By Bill Turianski on 17 October 2017; twitter.com/billsportsmaps.
Links…
-Teams, etc…2017-18 Bundesliga (en.wikipedia.org).
-English-speaking Bundesliga coverage…bundesligafanatic.com.
-Official site of the Bundesliga in English (offizielle webseite der Bundesliga)…bundesliga.com/en/.
-Table, fixtures, results, stats, etc…Bundesliga 2017/18 – Summary (us.soccerway.com/national/germany/bundesliga).
-From Associated Press via Daily Herlad.com, BUNDESLIGA 2017-18: Guide to the 2 promoted teams (by Ciaran Fahey on 14 Aug.2017).
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A brief re-cap of the 2016-17 Bundesliga…
16/17 Bundesliga champions…
Bayern Munich [German: Bayern München]. The Bavarian giants have now won 5 straight Bundesliga titles. Bayern Munich have won the most German titles (27, their first German won in 1932), and the most Bundesliga titles (26, their first Bundesliga title won back in the 6th season of the competition, in 1969).
Teams that qualified for Europe…
17/18 Champions League Group Stage: Bayern Munich, Lawn Ball Sport Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund.
17/18 CL GS play-off round: Hoffenheim.
17/18 Europa League Group Stage: FC Köln, Hertha Berlin.
EL GS 3rd qualifying round: SC Freiburg.
Teams that were relegated out of Bundesliga, into the 2nd division (2. Bundesliga), in May 2017…
Ingolstadt (17th place) and Darmstadt (last place) were both relegated to the 2nd division, while 16th place finishers Werder Bremen survived by winning the Relegation play-offs by a 2-0 aggregate score over Eintracht Braunschweig (who were the 3rd-place-finishers in 2. Bundesliga).
Teams that were promoted in May 2017…
VfB Stuttgart and Hannover 96. Both clubs, who were relegated in 2015-16, bounce straight back to the Bundesliga. I am pretty sure this is the first time this has happened in Germany (ie, all teams relegated one season then going on to win promotion straight back up, the following season). I checked every Bundesliga season for this, and it looks like this is the first time it’s happened, but I honestly could only find one reference to this online, which only mentions this (and doesn’t necessarily confirm it as an unprecented thing), at the following link: {Guardian/football/The Knowledge from 13 Sept.2017, question #3: Bouncebackabilty [scroll down one-third-of-the-way, in the article there] (by John Ashdown at theguardian.com/football).
VfB Stuttgart.
Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg [in south-western Germany].
Stuttgart is located, by road, 128 miles (206 km) S of Frankfurt; and Stuttgart is located, by road, 145 miles (233 km) NE of Munich. The closest large city to Stuttgart is in France: as the crow flies, Stuttgart is only about 50 miles (80 km) from the French border and Stuttgart is 92 miles (148 km), by road, from Strasbourg, France.
Rivals: Stuttgart are sort of bereft of a rival, currently…Stuttgart’s biggest local rival, Stuttgart Kickers, have not been in the 1st division since 1992, so that rivalry has faded, while their rivalry with Karlsruher SC (about 47 miles away) has increased in importance in the last couple decades (Stuttgat v Karlsruher is called the Baden-Württemberg-Derby). But the just-relegated-to-3rd-division Karlsruher are now 2 divisions lower than Stuttgart. The nearest current Bundesliga team to Stuttgart is Hoffenheim (the two clubs are located about 57 miles apart), but, owing to Hoffenheim’s meteoric rise out of the lower leagues into the 1st division a decade ago, Stuttgart and Hoffenheim have never developed a real rivalry.
Stuttgart returns straight back to the Bundesliga after winning the 2016-17 2. Bundesliga title, two points above the 2nd place finishers [Hannover], and 3 points above 3rd place. Stuttgart’s 2016-17 average attendance was 50,573 (at 83.6 percent-capacity); Stuttgart had the best attendance in the 2nd division, and the 5th-best attendance in all of Germany in 2016-17 {source: european-football-statistics.co.uk/[attendance]}. Currently, now back in the 1st division, Stuttgart’s crowds are the 4th-largest in the Bundesliga, averaging 51.8 K (at 90-%-capacity) [as of 17 Oct. 2017] {source: us.soccerway.com/[Bundesliga}.
Colours: White jerseys with Red trim and sometimes also Black trim, and White pants (usually); their badge features black deer antlers on a yellow field, and the deer antlers have been part of the Stuttgart crest since 1912, when Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart was formed via a merger of two predecessor clubs: Stuttgarter FV and Kronen-Club Cannstatt {1912 VfB Stuttgart crest}. Deer antlers are part of the coat of arms of Württemberg {see this article from espnfc.com/9th paragraph there}. (By the way, deer antlers are also featured on the Porsche logo.)
Seasons in 1st division: counting 2017-18, VfB Stuttgart have played 52 seasons in the Bundesliga [2017-18 is the 55th season of Bundesliga (est. 1963-64)].
Stuttgart’s major titles:
5 German titles (last in 2007).
3 DFB-Pokal titles (last in 1997).
Manager: Hannes Wolf (age 36), born in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia.
Photo and Images credits above – 17/18 Stuttgart jersey, photo unattributed at footballshirtculture.com. Mercedes-Benz Arena, photo from File:Mercedes-Benz-Arena Stuttgart.JPG by MSeses at commons.wikimedia.com. Tifo, photo from File:Cannstatter Kurve 2013.JPG by RudolfSimon at commons.wikimedia.org.
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Hannover 96.
Hanover, Lower Saxony [in north-central Germany].
Hanover is located, by road, 99 miles (159 km) S of Hamburg; and Hanover is located, by road, 131 miles (212 km) NE of Dortmund.
Rivals: Hannover 96′s biggest rival is fellow Lower Saxon side Eintracht Braunschweig, and the cities of Hanover and Braunschweig are only about 41 miles apart. Last season, Hannover beat out Braunschweig by one point for automatic promotion.
Hannover 96 returns straight back to the Bundesliga after finishing in 2nd place in the second tier, two points behind Stuttgart, while finishing one point ahead of their big rivals Eintracht Braunschweig, and 7 points ahead of 4th place [FC Union Berlin]. Hannover’s 2016-17 average attendance was 36,647 (at 74.4 percent-capacity); Hannover had the second-best attendance in the 2nd division, and the 12th-best attendance in all of Germany in 2016-17. Currently, now back in the Bundesliga, Hannover has the 10th-largest crowds, averaging 47.1 K (at 96-%-capacity) [as of 17 Oct. 2017].
Colours: Red jersey, usually with Black pants, and a Green-and-Black badge. Hannover have always had a green-and-black badge {see this, Hannover 96 badges through the years}, but they played in blue jerseys for their first 18 years. Hannover’s red jerseys date back to 1913, when a merger with another local club – Ballverein [BV] 1898 Hannovera – led to the club adopting BV’s red jerseys, while retaining their green-and-black badge.
Seasons in 1st division: counting 2017-18, Hannover 96 have played 29 seasons in the Bundesliga.
Hannover’s major titles:
2 German titles (last in 1954).
1 DFB-Pokal title (last in 1992).
Manager: André Breitenreiter (age 44), born in the Langenhagen district of Hanover, Lower Saxony.
Photo and Images credits above – 17/18 Hannover 96 jersey, unattributed at footyheadlines.com HDI-Arena, photo unattributed at skyscrapercity.com/showthread[HD-Arena/Hannover 96]. Tifo, photo unattributed at pinterest.com.
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Note: I will soon post a map-and-chart of the German second division, 2. Bundesliga, in mid-December 2017.
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Thanks to all at the links below…
-Blank map of Germany by NordNordWest, File:Germany location map.svg (en.wikipedia.org).
-Attendances from E-F-S site, european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm.
-2016-17 stadium capacities (for league matches) from Fußball-Bundesliga 2017/18 (de.wikipedia.org).
-List of German football champions (en.wikipedia.org).
-Seasons-in-1st-division data from Fußball-Bundesliga/Vereine der Bundesligasaison 2017/18 (de.wikipedia.org).
