It was the platform on which U17 world champions like Paris Brunner, Finn Jeltsch, Fayssal Harchaoui and Max Moerstedt matured: the Junior Bundesliga. But the German Football Association (DFB) will soon consciously abolish this stage.
The world champions who are on everyone’s lips have also matured into outstanding players in this league at Borussia Dortmund (Brunner), 1. FC Nürnberg (Jeltsch), 1. FC Köln (Harchaoui) and TSG Hoffenheim (Moerstedt). But the current Bundesliga system for U19 and U17 – divided into three regional seasons North/Northeast, West and South/Southwest – will soon be history when these A and B junior Bundesligas are replaced by a DFB youth league with significantly more teams .
“We want to develop more individual quality,” explained the new DFB junior director Hannes Wolf in a digital media round. The recent success of the German U17 national team does not change the fundamental need for reform, said the 42-year-old former Bundesliga coach at VfB Stuttgart and Hamburger SV and who worked for a long time in the Borussia Dortmund youth team: “We have partly lost sight of what made German football special in the youth sector. We have to lean the ladder against the right wall and climb up there.”
The relegation battle has hindered training
The association had discovered that many clubs in the 14-team junior leagues were only looking to avoid failure in order to avoid relegation. As a result, the development of the individual players took a back seat – individual skills in particular were slowed down rather than promoted. Wolf: “If half the league is in a relegation battle, it will take a toll on training.” The young boss put it strikingly: “I don’t see how someone, because he was 15 when he was 15 and kicked the ball away to avoid being relegated, will help in the end. It’s about holistic positions.”
Perhaps the most important innovation with the introduction of the multi-part DFB youth league from the 2024/2025 season is that in the future all 56 performance centers from German professional football will have a starting place. Just one example: In the south/southwest area alone there are 22 clubs with a performance center, but the associated A-Junior Bundesliga only offers 14 places.
Hannes Wolf contradicts Christian Wück on one point
Wolf is convinced that even more talent can now be taken on board: “We need all types of players, we can’t lose anyone. That’s the type Sven Bender, who organizes everything – but also the little winger who dribbles and is creative.” Just as with the reform of children’s football with new forms of play – smaller fields, smaller teams – the committed DFB expert also hopes to improve the promotion of more creativity, joy of playing and high performance.
U17 world champion coach Christian Wück identified the transition area as a problem area because the clubs did not trust the talents enough. However, Wolf contradicted this point on Monday (December 11, 2023): He now sees himself as a U20 national coach “a lot of coaches who are willing to use young players”. The junior Bundesliga reform was already decided by the DFB board last summer.
The label “Bundesliga” was deceptive
In the next season, all clubs with a performance center, all clubs without a performance center that manage to stay in the A and B junior Bundesliga as well as the promoted teams from the second highest divisions will be represented in the DFB youth league, which are primarily under regionally divided into up to nine groups with eight teams each.
The label “Bundesliga” is deliberately omitted. Parents and advisors in particular would have turned up their noses after up to four years in this area if a talent was then used to mature in a professional club in the second team at regional league level. “The name suggested something wrong“, explained Daniel Feld, Head of Young Talents & Performance Centers of the German Football League.
The reform should come much sooner
The DFL, together with the DFB, would have liked to have implemented this reform much earlier as part of the “Project Future”, but initially many youth training centers were not yet convinced. That has now changed, as Andreas Steiert, head of youth development at SC Freiburg, confirmed: “I see advantages on and off the pitch. That helps us in training.”
For both the U19 and U17, the season will then be divided into two phases from 2025. The preliminary round is played in regional groups with a maximum of eight teams, which play home and away games. The DFB youth league then branches out into leagues A and B. In league A, 24 teams continue to play in four groups of six. The four best teams will advance to the round of 16, when the German champions will be played in the knockout system for the A and B juniors. These playoffs in particular are intended to teach the top talents the competitive nature.
Dilution may result
In the B League, the best teams from the second highest divisions advance, up to a maximum of eleven teams. Groups of eight teams each continue to play in the B league. When asked by Sportschau, those responsible admitted that the new system could lead to a certain dilution, especially at the beginning. The competition is currently very evenly balanced, especially in the U19 national leagues.
In the west, Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke 04 are at the top, with their pursuers lying in wait. Things are even tighter in the South/Southwest relay, where TSG Hoffenheim, Eintracht Frankfurt, FC Ingolstadt, Karlsruher SC and Mainz 05 moved ahead of FC Bayern’s youngsters after 14 match days. The championship fight should be exciting until the last day of the match.
Seven substitutions allowed
In the future, the new youth league might not be as balanced, especially in the preliminary round. But on the one hand, the under-demanding is intentional because the DFB and DFL representatives argued that excessive demands could also become apparent later. Furthermore, the designed system is not set in stone, but can be further customized.
Changes could be initiated at any time. One thing has already been implemented: In order to give the players more playing time, up to seven substitutions will be possible in the youth leagues from the coming season. Every player in the 18-man squad should have a chance to play. It must be prevented that “Someone sits on the bus for three hours and goes back without using anything”said Wolf.