Bundesliga Preview

The 2012-13 Bundesliga season will be the 50th one and is likely to be a tight two-way battle between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich, but who will come out on top?

The Favourites are Bayern Munich at 17/20 (Sporting Bet) as they seek their 23rd Bundesliga title. The Champions League finalists have strengthened since that loss to Chelsea signing Xherdan Shaqiri, Dante, Tom Starke, Mitchell Weiser, Claudio Pizarro and Mario Mandzukic. Sporting Director Christian Nerlinger has also been replaced by Matthias Sammer. The new signings should see Bayern stronger and they struck first blood beating Dortmund 2-1 in the DFL Super Cup. Perhaps the most important thing for Bayern though will be the fitness of Bastian Schweinsteiger who missed a large part of last season with an ankle injury, if the influential midfielder can feature more this season then Munich may have the edge in the title race.

Dortmund have won the last two league titles and have done so in style under coach Jurgen Klopp. Into the side has come German forward Marco Reus who grabbed 21 goals and 10 assists for Monchengladbach last season. Reus should be able to compensate for the loss of Shinji Kagawa who left for Man United. Gotze and Blaszczykowski will be charged with creating chances for Gotze and Lewandoswki. At 2/1 (You Win) they look the value bet here. Dortmund have still maintained their outstanding defensive unit from last season with Mats Hummels, Nevan Subotic, Marcel Schmelzer and Lukas Piszczek all still at the club.

For the other sides it looks a battle for third and bookmakers BetVictor and You Win have responded by pricing a market without the top two. Schalke are the 6/4 (both) favourites. Raul is gone from the club but Klaas Jan Huntelaar still remains. Bayer Leverkusen are the 7/2 (BetVictor) second favourites in this market and they should challenge, while Borussia Monchengladbach might struggle to match their fourth last season after losing a number of key players, most notably Marco Reus. The preference is for Stuttgart at 13/2 (You Win) as they had the third best record over the second half of the season. Bosnian Vedad Ibsievic netted scored eight in 15 games last season after his January move and looks great value at 25/1 (Skybet/ladbrokes) in the top scorer market. Back to Stuttgart they have so far kept most of their best players and looked to have bought wisely. They look great value in the market without Dortmund and Munich.

We touched on the top scorer market before with our recommendation for Ibsievic at 25/1. The market is currently headed by Klaas Jan Huntelaar who grabbed 29 last season and he is 3/1 (general) while Mario Gomez is 6/1 (william hill). Those who like a player at a bigger price can try Olivier Occean at 100/1 (ladbrokes). The Canadian scored 17 goals in 2 Bundesliga last season and has made the move to Eintracht Frankfurt.

The final market to look at is to finish in the bottom two with Augsburg 6/4 (BWin) favourites, the club have lost their coach and their best player in the summer and look set to struggle. Newboys Eintracht Frankfurt, Greuther Furth and Fortuna Dusseldorf are likely to struggle. One at a very big price is Hamburg at 22/1 (You Win) they lost to lowly Karlsrusher in the Cup, they finished just five points off the drop last season and have not strengthened their squad very well this summer.

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23/08/2012     © Frixo 2024