Bundesliga season kicks-off today

The 2011/12 season of the German Bundesliga kicks-off tonight with defending champions Borussia Dortmund taking on Hamburger SV at the Signal Iduna Park. It is now tradition that the Bundesliga season opens on a Friday evening with a 20.30 h kick-off in a match involving the champions.

The new Bundesliga season could be another interesting one with 16 of the 18 club coaching voting that record champions FC Bayern Munich will be champions at the end of the season. If anyone can challenge the Bavarians then it will be the young Dortmund side, who lost Nuri Sahin to Real Madrid but have added quality players over the summer.

FC Bayern Munich has been the most pro-active side in the transfer market by signing goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, defenders Rafinha and Jerome Boateng, winger Takashi Usami on loan and young striker Nils Pedersen. Bayern Munich hope under new coach Jupp Heynckes they can again find their magic touch to dominate the Bundesliga though the UEFA Champions League final will be at the back of their heads as it will be played in Munich in 2012.

On the other side of the table newcomers FC Augsburg are the top candidate to get relegated back into the 2.Bundesliga, but the last couple of seasons have shown that big names like Hertha BSC Berlin or Eintracht Frankfurt can get relegated if they don't consider it to be an option. It will be interesting to see if clubs have learned their lessons.

An issue which is back to haunt many clubs in the Bundesliga are injuries. Before the start of the Bundesliga season over 50 players are already injured and many say the physical pressure on players has crossed acceptable levels with the blame often being put on international tournaments and fixtures. E.g. this summer Paraguay's Lucas Barrios (Borussia Dortmund) who is set to miss six weeks of action or last year Dutch winger Arjen Robben (Bayern Munich) missing close to six months.

Also a new record will be created tonight with 199 countries around the world showing the opening match of the Bundesliga season live.