The 2008–09 Bundesliga was the 46th season of the Bundesliga, Germany's premier

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

league. The season began on 15 August 2008 with a 2–2 draw between defending champions

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), also known as FC Bayern (), Bayern Munich, or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. It is best known for its professional men's football team, which pla ...

and Hamburger SV and ended with the last matches on 23 May 2009. VfL Wolfsburg secured their first

national title A national championship(s) is the top achievement for any sport or contest within a league of a particular nation or nation state. The title is usually awarded by contests, ranking systems, stature, ability, etc. This determines the best team, indi ...

in the last match after a 5–1 win at home against Werder Bremen.

Changes from 2007–08

Structural changes

Starting with the 2008–09 season, two-legged relegation playoffs between the third last team of the Bundesliga and the third team of the

2. Bundesliga The 2. Bundesliga ( ) is the second division of professional football in Germany. It was implemented 11 years after the founding of the Fußball-Bundesliga as the new second division for professional football. The 2. Bundesliga is ranked below ...

at the end of the regular season were re-introduced. Due to the restructuring of European competitions, the third-placed team qualified for the

2009–10 UEFA Champions League The 2009–10 UEFA Champions League was the 55th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 18th under the current UEFA Champions League format. The final was played on 22 May 2010, at the Santiago Bernabéu St ...

, entering in a separate qualifying round for non-champions. The fourth-placed team and the winner of the

2008–09 DFB-Pokal The 2008–09 DFB-Pokal was the 66th season of the annual German football cup competition. The competition began with the first round on 7 August 2008, and ended with Werder Bremen defeating Bayer Leverkusen, who for their part eliminated defendi ...

qualified for the

2009–10 UEFA Europa League The 2009–10 UEFA Europa League was the first season of the UEFA Europa League, Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA. The competition was previously known as the UEFA Cup, which had been in existence for 38 years. Spain ...

play-off round; the fifth-placed team qualified for the third qualifying round. The sixth-placed team did not qualify for any European competitions because the

UEFA Intertoto Cup The UEFA Intertoto Cup (from la, Inter, 'between' + german: toto, 'betting pool'),Most precisely, from (football pool); cf. often abbreviated and more known in the German-speaking world as UI Cup and originally called the International Foot ...

will not be continued after its final edition in 2008.

Promotion and relegation

1. FC Nürnberg 1. Fußball-Club Nürnberg Verein für Leibesübungen e. V., often called 1. FC Nürnberg (, en, 1. Football Club Nuremberg) or simply Nürnberg, is a German association football club in Nuremberg, Bavaria, who currently compete in the 2. Bund ...

, Hansa Rostock and MSV Duisburg finished the 2007–08 season in 16th through 18th place, respectively, and therefore were relegated to the

. They were replaced by the top three teams of

2007–08 2. Bundesliga The 2007–08 2. Bundesliga was the 34th season of the 2. Bundesliga, the second tier of Germany football league. It began on 10 August 2007 and ended on 18 May 2008. Borussia Mönchengladbach, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim and 1. FC Köln were promot ...

Borussia Mönchengladbach Borussia Verein für Leibesübungen 1900 e. V. Mönchengladbach, commonly known as Borussia Mönchengladbach (), Mönchengladbach () or Gladbach (; abbreviated as Borussia MG, BMG), is a professional Association football, football club based in ...

1899 Hoffenheim Turn- und Sportgemeinschaft 1899 Hoffenheim e.V., or simply TSG 1899 Hoffenheim or just Hoffenheim () is a German professional football club based in Hoffenheim, a village of Sinsheim municipality, Baden-Württemberg. Originally founded in 1899 ...

and

1. FC Köln 1. Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V., commonly known as simply FC Köln () or FC Cologne in English, is a German professional football club based in Cologne in North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed in 1948 as a merger of the clubs ''Kölner Ballspi ...

, respectively.

Teams

Stadia and locations

;Notes #

played their 2008 home matches at Carl-Benz-Stadion in Mannheim because their Rhein-Neckar-Arena had not yet been completed. # Bayer Leverkusen played their 2009 home matches at

LTU-Arena Merkur Spielarena (stylized as MERKUR SPIEL-ARENA), previously known as the Esprit Arena (until 2 August 2018), the LTU Arena (until June 2009), and as the Düsseldorf Arena (during the 2011 Eurovision Song Contest), is a multi-functional footbal ...

in Düsseldorf because their BayArena was being upgraded to a capacity of 30,000.

Personnel and sponsoring

;Notes #

Jupp Heynckes Josef "Jupp" Heynckes (; born 9 May 1945) is a German retired professional footballer and manager. The majority of his player career was as a striker for Borussia Mönchengladbach in its golden era of the 1960s and '70s, when they won many nati ...

acted as caretaker for the remainder of the season. # Mike Büskens, Youri Mulder and Oliver Reck acted as caretakers for the remainder of the season. *Ein Herz Für Kinder took the place of Volkswagen's sponsorship during the 2008–09 season to celebrate the 20th year of the Charity.

Managerial changes

League table

Results

Relegation play-offs

Energie Cottbus, as the 16th-placed team, faced third-placed

team

for a two-legged playoff. Nürnberg won both matches on an aggregated score of 5–0 and thus secured promotion to the

2009–10 Bundesliga The 2009–10 Bundesliga was the 47th season of the Bundesliga, Germany's premier football league. The season commenced on 7 August 2009 with the traditional season-opening match involving the defending champions VfL Wolfsburg and VfB Stuttgart. ...

, while Cottbus were relegated to the

2009–10 2. Bundesliga The 2009–10 2. Bundesliga was the 36th season of the 2. Bundesliga, the second tier of Germany's football league. The season began on 7 August 2009 and ended on 9 May 2010. A winter break was held between 21 December 2009 and 14 January 2010, ...

. After Energie were relegated, no teams from the former East Germany played in the Bundesliga until RB Leipzig earned promotion to the Bundesliga for 2016–17. ----

Statistics

Top goalscorers

''Source
kicker.de
''

Awards

Player of the Month

Champion squad

References

External links

Official site

Bundesliga on DFB page
{{DEFAULTSORT:2008-09 Bundesliga Bundesliga seasons 1 Germany