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Every squad priced by our player-value model, the summer window added up move by move, market expectations translated into plain probabilities — and five dated calls we will publicly grade in May. The 2026-27 Bundesliga, explained.
By the Oddsivio team·17 min read
The champions are Bayern Munich, and last season they were absurd: 89 points, one defeat, and 122 goals — a new Bundesliga record, breaking their own mark from 1971-72 (Wikipedia, 2025-26 Bundesliga). Harry Kane took a third consecutive top-scorer crown with 36 (fcbayern.com), and the Pokal made it a double (Wikipedia). The real drama was at the other end: VfL Wolfsburg — 29 straight seasons in the top flight — went down for the first time in their history, beaten in the relegation play-off by a 100th-minute Paderborn winner (bundesliga.com, Flashscore). Then came a World Cup Germany would rather forget — out in the round of 32, on penalties, to Paraguay (FIFA, ESPN) — and a league that handled the aftermath its own way: no postponements, no club-by-club exceptions, just a whole calendar pushed back one week, planned that way since November (bundesliga.com). The season starts on 28 August — Bayern against Stuttgart, a rematch of the cup final (bulinews) — and runs to 22 May.
That is a lot of change to have opinions about. Everyone will. Here is what we can do instead, because we run the models: put a number on every squad, price the window, translate what the market expects, and commit to calls specific enough to be wrong.
One housekeeping note on the numbers. Player values are Oddsivio estimated values — point estimates from our player-value model, in euros, from the 10 August weekly run. Transfer fees are as reported by the press. Germany's window closes on 31 August — a day earlier than England and Spain, and the day after Matchday 1 ends (ESPN) — so some of these squads are still moving; where a big deal is newer than our model run, we say so.
The league, priced: every 2026-27 squad by model value
Combined value of every player our model rates, per club, as of the 10 August run, from the Bundesliga view on Player values:
Bayern Munich — €796m
Borussia Dortmund — €517m
Bayer Leverkusen — €513m
RB Leipzig — €462m
VfB Stuttgart — €360m
Eintracht Frankfurt — €348m
SC Freiburg — €230m
TSG Hoffenheim — €230m
Borussia Mönchengladbach — €198m
Werder Bremen — €193m
FC Augsburg — €183m
Mainz 05 — €182m
Hamburger SV — €169m
1. FC Köln — €157m
Union Berlin — €120m
SC Paderborn — €69m
Four honest footnotes before anyone screenshots that list:
Two clubs are missing, and we won't fake them. Our model prices almost nobody at Schalke 04 or SV Elversberg — the promoted pair spent last season in a division our value coverage doesn't yet reach properly, so their genuine squad values are unknown to us. Rather than print a made-up number, we leave them off the list and say so. Paderborn's squad, by contrast, is fully priced.
The table is a dated snapshot. The model reassigns players to new clubs with a short lag, so the summer's biggest completed deals are still counted at their old clubs here: Yan Diomande sits in Leipzig's row despite his record move to Real Madrid, Karim Adeyemi in Dortmund's despite Barcelona, Nathaniel Brown in Frankfurt's despite Bayern. The next section prices those moves individually.
Counted honestly, second place flips. Take Dortmund's row, remove the €94m of model value that actually left — Adeyemi, Julian Brandt, the retired Niklas Süle, Yan Couto's loan to Como — and note that their entire teenage rebuild (roughly €65m in fees) is too new to carry model values yet, and Dortmund's priced squad sits near €391m. Do the same for Bayer Leverkusen — Grimaldo out, but Miguel Gutiérrez, Facundo Medina, Afonso Moreira and a returning Victor Boniface in — and they land near €561m. The row order says Dortmund second; the honest count says Leverkusen second, by some €170m. Bayern, for the record, come out of the same arithmetic at roughly €806m — before counting Ismael Saibari, their reported €50m signing our model hasn't priced yet.
The gap at the top is the biggest we've measured anywhere. Bayern's row is €279m clear of second place. In the Premier League the same gap is €135m; in La Liga it's €43m. And at the other end, seventh and eighth — Freiburg and Hoffenheim — are separated by €200,000.
The window, priced by the model
Fees tell you what clubs paid. Our model tells you what walked in and out of the building. We took the completed deals of the summer — verified against official club announcements and the major outlets, collapsed deals excluded — and priced every player at his current Oddsivio estimated value. The headline is the league-wide total: €273m of priced value arrived, €575m left. The Bundesliga sold Europe its footballers this summer to the tune of €302m of net model value — the mirror image of La Liga, a €205m net importer. Net swings, biggest first:
Bayer Leverkusen +€32m. The league's best window by our count, run by a new coach (Carles Martínez Novell) after Kasper Hjulmand paid for sixth place. Miguel Gutiérrez (€25m in our model — bayer04.de), Facundo Medina and Afonso Moreira in against Álex Grimaldo to Atlético Madrid (ESPN) — and Victor Boniface back from his loan besides. The €52m Arsenal paid to keep Piero Hincapié (bayer04.de) never touches these sums: he was already gone all season.
VfB Stuttgart +€14m. The quietest good window in the league: the core kept intact, Grischa Prömel free, €25m Dženan Pejčinović signed from relegated Wolfsburg (vfb.de), and Bilal El Khannouss's loan quietly made permanent (lcfc.com).
Bayern Munich +€8m. Nathaniel Brown (€31m in our model, a reported €55m fee) bought from a direct rival (Get Football News Germany), Saibari from PSV (fcbayern.com) — unpriced by us, remember — against the end-of-contract exits of Leon Goretzka and Raphaël Guerreiro and Nicolas Jackson's return to Chelsea, his buy option declined (Yahoo).
Mainz +€5m. A conversion window — three loanees made permanent, Eric Martel free from Köln (mainz05.de) — with the real business still pending: a reported €60m decision on Kaishu Sano, on the club's own 27 August deadline (Get Football News Germany).
Hoffenheim −€33m and Köln −€35m. Two clubs that sold their crown jewels: Hoffenheim banked a club-record €50m for Bazoumana Touré (Sky Sports) and reinvested in teenagers our model can't price yet, headlined by 17-year-old record buy Nathan De Cat; Köln lost Jakub Kamiński, Martel and their retiring captain Florian Kainz — though they did refuse Dortmund's €55m+ for Said El Mala (Goal).
RB Leipzig −€42m. Around €170m of income — the record Diomande sale (ESPN) plus Loïs Openda's obligation at Juventus — against Rocco Reitz, Maxime Estève and roughly €45m spent. In value terms the squad still shrank by €42m, and the replacement-winger hunt is unresolved: one target's medical collapsed the deal, another is priced at €60m+ by his club.
Eintracht Frankfurt −€61m. The record Brown sale plus Aurèle Amenda to Coventry, while the €27m option on top loan scorer Arnaud Kalimuendo lapsed (Tribal Football) — and the entire replacement intake (Raphael Onyedika, Noël Aséko Nkili and three more) is too new or too obscure for our model to price. Adi Hütter inherits the league's most invisible rebuild (eintracht.de).
Borussia Dortmund −€94m. The worst net window in the league by our count, and easily. Adeyemi to Barcelona, Brandt to Ajax on a free (Ajax), Süle retired at 30 (bvb.de), Couto loaned out — and the ~€65m spent on Konstantinos Karetsas, Joane Gadou, Kauã Prates and Justin Lerma registers as zero in our sums, because none of the four has a model value yet. We flag that honestly: Dortmund's honest count is a floor, not a verdict. But a floor of €391m is still fourth in the league.
Two window notes the fees hide:
The market disagreed with our model in both directions at once. Real Madrid paid a reported €125m for a player we price at €61m (Diomande); three weeks earlier Barcelona paid a reported €22m plus add-ons for a player we price at €45m (Adeyemi — Get Football News Germany). At most one of those prices is right. Watching which is exactly what our model exists for.
Two squads were built on loans, and both dissolved overnight. Werder Bremen's six loanees (Boniface, Puertas, Wöber, Sugawara, Schmidt, Milošević) and Hamburg's five (Vušković, Vieira, Downs, Otele, Gocholeishvili) all walked back to their parent clubs on 30 June — some €106m of model value across the two squads, gone without a single sale. Both clubs' rows above still count most of it; honestly counted, Werder sit near €103m and Hamburg near €106m — bottom-three numbers in each case.
The list used to be one deeper: this summer alone, Diomande (€61m), Johan Manzambi (€30m), Touré (€27m) and Luka Vušković (€26m) — four of the league's most valuable U21s — were sold abroad for roughly €300m in reported fees combined. Fifty-five players aged 21 or under still carry a model value across the sixteen priced squads, worth €956m together. The Bundesliga remains Europe's U21 supermarket; the shelves just got restocked a tier younger.
What the market expects — translated
A note on what this section is: transparent market analysis, not advice. We take publicly quoted season-market prices from mid-August, convert them to implied probabilities, and strip out the built-in margin so the numbers sum honestly — the same discipline we apply to our own match predictions. If any of the vocabulary is new, our glossary covers it.
The title. There is no title race here, according to the market — there is a Bayern coronation with error bars. Strip the margin from a full 18-club sheet proportionally and Bayern land at roughly 76%; quote their raw price and it says 87-89%; a near-margin-free prediction market splits the difference at 87%. Call it somewhere between three-in-four and seven-in-eight. Every other club combined shares what's left: Dortmund ~8%, Leipzig ~6%, Leverkusen ~5%, Stuttgart ~2.5%, and the remaining thirteen clubs about 2.5% between them. For scale: the Premier League's title favourite carries 34%, La Liga's 46%. This is the most concentrated title market of any league we've covered.
The top four. One place is priced as gone (Bayern, ~99% raw implied), so the real market is three chairs for six credible claimants: Dortmund ~75%, Leipzig ~69%, Leverkusen ~69%, then a cliff to Stuttgart ~27%, Hoffenheim ~20% and Frankfurt ~14%, with Freiburg ~8% the last club given a real look. The margin baked into these one-sided markets inflates every number a little, but the shape is the story — and note the market still ranks Dortmund ahead of Leverkusen, the reverse of our honest squad count.
Relegation. Only one club is priced as more likely down than up: promoted Elversberg, at roughly 56% raw. Paderborn sit near 46%, then Köln ~31%, Schalke ~29%, Hamburg ~22%, Augsburg ~20%, with Mainz ~15%, Union ~13% and Werder Bremen ~11% behind them. A caveat the sheets themselves disagree on: German relegation has two trapdoors and a play-off, and some prices settle on the bottom two only — treat the exact numbers as approximate, the ordering as solid. Multiply the promoted trio's numbers together and a clean sweep of all three going straight back down comes to roughly one chance in thirteen — between the Premier League's one-in-four and La Liga's one-in-fifteen.
Where our data pushes back. Two places. The runner-up race: the market prices Dortmund clearly ahead of Leverkusen for both the title and the top four, but counted honestly — departures out, arrivals in, loanees returned — Leverkusen's squad (~€561m) is worth some €170m more than Dortmund's priced floor (~€391m), and Leverkusen also won the window (+€32m) while Dortmund posted the league's worst (−€94m). Dortmund's unpriced teenagers are the market's case; we can't price potential, and we say so — but we can price everything else, and everything else points one way. And Werder Bremen: the market has them ninth in the relegation queue, at roughly 11% for the drop, while our honest count makes theirs the second-smallest priced squad in the league (~€103m), above only Paderborn among the clubs we can price — a squad that lost six loanees overnight and hasn't replaced its striker. One of those two readings is wrong, and we'll find out which.
Club by club: one storyline, one number
The title conversation
Bayern Munich — A record 122-goal double, then a summer of continuity: Vincent Kompany kept, Brown and Saibari added, Goretzka's eight-year era ended on a free (fcbayern.com). Kane's third straight top-scorer crown came with a World Cup where he equalled Gerd Müller's Bayern record for World Cup goals (bundesliga.com). The number: 122 — the most goals any Bundesliga team has ever scored in a season (Wikipedia).
Bayer Leverkusen — Sixth place cost Kasper Hjulmand his job; Carles Martínez Novell arrives with the league's best window behind him (+€32m) and, by our honest count, the second most valuable squad in Germany (bayer04.de). The number: €561m — our honest count of a squad the market ranks fourth in the title market.
Borussia Dortmund — Runners-up, Supercup hosts against Bayern on 22 August (Wikipedia), and the boldest all-in-on-teenagers rebuild in Europe: roughly €65m on four players aged 19 or under (Get Football News Germany) while Süle retired at 30 and Adeyemi, Brandt and Özcan walked. The number: −€94m, the league's worst net window in model value.
Europe, one way or another
RB Leipzig — Third place, a new coach in Martín Demichelis after Ole Werner was sacked anyway (rbleipzig.com), and the sale of the summer: Diomande to Real Madrid (ESPN). The number: €125m — the reported guaranteed fee for a player our model prices at €61m.
VfB Stuttgart — Fourth, a Champions League place, and the only top-six squad that got stronger without losing anyone that mattered. They also open the season at Bayern in a rematch of the cup final they lost 3-0 to a Kane hat-trick (bulinews). The number: +€14m, the second-best net window in the league.
TSG Hoffenheim — Fifth place and the Europa League under Christian Ilzer, funded the hard way: Touré sold for a club record (Sky Sports), De Cat bought at 17 for a club record, and the €30m Fisnik Asllani sale to Leipzig collapsing late (OneFootball). The number: €50m banked for a 20-year-old — and the model value walked out with him.
Eintracht Frankfurt — Eighth and out of Europe, Hütter back after five years — and a record sale to a direct rival, with an intake our model literally cannot see yet. The number: €55m reported for Nathaniel Brown, a player we price at €31m.
SC Freiburg — A Europa League final nobody neutral will forget (ESPN) — and then the competition's Young Player of the Season, Johan Manzambi, was sold to the very club that beat them in it (bulinews). The number: €70m, a club-record sale, reinvested in a record keeper (Mio Backhaus) and two Japanese signings our model hasn't priced.
The middle, and the mess
Borussia Mönchengladbach — Twelfth, and a summer of goodbyes: captain Rocco Reitz to Leipzig for a development-record fee (rbleipzig.com), Reyna moved on, and three loanees handed back. Honestly counted their squad drops from €198m to €142m. The number: €20m — what the captain fetched.
Werder Bremen — Fifteenth, three points clear of the play-off spot, and then the squad evaporated: six loanees returned in one day, Backhaus and Romano Schmid were sold (werder.de), and the striker search is still running with two weeks left. The number: six — loan players gone on 30 June, roughly €56m of model value.
FC Augsburg — Ninth under Manuel Baum, and a churn window: two loan successes converted, a dozen fringe exits, and Dimitrios Giannoulis sold to PAOK in a deal partly paid in a friendly match (Get Football News Germany). The number: −€14m net, the price of tidying up.
Mainz 05 — Urs Fischer took them from 18th in December to tenth, and the summer was patient: loanees converted, Martel free — and one giant open question with its own deadline. The number: €60m — the reported asking price for Kaishu Sano, decision due 27 August (Get Football News Germany).
Union Berlin — Eleventh, a season that made history twice: Marie-Louise Eta finished it as the Bundesliga's first female head coach, and Mauro Lustrinelli now starts fresh (fc-union-berlin.de). Both first-choice centre-backs, Doekhi and Leite, left for nothing. The number: €0 — fees banked for two starting defenders.
1. FC Köln — Fourteenth, two places above the drop, and the sharpest trading in the league: Kamiński bought for €5.5m on 1 July and sold to Benfica for €20m a week later (bulinews), then a €55m+ Dortmund offer for 19-year-old Said El Mala turned down flat (Goal). The number: seven days — the Kamiński round trip.
Hamburger SV — Thirteenth in their first season back, then the same trap as Bremen: the loan spine (five players, ~€50m of model value) dissolved on 30 June, patched with free agents Patson Daka and Bilal Nadir. Mario Vušković's doping ban ends mid-season (hsv.de). The number: five — loanees who left at once.
The promoted three
Schalke 04 — Second-division champions, back after three years (schalke04.de), and the cheapest smart window in the league: Robin Gosens on loan, Maximilian Wöber free, Dina Ebimbe and Adamu for €800k each — Bundesliga experience for under €3m in fees. Our model can't price their full squad yet, and we won't pretend otherwise. The number: €3m — roughly the whole intake's cost.
SV Elversberg — The first Bundesliga season in the club's history, sealed on the final day (bundesliga.com), with the promotion core kept together and a club-record €6m spent on Dortmund's Cole Campbell. The market makes them the only club more likely down than up; our model, honestly, can't price them at all. The number: 56% — the market's raw relegation probability.
SC Paderborn — Promoted the hard way: a 100th-minute extra-time winner from Laurin Curda in the play-off that sent Wolfsburg down for the first time ever (bundesliga.com). Then they sold their player of the year to Celtic for a record fee (Sky Sports). The number: €69m — the smallest fully priced squad in the league, €51m below 15th.
Five calls we'll grade in May
Previews are cheap because nobody checks them. Check us. Five dated, falsifiable calls, written 15 August 2026 — we will grade all five publicly when the season ends on 22 May 2027, hits and misses alike, the same way our prediction engines grade themselves every week.
Bayern win the title. The least brave call in this series, and we're making it anyway, on the record: the market says three-in-four to seven-in-eight, and our value lens agrees — an €806m honest count, €245m clear of anyone. If somebody takes this league off a squad that just scored 122 goals, we'll grade ourselves wrong in May with everyone else.
Bayer Leverkusen finish second. The market's runner-up order says Dortmund, then Leipzig, then Leverkusen. Our honest count says Leverkusen's €561m squad is second in Germany by €150m-plus, they posted the league's best window, and Dortmund's case rests on teenagers nobody can price yet. We're taking the squad you can count.
Freiburg finish above Hoffenheim. The market gives Hoffenheim roughly double Freiburg's chance of the top four after their fifth-place season. Our table has the squads €200,000 apart before the window — and Hoffenheim sold Touré while Freiburg reinvested a Europa League final run into a record keeper. Vibes against arithmetic; we're taking arithmetic.
Werder Bremen finish in the bottom four. The market prices them ninth in the relegation queue at ~11% for the drop. Our honest count makes theirs the second-smallest priced squad in the league after losing six loanees in a day — with no striker signed by mid-August. This is the call where our model most disagrees with the market's ordering, so it's the one we most owe you in writing.
Lennart Karl ends the season as the most valuable U21 in the Bundesliga. He starts it there — €60m at 18, the fourth most valuable player in the entire league view. The chasing pack is real (Maza €47m, Bellingham €42m), but Karl is two years younger than both. If a Bayern teenager can't hold a lead like that, we want to be on record noticing.
Follow the season the same way we wrote this
Every match of the season gets a plain-English, pre-match read on our Bundesliga hub, every squad number above updates weekly on Player values, and every probability our engines publish is graded in public on Predictions. Bookmark the hub, and check back on 22 May — we'll be grading those five calls whether they aged well or not.