Former pro athletes bring an unmatched perspective to sports news. With a combination of expertise and a trademark sense of humor, former World Cup champion Thomas Berthold has joined DW’s KickOff! and will host a weekly column, Berthold’s Bundesliga. As a new German Bundesliga season kicks off, Berthold will also break down the latest from the world of soccer every Monday on DW News.

Whether it is issues off the field like the Premier League buying up German players or Bundesliga team prospects for this season, DW’s new soccer expert brings a veteran’s perspective to the debate. Berthold played on the German national team when they won the World Cup in 1990. During his career he played central back for Eintracht Frankfurt, Hellas Verona, AS Rom, Bayern München and VfB Stuttgart. Berthold has played in a total of 332 Bundesliga games.

Berthold’s column is published online Mondays and is broadcast Thursdays on KickOff! Countdown.

 

Guest commentary

Michael Trobridge, Editor at Kick off!

For football purists, German football has become the benchmark. Its top-flight clubs and the national team have crafted an attacking game that is at times breathtakingly attractive. There’s a real hope here this will finally be the summer that Germany takes home the World Cup after a 24-year drought. After the disappointment of 2010 in South Africa, the Germans are sure to be fierce competitors in Brazil.  And that can only be good news for the Bundesliga.

Fired on by Jürgen Klopp’s Dortmund and Bayern Munich under Jupp Heynckes and now Pep Guardiola, the league has been steadily building up a head of steam. Last season saw both sides contest the Champions League final. Bundesliga attendance is setting new records and clubs are in rosy health thanks to strict financial rules. Not only is the Bundesliga currently Europe’s top grossing league in both fans and profits, it has also become the testing ground for international stars drawn by the mixture of traditional football values and high performance. Increasingly, people are talking about Bayern and Dortmund instead of Barcelona and Manchester United. Success at Brazil 2014 would boost the Bundesliga’s reputation even further.

Of course, we always knew here at Kick off! that we were covering the most interesting football league in the world! But it’s taken the Bundesliga’s recent sporting and financial renaissance to really catch the eyes of the soccer world.

We want to serve that international interest with our new Kick off! Youtube channel, produced in English and starting now as the Bundesliga restarts after its winter break. We’re sharing our best interviews and exclusive insider peeks as well as some real pearls from almost a decade of DW’s Bundesliga TV show. Want to know what it’s like to hang out behind the scenes with Bayern at their training camp in Qatar or explore Rio as people there gear up the World Cup? Or play football on motorbikes? It’s all on the Kick off! YouTube channel!

The Bundesliga’s come a long way since it was founded 50 years ago with 16 teams and poorly paid players. In fact, you can see exactly how far with our award-winning series 50 years of the Bundesliga. It’s jam-packed with fabulous archive footage and is guaranteed to bring you right up to date with the world-class league the Bundesliga is today. Which, I believe, is where we came in.

 

 

 

DW’s Kick off! scored big at the world’s largest sports film festival in Milan. The DW documentary, “50 years of Bundesliga”, won an “Infront award” and a “mention d’honneur” at Sport Movies and TV – The 31st annual FICTS fest. The contest in Milan is the final round featuring the best films out of the year-long FICTS world challenge ­­– a 15 round circuit of film competitions held in different member countries all over the world. There were nearly 1,000 entries for the 2013 FICTS world challenge. The Fédération Internationale Cinéma Télévision Sportifs (International federation of sports cinema and television) is based in Milan and has 113 member countries from every part of the world. The contest is recognized by the International Olympic Committee.

The five-part documentary series follows the German national soccer league through five decades of hard fought contests, rivalries, defeats and triumphs which turned it into the beloved institution it is today. That two German teams squared off in the final of the 2013 Champions league is a testament to the current superior status of the German national league on the world stage. The documentary has already been acquired by broadcasters in 30 countries and is a must-see for every fan of German soccer.

 

 

This summer, the Bundesliga will be turning 50 years old and Kick off! will be reporting on the history of the German top-flight every week. The first decade – the 1960s – was covered this past week and gave us some interesting talking points: Was Günther Netzer really the John Lennon of football? And should we consider Uwe Seeler the first big icon in Bundesliga history?

Each week in July, Kick off! will be covering a different decade on a journey through the history of professional soccer in Germany. New episodes are broadcast worldwide and online on Tuesdays.

Video content from Kick Off! is now being highlighted on Bundesliga.com – the website of Germany’s professional soccer league. Kick Off! offers a weekly look at the German top-flight – including highlights from the week’s action, interviews with players and coaches and an inside look at the league and its fans. It’s aired onn DW in German, English, Spanish and Arabic – and addressed to soccer fans around the globe.