Eight clubs to represent Germany in Europe next season

By Andrew Lord

20 May 2022

Eight Bundesliga clubs will represent the Bundesliga in the 2022/23 season after Eintracht Frankfurt were crowned winners of the Europa League.

Since the 2018/19 season, the top four clubs in the Bundesliga have automatically qualified for the UEFA Champions League group stage. Next season, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen and RB Leipzig will be joined by Eintracht Frankfurt. It will be the first time that Germany has been represented by five clubs in the competition.

Union Berlin and SC Freiburg will play in the UEFA Europa League after finishing in fifth and sixth place respectively.

Under normal circumstances, the club finishing in fifth place in the Bundesliga and the winners of the German Cup would qualify for the UEFA Europa League group stage, with the team finishing sixth qualifying for the Europa Conference League play-offs. But as Leipzig and Freiburg will meet in tomorrow’s German Cup final, seventh-placed Cologne will enter the Europa Conference League play-offs next season.

Qualification for the Europa League has crowned the most successful Bundesliga season in the history of Union Berlin. After the club’s participation had been confirmed following the 4-1 victory over Freiburg in the penultimate game of the season, Swiss trainer Urs Fischer told Sky: “It’s amazing what the players have achieved again.”

Midfielder Grischa Prömel, who will join Hoffenheim on a free transfer this summer, said: “It’s incredible what we achieve each year as a small club. It certainly isn’t something that can be taken for granted, even though we have qualified for a European competition for the second season in a row. This just goes to show how well the club works. There is a plan everyone follows: 30 players, the trainer team, the club management.”

Cologne granted European place

Cologne will have to negotiate the play-off round in order to enter the group stage of the Europa Conference League. Last season, the club finished in sixteenth place resulting in a relegation play-off against Holstein Kiel, which they won 5-2 on aggregate. The seventh-place finish is testament to the work of trainer Steffen Baumgart, who is set to sign a contract extension with the club.

But if Cologne do make it to the group stage they will face a gruelling schedule of six Conference League games in under two months. This is an aspect Baumgart has already taken into consideration: “In that case we would only have three normal training weeks in the first half of the season. We’ve never experienced that before. The extra burden would certainly be interesting. We can’t strengthen the squad for financial reasons, butwe have enough good players we can promote from the youth team.”

Cologne still had a chance to finish in fourth place with two games of the season left, but successive defeats against Wolfsburg and Stuttgart put paid to any hopes of reaching the Champions League.

Inevitably it will be the Champions League which will garner most interest. Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and RB Leipzig have finished in the top four of the Bundesliga in each of the last four seasons.

Borussia Dortmund has invested the 75 million euro fee received from Manchester City for Erling Haaland by purchasing Karim Adeyemi from RB Salzburg along with centre backs Nico Schlotterbeck from SC Freiburg and Niklas Süle from Bayern Munich.

Bayern Munich’s victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the 2019–20 Champions League final was the first time a German club had won the competition since the Bavarians beat Borussia Dortmund 2-1 in the 2012–13 final at Wembley Stadium.

And Eintracht Frankfurt’s victory over Glasgow Rangers in the Europa League final is the first success for a German side in the competition since Schalke 04 won the UEFA Cup after beating Inter Milan in a penalty shoot-out in the 1996/97 season.