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Just like all of us, German football has cozied up in its comfort zone right on time for the holidays. While we’re lying on our sofas with cocoa and cookies, digesting yesterday’s Christmas treats and already looking forward to the next roast, the DFB and Bundesliga have also decided not to mess with what’s tried and true.

Leverkusen and Leipzig have made themselves comfortable in their usual Champions League spots and enjoy the best view of a non-existent title race. BVB is somehow up there again, but it wouldn’t be the winter break if the stars weren’t making headlines more often than starting lineups, and if there weren’t at least some complaints about the coach.

Stuttgart, Frankfurt, and Hoffenheim are eyeing Europe, and Mainz once again needs a Christmas miracle to stay up and then play in European competition a year later. Wolfsburg and Augsburg also dreamed of the latter, but the experiments with “Gouda-Guardiola” Paul Simonis and Sandro Wagner failed spectacularly.

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The former DFB assistant had to quickly realize that there are not only qualitative differences between FCA and FCB, but quite often with the rest of the league as well. New coach Manuel Baum left the expensive video wall Wagner had installed switched off, dismissed game philosophies as modern nonsense, and reintroduced revolutionary things like the tactics board to tackle the new old goal of being a “gray mouse.”

Bayern in Festive Spirits

Meanwhile, FC Bayern is making its rounds at the top, hitting the bullseye, having practically bagged the championship in passing, and when Uli Hoeneß isn’t publicly telling Max Eberl how to do his job, the mood is excellent. At mid-season, they had to let PSG and Chelsea go ahead when the Champions League and Club World Cup were decided, but after their league phase win against the French, they’ve got their sights firmly set on the big trophy again.

So Florian Wirtz might not be able to find the net for Liverpool, but in Munich, they’re happy to have invested only about half as much in Luis Díaz and to have found the next big German talent in Lennart Karl. Although, according to Mario Basler, he’s actually a head too short for Bayern, Karl proves every week that height alone isn’t a criterion for a footballer’s quality. Just imagine how much fun this attack will be when Jamal Musiala is fully fit again!

We can ask the same question for the upcoming World Cup this summer. After the opening defeat in qualifying against Slovakia, people were already saying the DFB wasn’t producing enough talent and the current team was rubbish. That, too, is a fine tradition in German football. Just like the fact that only a few months after the supposed apocalypse, World Cup qualification is secured and a new generation of super talents is shooting across the Bundesliga like shooting stars.

📸 ALEXANDRA BEIER - AFP or licensors

The German attacking line at the 2026 World Cup could consist of Nick Woltemade, Wirtz, Musiala, and Karl, with Saïd El Mala as a super-sub on the bench and Assan Ouédraogo pulling the strings in midfield. That doesn’t necessarily mean Nagelsmann and his team will be lifting the World Cup trophy, but at least it should be certain for the coming decade that the national team will prevail in World Cup qualifying against teams like Slovakia, Northern Ireland, and Luxembourg.

How about just looking forward to the World Cup?

Maybe we should step out of our comfort zone a bit and just look forward to seeing this team, which certainly has the potential to excite at the World Cup. And then let’s just see how far they go, instead of painting the devil on the wall beforehand. There’s always time to get upset and question everything if there’s an early exit. That, too, has recently become tradition at German World Cups.

Of course, we’ll be here for you during the holidays and after the winter break with all the important news and stories about football. We wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and look forward to an exciting World Cup year 2026 with you.

Your OneFootball editorial team

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.

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