re: Marco Reus will leave and BVB's run will be over: so who's next in the Bund?

Aberdeen probably has 2 guys who can walk and chew gum at the same time.

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I think that's pretty over-exaggerated. Götze and Lewandowski were leaving regardless of if Bayern put in a bid or not. That's more of a Dortmund problem than anything. They shouldn't have been so cheap and small time when their revenue suggests they're a major club.

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Perhaps it is a bit unfair. But it still ends up with the same result. One completely dominating squad for the title.

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Let's not act like the Premier League is a league where there's someone new winning it every year. There's been 3 different champions in the last 10 years and 5 different champions in the Bundesliga.

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Oh I don't mean to say that. The Prem had as little parity as possible over the last few years. I speak mainly of this year's situation. And while Bayern are not completely at fault, they certainly are a main cog in the gears of a lack of competition for the title.

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Dat Volkswagen cash.

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I think that's pretty over-exaggerated. Götze and Lewandowski were leaving regardless of if Bayern put in a bid or not. That's more of a Dortmund problem than anything. They shouldn't have been so cheap and small time when their revenue suggests they're a major club.

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Yeah, part of it is simply that the gap between the few elite superclubs and even the next tier of historically strong clubs is growing across all of Europe's top leagues.


Much of the backlash specifically against the Bundesliga is probably due to how many Americans started following or trying to follow the league recently with Dortmund's run being more the reason than most may admit.

Dortmund has been a breath of fresh air for everyone that wants to see a couple of clubs not funded by third world oligarchs compete with the traditional powers like Bayern etc. . .

To offer an anecdotal example: when I go to a Biergarten here in Brooklyn to watch matches I only see 20s-30s year old Americans who follow Bayern or Dortmund and never another Bundesliga side. That's where it's different than say Serie A where you have Juve, Milan, Inter, Napoli, Roma and even some Fiorentina and Palermo fans.

My point is simply that Dortmund's challenge to Bayern has driven the recent foreign appeal and that's why Dortmund losing their best players to specifically to Bayern (instead of to other Bundeliga challengers or PSG, City or Real) is seen as such a travesty.


On the other hand, if the Bundesliga is to continue to capture new foreign fans, it's germane that the clubs you mention like Leverkussen, Shalke, Wolfsburg etc step up.

However, that they can be more than a flash in the pan for a couple of seasons like a Villarreal or Fiorentina the past decade or Athletic Madrid or Napoli now probably depends on how CL/TV money continues to be shared and whether Financial Fair Play (both doubtful) has any teeth whatsoever.

As usual, wm72 comes in with the solid analysis smackdown.

I sure hope Leverkusen can make a run as they seem to be the team I'm gravitating towards right now.

Follow European soccer much ?...lol
Do you have more "words of wisdom" for the board ?

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Not me. I started casually following them because they were the only realistic challenger to Bayern. I was excited about keeping up with them and seeing what would end up becoming of the rivalry but now I'm just not very interested anymore. TV or not.

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Yeah that's what I was thinking too. Most people who were excited about Dortmund were already on them even when they flamed out of the two previous CLs. At that time Schalke was on TV more often.

It was them rising up on the crest of young exciting talent to punch toe to toe with Bayern right after Bayern had made the CL final against Inter that really piqued the interest.

But again, I do think that Bundesliga would benefit from more people gravitating a bit to other good clubs aside from Dortmund.

However, even with increased TV exposure, I'm not sure that will happen on any large scale. Serie A has always had pretty decent TV coverage since it has a large built-in fan base in America and I'm not sure that it's really converting serious new fans aside from true football junkies who enjoy the styles Roma, Fiorentina and Napoli play when they happen to play at a time that even a excruciating lower table EPL matchup isn't on.

I've seen some people linking Reus to Spurs. No chance though.