I still think it’s stupid that 2nd teams play in the 3rd league. I think it’s certainly a huge experience for the players from BVB II and Freiburg II to play against the traditional teams that are there.
But it cannot be the case that the average attendance of a Rot-Weiss Essen game, for example, is reduced because they are playing against Freiburg II.
That just makes the league a little less attractive overall.
I still think very highly of the idea of a second team system based on the youth leagues and dividing the second teams into regional leagues accordingly.
But I don’t think we’ll see a revolution like that in the next few years.
Dresden recently played against Freiburg II. The game was sold out, over 30,000 spectators. There are regular 1st league games that have fewer spectators.
In the North Region or Bavaria, the second teams even bring along more away fans than many of the other teams…
Given the desolate state of the N11 and the lack of permeability, it would be almost a death sentence for German football if the U23 teams were put into their own league where the level is rather lower than in the regional league. Dividing these up further into regions makes even less sense. In the end, HSV’s U21s, for example, regularly play against second teams from fourth and fifth division teams, so the level is then below the top league and there is no possibility of access to the professionals.
Before anyone comes along with “the best players make the jump straight from the U19 anyway”. Please take a look at any second division team at random and look at the players’ CVs and you’ll find everything here. Yes, even in the N11 there are still many with at least one season of U23 experience.
There is a reason why more and more other nations are moving away from this pure U21/U23 league system and incorporating the U23 teams into the men’s division.