Bundesliga’s title race hotter than ever

With Bayern, Dortmund and Union Berlin, competing head-to-head, scoring 43 points each, the title race is more heated than ever and fans can feel it.
Many passionately accuse the Bundesliga of being a farmer’s league because Bayern Munich has been the undisputed champion for the past 10 years.
If they manage to secure the trophy in 2023 again, that will result in more than a decade-long winning streak, which is an unprecedented level of dominance in European top-flight football.
But is the Bundesliga really a farmer’s league? Let’s look at the evidence!
Since 2013, FC Bayern has been unbeatable on the German playing field, because of their immense resource base and the ability to fill their roster with top talent at the drop of a hat.
In other leagues, Bayern also has been performing at a high level, as they won the UCL in 2019-2020. Dortmund has also been performing moderately well in group-stage matches, placing between 1st and 3rd place from 2016 to 2022.
Union Berlin, on the other hand, has been faring in a pretty mediocre fashion in the Europa and the Europa Conference leagues. That is not to say they haven’t been improving in the rankings, but their victories haven’t felt definitive enough.
If we look at their DFB-Pokal positions between 2014 and 2022, they haven’t changed much.
But in 2019 the club managed to climb out of Bundesliga 2 and has made its Bundesliga 1 appearances known by jumping from 11th (2019-20), 7th (2020-21), 5th (2021-22) and now to 3rd place, but is that their limit?
Despite all three teams standing at 43 points, betting sites seem to favour Bayern Munich to win the title again this year, by quite some margin. Looking at the odds from Tipico, which is known for offering some of the highest odds on Bundesliga among German bookmakers:
Bayern - 1.25
Dortmund - 5.50
Union Berlin - 18.00
We can see Bayern is a clear favourite, but Tipico expects Dortmund to put up a battle. Other bookies give better value odds for Dortmund to win and offer odds between 8.50 to 9.00.
Twitter never disappoints with controversies and people throwing terms left and right. It didn’t take much digging to find users accusing the French Ligue 1 and the Spanish LaLiga of being farmer’s leagues, but at least Paris Saint-Germain took turns every 3 or 4 years and let someone else pick up the title. The same thing happened in LaLiga, where Real Madrid and Barcelona took turns and occasionally let Atletico resurface for a gulp of fresh ‘winner’ air.
Looking at the Bundesliga streak and calling the above leagues anything related to agriculture again would be straight-up lying.
When you have Adidas, Audi and Allianz holding almost a quarter of your club as stockholders, and with major other investments, merchandise sales and sponsorships, it is hard to lose. FC Bayern has managed to put together a strong team and if they win once again, for the 10th time, that should surely confirm the chatter of the current league’s farmer state.