Why does this happen? Because their football is healthy. If you don't have a good enough team, you will get relegated. It seems big clubs in most countries are not "allowed" to fail, their relegation is seen as a disaster and most of the time will be given a helping hand to stay up. Congratulations to Germany for still doing it right. Nobody deserves a "free pass".

You can crawl back from relegation, but you cannot crawl back from selling your club.

As a big HSV fan this video was excellent. The part about the second Bundesliga being fun is no joke. HSV has a HIGHER attendance in the second division than we did in the first division. The fanbase is 100% behind the club qnd we're enjoying the season, our team and our games.

The mismanagement of some German clubs is really frustrating. Clubs like Hamburg and Schalke should be giants in the Bundesliga and even possibly a force in Europe. Seeing 1860 Munich struggling against Bayern’s B team sums up how polarised those two clubs have become.

As a german im really thankful that you're bringing that topic to an international audience. Keep up the great work!

Some of the relegations seem to be self inflicted, Schalke for example went from playing Man City to relegation fodder in a few season. Hamburg’s relegation had been coming for a long time, with them finishing in the top half once in their last 7 Bundesliga seasons

History and tradition, that's why I fell in love with German football. I'm from Mexico but I've never felt prouder to be a Schalke fan especially in these dark times. That passion at every game home and away is just something else. I'm aware it's not easy with the way modern football works but I hope to see all these giants in the top flight someday again. Massive respect to all of them.

Yes the number of former heavy hitters that are in or have been in the german lower leagues is astonishing, however i believe the Premier league would be having a similar tale if not for the 1992 rebranding. Afterall, clubs like Nottingham forest, wednesday, Leeds etc were all heavy hitters in the old english top division league.

The parity in the German Football once you get beyond Bayern and Dortmund (and Maybe Liepzig) is extremely competitive all the way down to 3. Bundesliga. Even teams like Frankfurt have had to spend a year or two in the .2 bundesliga and even Bayern spent a year in the .2 back during 1860's Reign. I do think raising the number of teams in both Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga tgo 20 would be a good idea because German football is so competitive.

As a Kaiserslautern Fan, you didn't fully explain the insanity of our Stadium. It's capacity is almost 50.000, in a city with only 100.000 inhabitants. And even more insane, when you look at a map and see that the city is in the middle of a forest and no big city is anywhere nearby

As a German I think you nailed it. 50+1 is the main reason that major clubs keep getting relegated. Other than in the PL the TV money is distributed very uneven between the champion and the teams promoted from 2nd league. Bayern earns a whopping 95 Mil. Euros while Darmstadt receives 31 Mil.

Actually, the "Englische Woche" (usually used in plural) refers to weeks with more than one game as something that is draining on a team's stamina (which is why the plural form is crucial - three weeks like that can set you back in your league campaign). This is used mostly in the context of European matches for teams that don't have the depth to rotate in those weeks.

In summary: Why Germany's biggest clubs suffer the hardest bar Bayern Munich? 1. No clubs in the Bundesliga can compete against Bayern Munich in terms of financial revenue and members. 2. Hamburg and Schalke were in decline after years of poor management from top to bottom. 3. 50+1 rule as positive impact on fan engagement and keeping the football tradition alive however it also brings a negative impact like limiting how much the club can spend on recruitment, club infrastructure and youth academies. 4. The talent pool of young prospects are running dry like Schalke and 1860 Munich and brought in dross players along the way. I've always admire the Bundesliga in terms of fans being 100% to their clubs regardless how well or badly run it is. Fan apathy is almost non existent in German football and they always keep traditions alive. Sure the Bundesliga is stale since 2013 but I always have major respect for the fan base that would rather stick with the club through thick and thin than to have a similar outcome at Ligue 1 with PSG being ran by Qatar and win multiple silverware. That's why I will keep watching the Bundesliga because of the fans supporting their clubs and like I said, I admire and respect that.

The Bundesliga is very similar to the Brasileirao, were you always have one or various big teams getting relegated every few seasons. Only Flamengo, Sao Paulo and Santos have never been relegated (so far), but all of them have had near misses in recent years. The most egregious example was Flamengo in 2013, were they only avoided relegation because Portuguesa got deducted 4 points for fielding a suspended player.

Funfact 5 of the 10 biggest German football stadiums are in the 2nd league, 4 in the 1st league and 1 isnt used for football currently.

The problem with the "exceptions" (RB, Leverkusen, Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim) is that their financial losses will always be cleared by their rich owners. If the 50+1 clubs have a bad transfer period, admittedly in the case of Schalke and especially Hamburg it was too many to have just been bad luck, that money is gone. Leipzig, despite the great transfer business, has a higher debt than any other club in germany. But it doesn't matter, cause that debt is with Red Bull. In 2020 Red Bull just turned 100 Million of debt into capital for the club. You pointed out how the new stadiums were crippling some clubs, well Red Bull just bought the previously city-owned stadium in Leipzig, it is neither owned by the club nor the city, but owned by the company. Hoffenheim had big losses in the past as well after quite a few bad transfer periods in the inital years after their promotion to the Bundesliga, but Hopp just came in and cleared the debt. It's the same with Wolfsburg and Leverkusen. It's just not a level playing field at all, and it's why these "clubs" shouldn't exist, and why I'd rather have Bayern (who have also had their fair share of shady deals, the Kirch affair for example which may be an interesting topic for a video, though I don't know if there are good english resources on it) win 60 in a row than have them win one.

I went to 3 Kaiserslautern games during their 19/20 season (against preussen munster, zwickau and sv meppen). It was heartbreaking seeing a club of that size with perhaps, the most football crazy city in germany (95k population with a 50k stadium). Everytime they scored, it was as joyful as a title win and when they conceded, it was as hurtful as a relegation. The following season (20/21), Kaiserslautern almost fell down to the 4th tier and saved themselves with what can only be described as gods power and will. Even though i'm a Mainz fan (2nd biggest rivals of kaiserslautern behind Waldhof Mannheim), i like them and really hope they get back to where they belong, which is 1st division football. Kaiserslautern IMO has the most heartbreaking story in german football alongside 1860 Munich

I seem to recall that German fans protested and boycotted matches that had been scheduled for a Monday night for TV.

The grafik shown at 4:48 is not Kaiserslautern, its Köln😙 Anyway thanks for the great video and greetings from Nürnberg❤️🖤 Btw in 2019/20 Nürnberg was basically relegated to the 3rd Divison but managed to survive in the relegation playoffs when they scored a goal in the 96th Minute

I am a Nuremberg fan (unfortunately) and in my daily life an English teacher. Good summary! Now teams play in the Bundesliga that no one here is really interested in (Augsburg, Heidenheim, Wolfsburg, Hoffenheim)

As a Dortmund fan, thank you for this video, Alfie. I know not everyone agrees with the traditional “German model” of football, and fewer still seem to understand the appeal of our football culture at all. But this video has some GREAT explanations in it. Keep up the great work. Heja BVB 🖤💛

These kinds of deep dives are my favourite videos of yours Alfie. Well done.

Great Video. You are correct, the 2 Bundesliga doesn’t have the best player in Europe. However for value for money and match day experience, it truly is second to none.

Getting to your video late, but as an American in Germany, I've made it a mission to go to every Bundesliga stadium this season. So far 6/18, and not a single one disappointed. Each was an awesome experience, and I've gone back to several to see them again. And though I haven't been to their stadium yet, I keep getting games against Union Berlin, and their fans always show up and are awesome in any stadium!

As a german myself (msv duisburg fan) i still really enjoyed this video. But I am kind of sad that duisburg was left out of the list for 3. Division clubs. We might have not really won any titles but we were second in the first bundesliga season and had some dfb pokal finals. Duisburg is one of the smaller cities and is surrounded by way bigger clubs wich makes it an even bigger achievement (in my opinion at least).

ESPN+ is televising Schalke vs Holstein Kiel at 9:30 Pacific Time today and Hannover vs Hamburg tomorrow at 11:30 Pacific Time in the USA for anyone who’s interested. The Budesliga and 2 Bundesliga matches can be pretty wild and I recommend watching.

Nice one! And a pretty good depiction of the mindset of german football supporters. There is indeed more to football than winning trophies!

Fs Alfie. I was just going to bed after a night shift but looks like I’m up for another half an hour! The only YT channel worth staying up for 💪

The fact that declan rice is more expensive than all of the stadiums he mentioned in the beginning

Fun fact about you mentioning Wehen Wiesbaden: Wehen isn't a part of Wiesbaden, it's actually belonging to Taunusstein, a city in another county. Back when they got their promotion when the third tier was established, they needed a bigger venue and Taunusstein fumbled around. Wiesbaden stepped in and basically snatched the club in a sort of "franchise takeover" you see in American football. Oh, and the club isn't as poor as it may seem, they've got quite a bit of backing from Brita water filters as their company HQ is in Taunusstein-Wehen and the company CEOs (used tio be the father, now it's the son) have been club presidents for decades.

Leverkusen has been in the highest league since 1979, so I don't think it's fair to call them a new-ish club. They were even one of the 46 clubs that applied to play in the first ever Bundesliga season in 1963, so they were already around back then. They may be a company club but they really aren't comparable to Hoffenheim or Leipzig at all. They are one of the traditional Bundesliga clubs themselves. On the other hand Augsburg and Mainz really are new-ish Bundesliga clubs that have taken spots away from established ones, so those two would have deserved a mention. Also Greuther Fürth, Holstein Kiel, Karlsruhe, Düsseldorf and Hannover may technically be former German champions but even I as someone who has followed the Bundesliga for 20 years now actually had no idea about that until reading the description of this video, since most of those clubs won their titles over 100 years ago. Those clubs are not really perceived as former champions by people other than their own fans. I am happy to see this video though. You recently mentioned that the second tier in England is by far the strongest second tier in the world and it made me wonder if you are aware of the second tier in Germany, lol.

This really highlights why Bayern are so dominant. Too many of the other big clubs got killed by bad management (Schalke, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Hertha Berlin, etc) while the best run clubs are unfortunately much smaller clubs that really can't compete with Bayern financially (Freiburg, Augsburg, Union Berlin, etc). Meanwhile, for all the talk about how having clubs that didn't follow the 50+1 rule would at the very least make the title race competitive, for whatever reason the likes of Leipzig, Hoffenheim (at least until this year when their owner gave up control of the club), Leverkusen and Wolfsburg haven't really shown much title ambitions despite having the financial capabilities to do so. This really just leaves Dortmund as the only other well-run big club (Frankfurt I think is more upper-mid club) but they still seem haunted by their financial crisis in the early 2000s and sell their players far too often to build up a truly title-challenging team.

It would be interesting to see the video on smaller clubs who managed to achieve league safety against all odds & their growth

There just isn't any channel like this on KZfaq, let alone an english one. Just love to watch and hope you keep them coming!!! 👏

Fantastic video! You must’ve spent a very long time researching all of this! Please allow me to compliment you on your really fantastic German pronunciation! You’re obviously making a lot of effort and it is much appreciated! The comparison to the premier league especially the prices of season tickets, single game tickets, and when matches are shown is jaw-dropping! Thank you for the video!

Unexpectedly disheartened at not having seen a picture of Gael pop up as you said 'cliche' at 16:59. Cheers for yet another great watch Alfie

Great video as always Alfie! You really seem to know to the context behind all of this very well. Kudos to you. If you could make more videos on German and Italian football, it would be appreciated.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen is in the Bundesliga for 44 consecutive years. In the eternal ranking of the Bundesliga, Leverkusen is on the 10th place with more Bundesliga matches than Kaiserslautern, Nürnberg, Hannover 96 and of course 1860 München. They were playing in the Oberliga West in 1962 against 1. FC Köln, Borussia Dortmund, FC Schalke 04 and Preußen Münster, but didn´t qualify for the newly founded Bundesliga. They are named after Bayer when it was founded by the workers of the company in 1904. Same year as FC Schalke 04 was founded and 15 years before the Hamburger SV was joined together by two clubs. So with the rise of more obscure and non-existent teams, were you talking about Leverkusen and the UEFA-Cup-Win of 1988 and DFB-Pokal-Win in 1993? There are also a couple of established but smaller Bundesliga-Clubs which earned their stability because of hard work, modesty and competent management. The mismanagement leading to the descent of HSV, Hertha, Kaiserslautern, FC Schalke, Nürnberg mostly because of becoming greedy after successful years and getting dependent on shady investors, or corporations like Gasprom, wasn´t the fault of clubs taking their place.

In Germany we have a say: "Liebe kennt keine Liga" which means "Love does not know any league".

Kaiserslautern are hopefully on the way back to the bundisliga in the next couple seasons. Plus loved the 2010 kit.

I'm Glad you made this! My team Hamburg just keep failing Promotion every season against Smaller Clubs! Hamburg is a 100% best fanbase in German football! And Hamburg's first relegation in my case cause a curse on German's National Team! Knocked out of the Group stage in 2018 & 2022 World Cup, and Women's Germany Knocked out of the Group Stage in Women's World Cup 2023. This season, I hope Hamburg can finally be promoted! Keep it up!

First of all, I would like to thank you for the video, it is very well done. As a German, I would like to add a few things that I think are important and unfortunately came up a bit short in the video. Especially for Schalke and Hamburg, you can and must simply say that both clubs have repeatedly had small crises over the decades and have gone through financial problems, which has put them on shaky ground compared to other heavyweights of German soccer. But instead of first taking the success of the 2000s with them, they tried in the 2010s with expensive transfers and old stars and took high financial risks, which as you can see today have not paid off. Especially for these two clubs doubly tragic, since one has done very good youth work and had to sell the future stars "cheaply", whereby the teams were damaged in the long term. Quasi something that happened to many of the clubs from the video, in addition to the things mentioned such as stadium renovations which have devoured a lot of money, much of which was also co-financed by the countries (which was mentioned). The biggest problem for many of the clubs was simply the timing of the collapse, which was made more dramatic by high levels of funding for European Cup contenders and led to the "downfall" due to high expectations around the clubs. 50+1 is and was then the nail in the coffin for these clubs compared to other leagues like the PL where they would just get another money injection from their owners. What doesn't quite fit, however, is the naming of teams like Wolfsburg or Leverkusen, since they were already in the Bundesliga in the 90s and are thus only partly to blame for the clubs' missteps in the last decade. If the "big" clubs manage to work well and calmly again without creating too much ecstasy in the environment, they will sooner or later also rise because especially through the name of the clubs and often the larger catchment areas more sponsorship revenue and thus more money can be collected, which can lead to a sporting advantage, if it is used properly. Should the leagues be expanded to 20 clubs, it should only be a matter of time before we see some fallen giants back in the Bundesliga. And to be fair, and this was also mentioned in the video, the soccer culture in Germany works really well, as for many fans it is simply more than just about winning, which is why most clubs will continue to remain well known regardless of whether they play in the Bundesliga or in the 2 / 3.Liga. This is something I can only say for my "local" club which is Köln but these guys would rather watch a game in the Regionalliga (4th tier) than getting owned by an investor to tie in with the golden times of the 60s-80s. We the fans already realised that we can't compete with the PL in terms of money and thus should simply focus on our own unique product which indeed lies in the strong bound between fans and teams that are still being majorly owned by us the fans who in the end generate passion and atmosphere that no money can buy.

Hi Alfie, I love the type of videos from you. Would you do a best English 1st division best managers prior to the formation of the premier league please?

Very interesting! But you should look at Sweden and make a video why so many fairytale teams promotes to the top league there, Allsvenskan. In recent years Varnamo and Varberg have been labelled fairytale promotions, and the clear leaders of level 2, Superettan now are also labelled a fairytale team, Utsikten. In earlier years we've had teams like Ljungskile, Oddevold, Enkoping, Syrianska, Assyriska, AFC Eskilstuna, Dalkurd, Falkenberg and Mjallby, the latter having spent many seasons in the top flight. But when those fairytale teams fall, they fall hard, and so also some giants. I haven't seen a league in Europe with so many teams suffering back-to-back relegations from level 1 to 3 as in Sweden. The most extraordinary example is Brommapojkorna with this record: 2014: Level 1, 2015: 2, 2016: 3, 2017: 2, 2018: 1, 2019: 2, 2020: 3, 2021: 3, 2022: 2, 2023: 1. One of Swedens most traditional clubs, five times champions Helsingborg are now next-to-bottom at level 2 after relegating from the top flight last season. Giants IFK Gothenburg are now next-to-bottom in the Allsvenskan with fellow giants AIK in the play-off spot. It's quite different from my country Norway where teams relegated from the top flight usually bounce back at the first time of asking. So if you could dive into the madness of the Swedish league it would be highly appreciated!

Imagine one of the traditional top four in the Premier League get relegated

Love the way germans do football, the biggest clubs in England like Arsenal and Liverpool in the 2nd tier is absolutely unthinkable but clubs of similar size in Germany being in the 2nd tier is the norm it’s mental but would be fantastic to see in england

Excellent analysis! You really nailed the main facts and additionally provided (at least to me) some new and alternative perspectives. Great job!

I was about to write I’d never expected Alfie to talk about Rot-Weiß Essen, but then again actually this has become nothing unusual and that’s what’s awesome about your channel. Always expect the unexpected.

Have to admit loved the video. Seen kaiserslautern and my old work weisbaden had the honour to work for v corps

19:00 German football hates Dietmar Hopp. But if we're all being honest, we do the same thing every time we play Football Manager with our home club. He's just doing it for real. And there's no argument about whether he's a real fan of the club or who else he should be attached to. Only that he was able to do it well. With the help of people like Ralf Rangnick and Julien Nagelsmann.

Hamburg need to come back to the Bundesliga hopefully this season.

Tbh apart from Bayern's dominance, the Bundesliga is arguably the most unpredictable football league in Europe. I mean in recent years we saw big clubs like Werder Bremen, Stuttgart, Schalke and Hertha Berlin had suffered relegation to the second tier, but on the other hand we saw smaller Bundesliga clubs like Augsburg and Mainz (both played the top-flight for more than 10 years) survived longer than we thought and proven to be a punch above their weight in the Bundesliga. And then we have Bochum, who had survived the drop twice since their return to the top tier despite suffering many beatdowns by other clubs (Though it should be noted that Bochum is known for their resiliency despite they are always classified as a small Bundesliga club). And finally we have Union Berlin, who is a prime example of being a small Bundesliga club who had achieved success to this day despite only playing in the Bundesliga for the first time in 2019...

18:00 you sort of glossed over that Hopp actually tried to buy into Kaiserslautern back when they were in real financial trouble, but the fans rejected the idea so harshly that it ended up not going through and he build up Hoffenheim instead

Damn Alfie, you are KILLING it lately!! 👍👏 Thanks for all your work! ❤ Shout-out to the German model. 👍👏

As a Hertha Fan, I wished you would of talked a bit about our downfall. We started crashing after getting money from an extremely shady investor. We spend rediculous sums of money and ran the club into the ground. We deserved to be relegated. I am happy that the investor left, even though we are left in ruins. Football is for the fans, not an investment vehicle or vantiy project. I will continue to support my club, despite everything I find wrong with it.

As sad as it was to see Hamburg relegated for the first time, it was the most deserved relegation coming due to their inability to change the annual trend of surviving on the last day or through the playoffs before the unthinkable eventually became reality 🙈

You mention the nouveau riche German clubs. Maybe we see that a little in the Premier League but probably more in the EFL, where nouveau riche upstarts like Forest Green, Fleetwood, Crawley replaced the more established traditional EFL clubs, relegating several of them to the National League

Thanks for your obscure, interesting and meticulously researched videos. You're one of a kind.

Great video keep it up you're doing amazing things 😁👍

A similar video about the entire history of Romanian football in which only 5 teams that won the title of champion in which they played in a period when there was relegation, Ripensia Timișoara, Colțea Brașov and Venus București which were abolished by the communists and FCSB and CSA Steaua Bucharest and the fans of the two teams want the other team to be disbanded. Well, I don't think it could be a video because there wouldn't be enough interest, but at least I'm helping with the algorithm.

A lot of those clubs mentioned in the beginning deserve a whole video about their demise, i would recommend you to take a look at schalke because their story especially with everything going on at the club outside of the pitch is really interesting!

Thank you for these essential videos , excellent filler to listen to when doing them mundane task around my house. 😌

One of your best. Thanks!!

Newcastle have done the same several times, Leeds have been down to league one, Sunderland have done that twice, Blackburn were down in the doldrums too. Wolves went down to the fourth division. Of course it must be said that Nuremburg have endured their trials........Sad for HSV though as a double former resident.

Great video , the German club I follow Dynamo Dresden , never seem to get it right , despite 30,000 passionate fans showing up every week . Shambolic mismanagement. Compare with Union Berlin , a club half the size of Dresden , who continue to enjoy great success in the Bundesliga

Alfie, you're doing god's work! Keep at it my brother!

At 4:52 there is actually the first ever mistake I have ever found in your videos. The picture shows players of the 1. FC Köln while you are talking about the 1. FC Kaiserslautern. Impressive how you never make any mistakes and how that picture also still fit the narrative haha

As a Schalke fan our down spell is just tragic we are massive but like almost every big club in germany we've stalled and been mismanaged for ages, Youd think us Stuttgart Gladbach and hamburg would be in title races but no were all either in the lower teirs or just bouncing between Europa league and midtable in gladbachs case, Something needs to change as the leagues being deemed less than every year despite how much quality and unpredictability the league has (expect for the title race)

Fiago will love this video

I had a 2 year posting in Berlin (78-80) and I went to the Olympic stadium to see Hertha whenever I could... Even saw them play a friendly against my Foxes'(though that was played at the Post stadium)

Top vid Alfie. The only football channel that says it like it is.

16:20 thats not true, we have a very casual audience too that would love to have more money in their clubs with reasonable owners. 50+1 made Bayern dominate for 12years now, our minds have changed a lot over that time!

I think it's a cultural thing too, the same happens in Spain with Barca and real. When I was a kid (I was a footy fanatic and watched all the top leagues) I wasn't asked what team do you support; it was are you Barca or Madrid. Not enough support goes to your local team. Even on a 1 hour la liga show 20 min is dedicated to 18 teams and 40 min to Barca/real. Always hated that, maybe the same happens in Germany idk

Thank you. Great work.

football is more than just trophies...well said man! we all want to win but theres so much more to the game. greed and trophy culture is killing the love for the game, feels like nothing matters than who won at the end and how much your club spends every window

Since 2011, Bayern have spent €286m on 30 players signed from other Bundesliga clubs, at an average of €9.5m per player. That includes 10 free signings, 4 youth signings and they also poached Kovac and Nagelsmann in that time. The highest fee was Upamecano for €42.5m. There were 3 strategic decimations of rivals. Dortmund in 13/14 and 14/15, Hoffenheim in 17/18 and Leipzig in 21/22. Neuer, Mandzukic, Dante, Gotze, Lewandowski, Rode, Kimmich, Hummels, Sandro Wagner, Sule, Rudy, Gnabry, Goretzka, Pavard, Upamecano, Sabitzer and Sommer went for a combined €264.5m, or €16.5m. Sales to Bayern from other Bundesliga clubs are so undervalued that it dopes Bayern's position in the league. If Bayern had to buy that abroad, or a Premier League club had to buy it, it would be €600m or more. That's where the Bundesliga fails. Not taxing Bayern for commercial revenue doping and they hoover up the best talent from rivals, who have no money to compete in the open market and lose their best talent so no incentive to grow their academies to be poached, so the national team suffers. If Bundesliga wants to save itself. 50% tax on commercial revenues over €150m, distributed equally to other Bundesliga clubs. 50% signing on fee for a Bundesliga domestic transfer on a free is taxed on signing club and paid to buying club. When a Bundesliga club signs from another Bundesliga club, 50% of the player's annual wage is taxed on the buying club and given to selling club. So for example Goretzka. Schalke maybe got €3m from Bayern in compensation.. With new rules: Bayern pay €112m to the Bundesliga in commercial revenue tax. Each Bundesliga club with commercial revenues under €150m gets an equal share, so €5-6m each. Say Goretzka's signing bonus was €10m, Bayern have to pay Schalke €5m. Say Goretzka is on €12m per year. Bayern have to pay Schalke €6m per year as a development fee over the length of his first contract. So instead of Bayern stealing Goretzka for free, Schalke get at least €35m for him even if his contract runs down. Bundesliga would then be truly fair and could point fingers at England. Now they can't.

Good video overall but i’m surprised you didn’t mention Frankfurt at all. A new stadium was built bevor the WC and Eintracht Frankfurt barely avoided relegation a few years ago but then won the Pokal and the EL in the coming years. Also, with more than 100k members it’s now one of the biggest clubs in germany. And all that with good management and recruiting and not benefitting from a "sugar daddy".

Please tell ESPN that the 2nd League has great teams and they need to televise more than 2 games in the US!

very good video, I spotted some minor mistakes though: around 4:50 you used a picture of disappointed FC Cologne players when you were talking about Kaiserslautern. in 6:33 you said Kaiserslautern finished 6th in the Bundesliga when you actually meant Nuremberg in 8:27 you say 1860 was relegated to the second bundesliga in 2017, but they were relegated to the third division in that year 10:08.. did not check it again but I believe Hamburg got relegated as 17th, not 18th. starting from 14:07: when it comes to small clubs that have risen one should DEFINITELY mention Freiburg who despite not having a lot of money established as a team that fight for European places year over year thanks to a phenomenal youth academy

As a lifelong Hamburg fan, I can agree with the statement that the 2.Bundesliga is far more entertaining, exciting and tense than the Bundesliga where the battle at the bottom is the only exciting part these days...

The fact he mentions about how English Football would be happened if big clubs played in the Championship makes us annoyed. With Premier League still reaching 3rd gameweek, clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea, and Everton are prone for relegation due to recent poor performances, with Chelsea being disappointed a lot, given their huge spendings. Meanwhile, untraditional clubs like Newcastle United, Brighton, and Aston Villa are having a good start. Even Tottenham Hotspurs, one of the big clubs that was classified as "serial bottlers", had a good form with new manager and didn't rely on Harry Kane.

Very good and interesting video 👏

Yeah, second video I watched, subscribed!

You should do a video on the history and MAGIC of the DFB POKAL 🙂

My club will most likely be relegated to the Swedish third tier this autumn. We have not played in the top tier since 2009 and our last national championship is 38 years old. But as a member of the club I own it. Not some local rich dude. Not a hedgefund. Not a foreign conglomerate. I own it. We own it. I pity every Englishman because you have never had the opportunity to be anything more than very loyal customers.

Nothing better than alfie talking about HSV :) (although regarding the intro: Hamburg has already surpassed the 90.000 members mark)

My friend in high school from Nürnberg always said every year that "this year we are going up just you see"

I suppose when you have one club so much wealthier than the others that club being of course Bayern Munich all the rest are playing for also ran status and with it comes the cost of relegation so its probably not suprising that this happens quite regularly in the Bundesliga

#thepeopleschannel a video on the Bangladesh premier league and the rise of Bashundhara kings would be good A team who went into the top flight after promotion and won the last four league titles now! Are they the next Newcastle? Are they a team to keep a eye on next few years? Thanks Alfie 😊

You bring up some great points. What is a bit frustrating though is that the DFL (which runs both 1st and 2nd Bundesliga) doesn’t realise what an asset they have in this Fan culture. They should focus exactly on that when monetising the league, thereby generating more income from international TV rights. The Bundesliga just makes 200 million € per year from international TV rights whereas the Premier League almost makes 10 times as much. The fans are the Bundesliga‘s USP, plus it has the tradition to boot. Make something out of it. That’s the only way of staying true to yourself while simultaneously remaining competitive.

Great video!! Union Berlin's journey is so inspiring.

Respect to German football. England also has plenty of glory hunters who support Premier League teams on the other side of the country to where they're from with no shame. Like Londoners who support Liverpool, Man City and United, and embarrassingly use terms like 'We' and 'Us' to describe these teams. To be fair lower league teams still have the old spirit like the Germans are upholding.

Hello, Alfie. Can you make a video about what is going on with Malaysian football right now? With the senior national team are prepared for playing at Asian Cup in January next year, Johor Darul Takzim(JDT), one of Malaysia biggest football club are aim to achieve 9 time Malaysian Super League in row in this season. JDT also unbeaten in all the competition in this season and Malaysian under 17s squad are crash out in group stage on AFC Under-17 Asian Cup.

Very interesting one. 2te is fascinating, same as Championship. What's going on with Southend UTD btw? Seen they got a points deduction

I renew my petition for you to include international subtitles for your videos. I volunteer for Spanish, but just having them would be great for me and my football loving non-English speaking family

Another reason for the dominance of Bayern is that it is very hard for the smaller clubs to handle the fixture congestion once they become successful. The need to go from somewhere around 38 - 40 league and cup matches to play in 44+ matches with european football is a lot to handle. This forces clubs to significantly increase squad depth, with no guarantee at all that there will be international football in the next season to finance the increased squad. Therefore many clubs have only passing success. Some, like Schalke, risked a lot in this step and were punished. Others, like Frankfurt, Gladbach or Hoffenheim, were not able to be successful in both the European Cups and the Bundesliga. Sometimes not even in one competition. Furthermore the money that is given to clubs by the league, the DFL, is significantly more lopsided than in the Premier League. Last season, Bayern got almost 3x times as much from the DFL compared to the smallest club. In the Premier League the factor is 1.3.

and now, take a good look at Heidenheim, because i'm tired, trying to explain wth Heidenheim (with the same manager since 2007) is doing in the Bundesliga... 😅

Should have mentioned that the 2nd Bundesliga from 2017 to like 2020 did have several current World Cup winners playing in its league with the likes of Pavard, Gomez, Ron-Robert Zieler and others. Also Confederation cup winners, UCL winners and future world cup winners and it maybe even still has. Most likely was the by far strongest 2nd division in the world at that time.

Beer in the stadium? In Romania, when there's a match, no stores/bars/pubs/etc are allowed to sell any alcoholic beverages for a few hours, in a 1 (or is it 2?) km range of the stadium

Most of Hamburg's success occured during the 70s and 80s though they really haven't been big players in 21st century German football