Bayer and Bayern are in an exciting neck-and-neck race for the German championship – and both teams impressed in the first half of the season. Interesting facts about the title race …
For years, FC Bayern were always the only team to take the points after the first half of the season. That has now changed, as the Werkself impressed with 45 points and a goal difference of 47:12, putting them in fourth place in the all-time league table – level on points with Munich in the 2014/15 season, who had a slightly better goal difference (41:4) than the current Bayer team. In terms of points, only Bayern under Pep Guardiola were better than Xabi Alonso’s team: FCB scored 47 points in 2013/14 and 46 in 2015/16.
Is Bayer on course for the title? If you look at history, it would appear so, as the highest points haul after 17 matchdays with which a team (Borussia Dortmund in the 2018/19 season) did not become champions was 42 points.
Leverkusen probably know better than anyone that a strong first half of the season does not necessarily mean the title. Bayer were the autumn champions in 2001/02 and 2009/10 – and still had to let others go first in the end, BVB in 2001/02 and Bayern eight years later
Unbeaten through the first half of the season
Bayer became the seventh club to go through the first half of the season without defeat, but even that is no guarantee of the championship trophy, as Hoffenheim proved in 2016/17 and Leverkusen in 2009/10 – both finished fourth in the final standings. HSV (1982/83) and Bayern Munich (1988/89, 2013/14 and 2014/15) showed how to do better.
Remarkably, Munich have not even finished the first half of the season yet, as they still have a catch-up game against Union Berlin to play – and yet they are already the best runners-up in the table after a first half of the season. Previously, it was RB Leipzig, who had 39 points in 2016/17
Of records and goals
The record champions could yet set a new record – for the most goals scored in the first half of the season. Munich set the current record of 56 goals in 2021/22; Tuchel’s team currently have 52.
Bayern’s Harry Kane, meanwhile, has already set a goalscoring record. Even before the catch-up match against Union den, the Englishman had netted 22 times, equaling Robert Lewandowski’s previous first-half record from the 2020/21 season.
Goals were the key word for these two top teams anyway: Bayern and Bayer are the only teams to have scored every matchday, with FCB having scored twice in the first eleven matchdays and Leverkusen even in the first twelve – something that has never happened before in the history of the Bundesliga.
