs.
They do their best.
Nothing has happened
The DFL has allowed this development to run over the years and more or less watches how its product loses class from year to year.
There are no creative ideas to change anything about this state, although it has been known for many years.
In the previous year, at the first peak of the pandemic, so much was talked about by the DFL leadership that everything had to be done differently.
Nothing has happened.
Instead, the outgoing DFL boss Christian Seifert made a sweeping blow in a media round on Friday, against the DFB, against the Ultras, against the gender asterisks, only against the steadily declining attractiveness of the league he did not weather.
Seifert said that in German football "because of the sheer debates on values" one shouldn't forget to "focus on what really matters".
What that is from his point of view: "Talking about future technology and growth and about the fact that you have to inspire children and young people".
Seifert said of the football fans: “They want to go on vacation, they want to grill their neck steak and watch football on the weekend.
And they want to wear the national jersey at the next World Cup without being located in the right warehouse. «Neck steak on the grill and football at the weekend.
Don't forget to wash your car beforehand.
The way it used to be.
When FC Bayern was not yet the all-time champions in the Bundesliga.
After all, you still inspire the children and adolescents in the Thomas Müller jersey.
