Harry Kane and FC Bayern dominate Germany, but the world is hardly paying attention. While he is chasing records, Leipzig, Leverkusen and Dortmund are struggling with new beginnings and internal disruptions. A league between glamor and missed recognition.
For Gary Lineker the case is clear. “I can’t imagine that we underestimate Harry Kane, that we don’t appreciate his performance enough. Anyone who did would be crazy,” said the English striker legend. Kane is not only “one of the best we have” – but also one of the “best we’ve ever had”. This is what Lineker meant in relation to English football. But it almost applies even more to the Bundesliga.
However, this well-founded praise did not change the fact that Kane clearly missed out on a place on the podium in the FIFA election for Footballer of the Year 2025 on Tuesday. FC Bayern’s top scorer had 14 scoring points, which were calculated from the votes of the coaches, team captains, some journalists and fans. That was enough for eighth place. When voting for the Ballon d’Or, the much more important honor, Kane didn’t even make it into the top ten. He only ended up in 13th place.
It says a lot about the international appreciation of the Bundesliga when its best player by far is also named in individual international awards. But there is no category that takes into account the outstanding importance that Kane has for German club football: The now 32-year-old is by far the best-known footballer who regularly plays in German stadiums. As a figurehead for the marketing of the Bundesliga, he is of vital importance. The 100 million euro transfer fee that Bayern paid for him in the summer of 2023 was invested wisely – and not just in the interests of the German record champions.
Kane chasing the Lewandowski record
The year 2025 was the year of Harry Kane. In the summer he fulfilled a big personal dream. With Bayern he finally won his first national championship. With 26 goals, he became top scorer for the second time in a row in his second Bundesliga season. And even after that, Kane just kept going: He already has 18 goals to his name in the current season. Will he achieve the 41 goals set by Robert Lewandowski in the 2020/21 season? “I think it’s possible,” said Kane – but also warned: “The hardest thing in football is to be consistent over a long period of time.”
Kane, who scored 30 goals in 32 matches in the calendar year that ended, also provides the decisive clue as to why the Bundesliga is presenting a familiar picture at the beginning of the winter break: Bayern are untouchable because they not only have the best, but also the most stable setup. The pseudo-chasers – Leipzig, Dortmund, Leverkusen – also went through phases of instability this season, albeit at different times and for completely different reasons.
RB Leipzig has managed to reinvent itself. 18 players left – including high-quality professionals like Xavi Simons and Benjamin Sesko. Nine newcomers came – including a number of exciting top talents such as Conrad Harder and Yan Diomande. This rebuilding took time – as did the new coach Ole Werner. Although the opening 6-0 defeat at FC Bayern seemed almost like a warning sign, the team got better and better on track as the game went on. Above all: RB plays like RB again – quickly and spectacularly. “We wanted to go back to the roots, sign young players who fully identify with themselves. Now we have a squad that ushers in a new era,” says managing director Marcel Schäfer. It could happen like that.
Leverkusen with many exciting faces
Bayer Leverkusen is also working its way into a new era. What was crucial for this was that Fernando Carro and Simon Rolfes quickly recognized and corrected their own misjudgment: the separation from Erik ten Hag after just two match days paved the way for a new team with many exciting faces: young players with potential such as Ernest Poku, Christian Kofane and Ibrahim Maza are blossoming under the pleasantly emphatic Kasper Hjulmand. The post-Xabi Alonso era started promisingly, despite the birth pangs.
BVB, it seems, is in danger of taking the opposite path. And that is astonishing. After Niko Kovač came to Dortmund in February, the chronically moody diva from the Ruhr area has stabilized considerably. The experienced coach led the team into the Champions League in May despite a big deficit. Kovač has made BVB fit and robust. The team didn’t always play spectacularly, but it played successfully. She scored points with what had been repeatedly denied her in recent years: mentality.
Shortly before Christmas, however, the black and yellow harmony is crumbling. For some people football is too destructive (Julian Brandt), for others their teammates are not professional enough (Nico Schlotterbeck). Incidentally, both players are professionals whose futures are open. Sports director Lars Ricken and sports director Sebastian Kehl put this criticism into perspective, which caused anger among both teammates and Kovač. An external consultant speaks for this plainly.
Criticism and Topmöller? A madness
Matthias Sammer, who had already publicly destroyed the team in February while working as a TV expert and virtually anticipated Nuri Sahin’s expulsion, explained that Schlotterbeck was right. And that it is a problem when there are people in the club management who do not recognize this. “In the perception of what he (Schlotterbeck, editor) does, there are people who have wonderful character traits, but no leadership qualities. They are of course frightening at first,” he told Sky. Sammer left it open which people without leadership qualities he meant.
What will happen next year for BVB is exciting – as is the question of whether Eintracht Frankfurt will be able to meet the recently increased demands. In Hesse there had recently been increasing doubts as to whether Dino Toppmöller was still the right man. That’s actually crazy, as the coach had led Eintracht into the Champions League for the first time in the club’s history through a league placement.
But what did Harry Kane say? “The hardest thing in football is to be consistent over a long period of time.”
