It’s the Brassells 2023! The complete Bundesliga season review

I t was a thrilling season with a deflating ending, unless you are of a Bayern persuasion. In fact, the denouement was still a bit deflating if you were a Bayern fan, following the team’s tame exits from the Champions League and German Cup, and knowing that Borussia Dortmund’s last-minute slip was the real reason your team was left holding the Bundesliga trophy for an 11th straight season.

The final-day choke by Edin Terzic’s team, only managing a draw at home to nothing-to-play-for Mainz when a win would have guaranteed a first championship since 2012 (and a first non-Bayern champion since then), will forever be 2022-23’s punchline. It overshadowed the 46 points Dortmund collected in 2023 – not to mention Jamal Musiala’s stylish 89th-minute winner at Köln that finally brought the title back to Bavaria on goal difference.

Yet this was, in many ways, a vintage campaign. On the final day of the season every one of the nine fixtures had something riding on it. It’s not always been the case in recent years but, this time, the hope is that next term offers pretty much the same again. Here is a sprinkling of the teams, players and moments that made it special.

It’s been a whirlwind. From promotion via the relegation playoff in 2019 (and when does the second-tier side ever manage that?) to signing Max Kruse and successive qualifications for Europe, Union Berlin have been extraordinary. And this year – despite losing the influential Taiwo Awoniyi, Grischa Prömel and Julian Ryerson – they made the Champions League, sealing it with Rani Khedira’s late winner against Werder Bremen on the final day. The perfect storm of passion and brilliant organisation, Union’s success is at once logical and amazing. “Many of us have been