DFL Season Opener: Bundesliga Champion FC Bayern München Hosts FC Schalke 04
Regardless of the Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, great soccer traditions continue as the new Bundesliga season opens with FC Bayern Munich kicking off the season.
The Bundesliga Champion will kick off the new Bundesliga season – as has been the case every year since 2002.
Despite reaching the UEFA Champions League final, the team of reigning champions FC Bayern München has stated its wish to contest the season opener in keeping with the tradition and to do so without any additional preparation time prior to the first matchday.
The opening fixture of the 58th Bundesliga season will therefore see the team from Munich host FC Schalke 04 on Friday, 18 September.
Dieser Titel ist für euch! 🥇 ♥️#MiaSanMia #MiaSanChampions pic.twitter.com/FtECCjYy7x
— CHAMPIONS OF EUROPE 🏆 (@FCBayern) August 23, 2020
For a while, there were thoughts of affording FC Bayern the longest possible preparation time after the final this Sunday in Lisbon in view of the five competitive matches the team will already have played before the start of the season and of beginning with the match between Borussia Dortmund and Borussia Mönchengladbach instead.
This encounter will now be the top game on Saturday, 19 September.
The exact schedule for the first eight matchdays in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 that the DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga has published this week and also reveals that there will not be any Friday games on the fourth and eighth matchdays in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2.
This is because the FIFA release periods in October and November have been extended by one day. Instead – with a view to the recovery of international players – a Bundesliga match will take place on Saturday evening on each of these matchdays.
In Bundesliga 2, Matchday 4 will see five matches take place on Sunday instead of three. On Matchday 8, taking legislation concerning public holidays into account due to ‘Totensonntag’ (22 November 2020), in Bundesliga 2 there will be four matches on Saturday instead of three, and four matches on Sunday instead of three.
According to present knowledge, the schedule will only need to be modified due to release periods on the specified matchdays during the forthcoming season.
The kick-off time for Supercup 2020 has also been set. The match between the Bundesliga Champion FC Bayern München and the runner-up Borussia Dortmund will take place at 8:30 p.m. CEST on 30 September at the Allianz Arena in Munich.
The next exact fixtures for the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 are expected in calendar week 41 between 5 and 9 October.
