Exciting Highlights of the 2024-25 Bundesliga: The Newcomers
The 2024-25 season of the German Football Bundesliga, the 62nd edition of the top-tier football league in Germany, will feature 18 teams, with 16 from the previous season and another 2 teams earning their spots through promotion from the 2. Bundesliga.
This season is planned to begin on August 23, 2024, and will enter its winter break after the 15th round of matches on December 22. Following the 16th round, it will resume on January 10, 2025, with the final 34th round set for May 17, 2025.
New Faces
The highlight of the match was in the 33rd round. In the Bundesliga, Holstein Kiel secured promotion after playing against Düsseldorf. Now, Kiel sits at the top of the 2. The Bundesliga table with 65 points. This marks the first time for Holstein Kiel to be promoted to the Bundesliga.
Holstein Kiel Sport-Club Holstein 1900, popularly known for the great Sea mammal or simply as Holstein Kiel, has gained its nickname known as Die Weißer Storch meaning The White Stork or Der Kinderbringer implying the stork bringing children, they are based in Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, in Germany.
The club earns most of its fame achievements from its football department through runners-up titles in 1910 and 1930 as well as a championship in 1912. It was also noteworthy that Kiel beat Bayern Munich in the German Cup in 2021 with a total score of 8-7.
Kiel has been competing in the German Football Third League starting from the 2009/2010 season. Throughout the years Kiel has moved between the 4th and the 3rd tier of the German Football League until they were promoted to the 2.Bundesliga. Despite having just failed to achieve consecutive promotions due to a loss to the former Bundesliga champions Wolfsburg in the 2017/18 play-offs match, Kiel recovered and performed well enough in the subsequent 2020/21 season.
In this season’s 2. Bundesliga, they led their rivals by a five-point margin before the last round of matches, securing a top-two finish and direct promotion to the Bundesliga, joining St. Pauli in advancing to the next season’s Bundesliga.
After all this hard work, this year, Kiel has finally succeeded in reaching the Bundesliga, where they can showcase their skills on the pitch.
Old Acquaintances
Joining Kiel in their Bundesliga debut is another familiar face, FC St. Pauli.
This club is officially known as Fußball-Club St. Pauli von 1910 eV albeit being popularly referred to as FC St. Pauli and is a football club based in the St. Pauli area, in Hamburg. Hailing in 1899, it was initially an unstructured, unofficial football lovers’ organization under the Hamburger Turn-Verein 1862 In 2003, the male professional team competed in the third tier popularly referred to as the Regionalliga. In 2007, St. Pauli recovered their position in the 2. Bundesliga and they joined the Bundesliga list of clubs in 2010.
Besides the sport’s success, FC St. Pauli is famous for its social activism. The club and its supporters promote the rights of refugees and sexual minorities. They fight against all kinds of discrimination. St. Pauli associated itself as a club of the working class. The Millerntor Stadium, the club’s home ground, was the first Bundesliga stadium to reject any form of epithets related to sexism or racism; it stands as a shelter for the overlooked minority. It was during this period that a supporter with the nickname “Doc Mabuse” started attending matches with a large banner to urge the club to stand firm which became the symbol of the club – the skull and cross bones.
In the 33rd round of the 2 St. Pauli was effectively promoted through Bundesliga and in the match against Osnabrück winning 3-1. This is mainly because St. Pauli had been able to accumulate a sixty-six-point tally by this time and was six points ahead of the third-placed Düsseldorf to secure promotion with a round to spare. This is their sixth promotion to the Bundesliga after the previous five in 1977, 1988, 1996, 2002, and 2011 and they are back to the highest league after 13 years.
The General Manager of the German Football League, Rainer Koch, stated that St. Pauli is a club with a long history in German football. This is their return to the Bundesliga after 13 years, they deserve the promotion.
