Opinion: The Bundesliga is out of lives

We have come to that moment again in the Bundesliga season when yet another title race meets an untimely death.

With just under half of the season left, it may seem like a premature statement, but history suggests otherwise.

Borussia Dortmund have hit a slump and talk turns to mentality and the club being a stepping stone for young talent. RB Leipzig have a clear philosophy, one of the best coaches in Germany, and loads of money but can't keep up with Bayern. Both have been labeled challengers but haven't done enough challenging. 

And while Leverkusen, Gladbach and Wolfsburg are often fun to watch, relying on them to launch a real title challenge is folly.

It is all so familiar, as was Bayern beating Schalke on matchday 18. Hansi Flick's side might not be purring like they were when they won the treble last season but they are still winning.

Whether it's that the financial gap is widening, Bayern's squad is deeper, other sides are underperforming, or all of the above, Bayern remain the league's immovable object. A ninth straight title beckons.

Nine lives all used up

In previous seasons, the Bundesliga has had enough of a title race or other distracting narratives to just about cover Bayern Munich winning it all again.

Last season, the title race ran until late May. The season before that, Dortmund threw a nine-point lead and it still went down to the final day.

Before that, the league has turned to its great team stories, vibrant fan culture or status as one of the best leagues in Europe for young players to develop.

But with the pandemic tightening club finances and leaving stadiums empty, the Bundesliga can hide it's competition issue no more. Individual success stories, social media content that goes viral or amusing references to German football vocabularly are good fun but are not enough if the league wants to keep growing.

The answers are not clear, but any solution will likely be connected to the foundational aspects (such as the 50+1 rule or the distribution of broadcasting rights) of the German game. To change that would mean revolution.

Until then, the Bundesliga should and can consider what they already have, namely the success stories of clubs like Freiburg and its role in giving opportunities to young players and coaches. In football, these aspects are of great value. For some viewers, those aspects are what attracted them to the league in the first place and what keeps them coming back. For the league though, those aspects are no longer enough to survive off.

Winning isn't everything, but in high-performance sport it certainly is and if, as expected, Bayern Munich are top of the Bundesliga table come the summer, then the Bundesliga will have to find answers to its biggest problem.