2026/27 Bundesliga Season Preview ➤ All the Favorites

The Bundesliga 26/27 Season Preview covers a season that will begin later than ever before. Due to the World Cup in North America, the top flight won’t kick off until August 28, 2026.

Eighteen clubs will battle it out over 34 matchdays and 306 games for the title, European spots, and to avoid relegation. Two relegation playoffs will be added at the end. The final matchday will take place on May 22, 2027, one week before the cup final.

It is the 64th season since the league’s founding in 1963, and it kicks off with high expectations. Last season saw 990 goals scored, an average of 3.24 per game. In addition, an average of 42,311 spectators attended the matches, ensuring that the Bundesliga remains the world’s most-attended soccer league.

For the first time since 2019–20, three teams from the 2. Bundesliga are moving up. This is only the fourth time this has happened since the relegation playoffs were reintroduced in 2008–09.

• FC Schalke 04: The 2. Bundesliga champion is back. For the Veltins-Arena, this means the first Bundesliga match in more than three years—and the return of the Revierderby.
• SV Elversberg: Their debut in the top flight. With just over 7,500 residents, Elversberg is the smallest town in Bundesliga history.
• SC Paderborn 07: After years of competing for promotion in the second division, they’ve finally made it.

In exchange, VfL Wolfsburg, 1. FC Heidenheim, and FC St. Pauli were relegated. Wolfsburg’s relegation is particularly noteworthy: The club had been in the top flight continuously since 1997.

When it comes to the championship, there’s little room for speculation. FC Bayern Munich won the double last season and claimed the Cup final with a 3-0 victory over VfB Stuttgart—a matchup that will be replayed on Matchday 1. Vincent Kompany has extended his contract through 2029, and the championship-winning core remains intact.

Behind them, a group of challengers is taking shape, each with several areas needing improvement:

• Borussia Dortmund: As the runner-up, it was the only club to keep Bayern under pressure beyond the winter break. Niko Kovač is staying on, and so, likely, will the team’s reputation as the eternal challenger.
• RB Leipzig: With Martín Demichelis at the helm, Leipzig is embarking on a fresh start on the coaching bench.
• Bayer Leverkusen: The “Werkself” is also banking on a new manager. Carles Martínez Novell is tasked with leading the club back to success following a major shakeup.
• VfB Stuttgart and Eintracht Frankfurt: Both are considered more likely candidates for European spots than for the title.

Two clubs are automatically relegated, and the 16th-place team must face the third-place team from the 2. Bundesliga in a relegation playoff.
The newly promoted teams are likely to have the toughest time. Based on squad market value, Paderborn and Elversberg have the weakest teams in the league, and both still need to prove they belong in the top flight. Schalke has the better starting conditions, with a larger budget and the backing of over 60,000 fans. But promotion euphoria alone has never guaranteed survival.
Behind them lies the group of clubs that often find themselves in the bottom third. 1. FC Köln, Union Berlin, Borussia Mönchengladbach, and FC Augsburg, for example, are among them. In Union’s case, there’s the added factor that Mauro Lustrinelli is taking over as coach—a coach who still has to prove himself in Germany.
For the forecast, this means the relegation battle is likely to be closer than the title race. In the Bundesliga, there’s often only about ten points separating tenth and seventeenth place at the end of the season.

• European Cup allocation: four Champions League spots; the fifth-place team and the cup winner advance to the Europa League. Because Bayern won the double, the sixth-place team moves up; the Conference League spot goes to the seventh-place team.
• Bayern’s title tally: 34 championships since the Bundesliga’s founding; last season was clinched as early as Matchday 30 with a 4-2 win over Stuttgart.
• A European Cup Final in Germany: The Europa League final will take place on May 26, 2027, at Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt, four days after the last matchday of the Bundesliga season. TSG Hoffenheim and Bayer Leverkusen from the Bundesliga are in the competition and could thus compete for the title on home soil.
• A stadium bigger than the town itself: To meet Bundesliga licensing requirements, SV Elversberg’s arena will soon expand to 15,000 seats. That’s roughly twice the population of the Elversberg district. As the 58th club in Bundesliga history, SVE is also bringing top-flight soccer back to the Saarland for the first time since the 1992–93 season.

Date	Event
August 28–30, 2026	First Matchday 1
December 04-06, 2026	Revierderby Schalke vs. Dortmund
December 18-20, 2026	Matchday 14, followed by the winter break
January 8, 2026	Season resumes with Matchday 15
May 22, 2027	Matchday 34
May 27 through June 1	2027 Relegation playoffs, home and away legs

Sky and WOW will broadcast the Friday game at 8:30 p.m., all Saturday single games at 3:30 p.m., and the top match at 6:30 p.m. DAZN has the other two blocks: the Saturday conference at 3:30 p.m. and all Sunday games at 3:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., and 7:30 p.m.
There isn’t much available on free-to-air TV. Sat.1 will air the opening match, the Super Cup, and both relegation matches, which will also be available for free on Joyn. RTL may also broadcast individual matches on free-to-air TV: On Matchday 1, RB Leipzig vs. Borussia Mönchengladbach will be shown. Highlights will continue to be featured on ARD’s *Sportschau*, ZDF’s *Sportstudio*, and on Sunday mornings on Sport1.