Wolfsburg's top-match debut and Klose's flying start open the new 2. Bundesliga season

The new 2. Bundesliga season is under way, and its opening weekend delivered no shortage of storylines. According to reports, the campaign began on a Friday evening with VfL Bochum hosting Hertha BSC at the Ruhrstadion, the first of nine fixtures across the matchday. On Saturday evening, VfL Wolfsburg hosted 1. FC Kaiserslautern in the season's first top match, while Eintracht Braunschweig reportedly scored six goals earlier that day. The 2. Bundesliga is Germany's second tier, sitting below the Bundesliga and above the 3. Liga. Founded in 1974, eleven years after the Bundesliga itself, it now counts an all-time table spanning 128 clubs. Wolfsburg arrived this season as a relegated Bundesliga side and, according to pre-season assessments, the leading favourite to go straight back up. The opening weekend, reported to have taken place around 9 August 2026, sets the tone for a long promotion race. Miroslav Klose's 1. FC Nürnberg won their first match thanks to a hat-trick from a player named Zoma, while Greuther Fürth held FC St. Pauli to a draw away from home.

Nine fixtures and a free-to-air Sunday: how the 2. Bundesliga season opened

The 2026/27 campaign, reported to be the 53rd season of the 2. Bundesliga, got under way with nine fixtures on the opening matchday, dated by reports as 9 August 2026. The action began on the Friday evening, when, according to reports, VfL Bochum hosted Hertha BSC at the Ruhrstadion in the season's curtain-raiser. The result of that game has not been reported.

Saturday brought the weekend's most striking scoreline. Eintracht Braunschweig scored six goals in their match, according to reports, the standout attacking performance of the round. The day's centrepiece, though, came in the evening: VfL Wolfsburg hosted 1. FC Kaiserslautern in the first Saturday evening top match of the new season. It was a meeting of two of the division's biggest names, though the exact score has not been made available.

The matchday concluded on Sunday with a conference broadcast that, according to reports, was shown on free-to-air television — a notable piece of scheduling for the second tier. Reports indicate the coverage featured the games involving St. Pauli, Nürnberg, Hannover and Dresden, bringing the opening round to a wide audience.

Between the Friday opener, the Saturday goal rush and the televised Sunday finale, the first matchday delivered the full spread of what the division offers: traditional clubs, big grounds and immediate storylines. What it did not yet deliver was a clear early picture at the top of the table — the standings after one round have not been reported, and with nine fixtures producing winners, losers and draws across three days, the table at this stage says little about where the season is heading.

1. 1974

   The 2. Bundesliga was founded as Germany's new second division, 11 years after the Bundesliga; its all-time table covers 128 clubs since then.

2. until 2000

   Founding member SC Fortuna Köln led the all-time 2. Bundesliga table for many years, going neither up nor down until 2000.

3. previous season

   FC Schalke 04 won the 2. Bundesliga title in the season before the current one.

4. 2025/26 season

   Transfermarkt offered a 2. Bundesliga table for the 2025/26 season counting only goals from a selected period.

5. pre-season 2026/27

   Relegated VfL Wolfsburg entered the new 2. Bundesliga season as the leading promotion favourite.

6. pre-season 2026/27

   Sky pundit Lothar Matthäus used his column to assess which teams he backed for promotion from the 2. Bundesliga.

7. Friday evening, opening matchday

   The new 2. Bundesliga season began on a Friday evening with VfL Bochum hosting Hertha BSC at the Ruhrstadion.

8. Saturday, opening matchday

   Eintracht Braunschweig scored six goals in a match on the Saturday of the opening matchday.

9. Saturday evening, opening matchday

   VfL Wolfsburg hosted 1. FC Kaiserslautern in the season's first Saturday evening top match.

10. 9 August 2026

    The opening matchday, featuring nine fixtures, took place; Greuther Fürth drew at St. Pauli and Miroslav Klose's Nürnberg won with a Zoma hat-trick.

11. Sunday, opening matchday

    The Sunday conference covering St. Pauli, Nürnberg, Hannover and Dresden was broadcast on free-to-air television.

12. 2026/27 season

    The campaign is the 53rd season of the 2. Bundesliga.

Wolfsburg arrive as the team everyone expects to go straight back up

VfL Wolfsburg began the season with the heaviest burden in the division: expectation. According to reports, the club arrived in the 2. Bundesliga as a relegated side from the Bundesliga, and ahead of the campaign they were widely regarded as the leading promotion favourite — the team most observers expect to go straight back up.

Their first assignment under that label was a high-profile one. Wolfsburg hosted 1. FC Kaiserslautern in the first Saturday evening top match of the new season, a pairing of two clubs with considerable Bundesliga history. The result of that fixture was not yet known at the time of writing, so whether Wolfsburg's opening night matched the pre-season billing remains an open question.

The pre-season debate over who is best placed for promotion extended well beyond Wolfsburg. Sky pundit Lothar Matthäus used his column to assess which teams he believes are capable of winning promotion from the 2. Bundesliga this season, weighing up the credentials of the division's leading contenders. Which specific clubs Matthäus tipped has not been detailed, but his intervention underlined how much attention surrounds the promotion race from the very first weekend.

For Wolfsburg, the logic of the season is simple. As the relegated favourite, every result will be measured against the expectation of an immediate return, and every dropped point will invite scrutiny. The Saturday evening slot against Kaiserslautern was the first test of that status — and the first chance to show whether the favourites' tag is justified.

Klose's Nürnberg start with a Zoma hat-trick; Fürth hold St. Pauli

Miroslav Klose could hardly have asked for a better start to the campaign. His 1. FC Nürnberg side won their opening match of the new 2. Bundesliga season, and the decisive figure was a player named Zoma, who scored a hat-trick. Three goals on the first matchday is the kind of individual performance that shapes a season's narrative early, and it immediately puts Nürnberg among the teams to watch in the promotion race. Klose, one of the most decorated German strikers of his generation, is now building his reputation from the touchline, and an opening win gives his project early credibility.

Greuther Fürth made a quieter but arguably no less significant statement. They travelled to FC St. Pauli and came away with a draw, a result that underlines their resilience away from home. Taking a point at St. Pauli on the opening weekend is the sort of outcome that promotion contenders tend to look back on favourably.

Both results matter beyond the matchday itself. In a division where the race for the Bundesliga is typically decided by fine margins, an opening win powered by a hat-trick and a hard-earned away draw each count as early markers. Nürnberg under Klose have announced their attacking intent, while Fürth have shown they can be difficult to beat on the road. Neither result settles anything, but both set a tone for the months ahead.

The second tier: where the 2. Bundesliga sits in German football

The 2. Bundesliga is the second tier of professional football in Germany. It sits directly below the Bundesliga, the country's top flight, and directly above the 3. Liga, the third division. Promotion and relegation link all three, which is what gives the league its particular tension: every season is a contest between clubs trying to climb into the top flight and clubs fighting to avoid dropping further down the pyramid.

The league was founded in 1974, introduced 11 years after the Bundesliga itself was established as the new second division of the professional game. In the decades since, it has grown into one of the best-attended second tiers anywhere in European football, drawing crowds that many top-flight leagues abroad would envy.

Every club in the 2. Bundesliga also competes in the DFB-Pokal, Germany's annual cup competition. That means second-tier sides regularly get the chance to test themselves against Bundesliga opposition in knockout football, and cup upsets involving teams from this division are a familiar feature of the German season.

According to reports, the 2026/27 campaign is the 53rd season of the 2. Bundesliga. More than half a century after its creation, the league remains the gateway to the Bundesliga — and, as this season's field shows, a competition where fallen top-flight clubs and ambitious historic names meet on equal terms.

Fortuna Köln and the all-time table spanning 128 clubs

Beyond the week-to-week standings, the 2. Bundesliga keeps a longer scoreboard. The league's all-time table aggregates every season since its founding in 1974 and covers 128 clubs in total. Because the three-points-for-a-win rule was only introduced later, the historical table is calculated retroactively on that basis, giving older campaigns the same arithmetic as modern ones.

For many years, the club at the top of that table was not a fallen giant or a yo-yo team bouncing between divisions, but SC Fortuna Köln. The Cologne side were a founding member of the league in 1974 and then did something no one else managed: they stayed. Season after season, Fortuna went neither up nor down, remaining in the second tier continuously until 2000. That remarkable run of mid-table permanence, more than two and a half decades in the same division, allowed them to accumulate points steadily and hold first place in the all-time standings for years.

Whether Fortuna still lead that table today is not stated. What is clear is the scale of the record: 128 clubs have passed through the 2. Bundesliga since 1974, from champions who spent a single season there on the way up to long-term residents like Fortuna themselves. Every one of them, from the 1974 pioneers to this season's newcomers, feeds into the same running account of the league's history.

What the opening weekend sets up for the long promotion race

One name is already missing from the promotion picture. FC Schalke 04 reportedly won the 2. Bundesliga title last season, according to reports, and with the champions gone from the division, the race to replace them is wide open. Wolfsburg may be the favourites, but one matchday proves nothing.

That is worth keeping in mind as the first results land. The standings after the opening weekend are not yet settled in any definitive form, and a campaign that reportedly stretches across the 53rd season of the league's history will not be decided in August. Early table positions flatter some sides and punish others on the thinnest of margins — a single goal here, a draw there.

How supporters follow that table has itself become a story of detail. Transfermarkt, for example, offered a 2. Bundesliga table for the 2025/26 season that counted only goals from a selected period, according to the site — a tool that lets fans isolate form over a chosen stretch rather than relying on the bare standings. Expect similar scrutiny this year.

With Schalke reportedly promoted and the field reset, every point from here shapes who climbs and who is left behind.

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