RheinEnergieStadion

I used the stats feature at ESPN Soccernet to calcluate the clubs with the best attendances. Out of the top 20 attendances in Europe, Germany had 9 clubs. This post is to equip you with a tool to help promote our great league. Because, while we are in a slump in the Champions League and don’t make all the news with £80 million transfers, we have the most competitive league, the funnest league and the best attended league in the world. And we’ll get a team back to the final of the UCL.

There are so many glorious clubs in Europe, yet half of the teams in the Bundesliga (from grand to average) inhabit the best attendance list. Bayern, Dortmund, Schalke, HSV, Hertha, Koln, Stuttgart and Frankfurt beat out the likes of Liverpool, Chelsea, Valencia, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Roma, PSV, Ajax, Galatasary and Porto.

Spain, England and Italy will make claims to being the greatest league in Europe. And if you base it solely on recent Champions League performances, they have some validity. However, since 2000 Valencia, Juventus, Liverpool and Chelsea have all made the Champions League finals from these leagues. Yet none of these storied teams couldn’t outdraw Eintracht Frankfurt last year. That’s right: Eintracht Frankfurt!

And while I do recognize that stadium issues prohibit some clubs from doing better, the fact that they can’t get their act together to build a stadium just shows that Germany is the best run league out there. In the time it took Liverpool to create fancy sketches, Hoffenheim built a stadium.

Below is a table of the top 20 clubs, attendance-wise. I’ve noted the position in their league in relation to attendance (note that only England could get a third team in the list) as well as the clubs final position. Note that while other countries figures seem closely related to how well a club is doing (kudos to Newcastle United fans), Germany had 3 teams in this list that were in the bottom half of the table. So the next time somebody disparages our grand league or tries to tell you that there is only one big team in Germany, trot out these numbers.

Rank League
Rank
Club Average
Attend
Final
Position
1. 1st Manchester United 75,304 1
2. 1st Barcelona 74,433 1
3. 2nd Real Madrid 73,157 2
4. 1st Borussia Dortmund 72,997 6
5. 2nd Bayern Munich 68,647 2
6. 3rd Schalke 04 61,373 8
7. 2nd Arsenal 60,039 4
8. 1st AC Milan 58,722 2
9. 1st Celtic 57,670 2
10. 2nd Internazionale 55,268 1
11. 4th Hamburg SV 54,820 5
12. 5th Hertha Berlin 52,306 4
13. 6th VfB Stuttgart 51,829 3
14. 1st Marseille 51,062 2
15. 2nd Rangers 49,533 1
16. 7th FC Köln 49,021 12
17. 3rd Newcastle United 48,749 18
18. 8th Mönchengladbach 47,409 15
19. 9th Eintracht Frankfurt 46,852 13
20. 1st Ajax 46,374 3