Right now German has an 18-team top division, the "1. Bundesliga" and an 18-team second division, the "2. Bundesliga", with a 3-team promotion-relegation system.

The step below the 2. Liga is the 37-team "Regionalliga", which is a bit of an odd duck. It's divided into a 19-team "Regionalliga Nord" (North) subleague and an 18-team "Regionalliga Sud" (South) subleague, and some teams are Bundesliga B- / reserve sides, which cannot advance past the Regionalligas despite their records. Promotion / relegation is a bit tricky as well; the top two from North and South each go to the 2. Liga, and the four demoted 2. Liga teams get shuffled about between North and South depending on geography. Oh, one more difference: Like with England's Conference, the Regionalliga teams are considered amateur teams.

That changes next season, when the DFB creates the 3. Bundesliga. After the top two non-reserve teams in North and South Regionalliga in 07-08 go up, the new 3. Liga will feature the 3rd- to 10th-teams from both North and South will join the four demoted 2. Liga teams. This will create a 20-team third tier.

The Regionalligas will them be split into three separate divisions, I'm guessing based on geography, to form an amateur fourth division. Not sure how promotion between the 3. Liga and the new Regionalligas will work.

Interesting.

-- Mike

all for it but if the north division moves into poland and the south division marches into france...

Excellent info Liggie...have some rep....oh there is none

Do you have a link for the changes Liggie? Excellent news, hopefully will simplify things a bit under 2. Bundesliga.

And wren, I had to laugh out loud at your commentary. Just don't start singing that daft thing about 10 German bombers.


:D

Not to worry, Patton has been cryogenically preserved. We can thaw him.

One world cup and two world wars....do-dah do-dah

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I first heard about this from the Bundesliga preview issue of Kicker Magazine, which I picked up at the local newstand (they import that issue each year). From my "Learn In Your Car German" CD training, I figured out that they were creating some sort of new 3. Liga from the current Regionalligen, but I couldn't quite make out the exact details. I had to rely on Wikipedia to get that.

Makes sense. I always thought that the third division was way too high to have region-based amatuer leagues, especially in a soccer-deep country like Germany. And I'm sure the players appreciate adding more professional teams.

If you'd like some links about German sports, there's Kicker's site, which has a great interactive table section for all the leagues. You don't have to know German to have fun playing around with that. You can also take a gander at Sport Bild and Sport1.

-- Mike

I also run a blog at http://bundesliga-talk.blogspot.com