First impressions

If 2010-11 was the season of surprises, 2011-12 is shaping up to be a season in which things go more or less according to plan. Hotly tipped Bayern Munich are back atop the Bundesliga table, and Dortmund and Leverkusen will be pleased that they are only two points back of the leaders.

So which teams look likely to mount serious bids for silverware? With four rounds played, Deutsche Welle takes a look at the main contenders.

Bayern Munich

The mighty Bavarians were brought down to earth last season by a defense that never gelled and leaked goals in crunch matches. So with only one goal conceded in four games, new coach Jupp Heynckes will feel he has this problem pretty well sorted.

Star keeper Manuel Neuer may want to start bringing a PlayStation with him to matches - that's how little his talents have been needed in the first month of the season.

With Rafinha, Daniel van Buyten, Jerome Boateng, Holger Badstuber and Philipp Lahm, Heynckes has five stand-out defenders who can be productively rotated.

A particularly pleasant surprise has been Rafinha, who had a reputation as a night owl and lover of cocktails with his previous German club Schalke. The speedy Brazilian has been nothing but professional in Munich, leaving Lahm to stir up controversy with a book that tells us what we pretty much always knew about all his ex-coaches.

Still, there are some unanswered questions. The nine points Bayern have earned thus far all came against teams at the bottom of the table, with only six points between them.

And until they face some quality opposition, we won't know whether they've licked their other problem from last year: an overdependence on oft-injured superstar Arjen Robben.

Nonetheless, Bayern have won the title in each of the past three even-numbered seasons, and the smart money still says that's precisely what they'll do in 2012. Title probability: 65 percent.

Borussia Dortmund

After last season's gallop to glory, the major uncertainty for the reigning champs was how they would cope with the loss of midfield rudder Nuri Sahin to Real Madrid. Pretty decently, it turns out. There's been no gaping hole in the middle, as Dortmund have earned two wins and draw.

Indeed, coach Jürgen Klopp could argue that, but for bad luck in Borussia's loss to Hoffenheim and their draw to Leverkusen, his team could be level with or even ahead of Bayern in the table.

But that point underscores what is still Dortmund's main weakness: efficiency. The men in yellow-and-black have needed 59 chances to notch only five goals this season.

Last season, Dortmund's relentless pressing was enough to compensate for this deficit. This season, with Bayern looking resurgent, it probably won't be.

The message to Klopp's boys is clear: stop hitting the woodwork, or the “salad bowl” will have a new home. Title probability: 15 percent.

Bayer Leverkusen

The “aspirin club” needed to show they could win without Heynckes, who last season put an end to the Leverkusen tradition of fast starts and late collapses and led them to a second-place finish. And things have gone well under new head honcho Robin Dutt.

Perhaps most impressively, the club has overcome a major injury to starting keeper Rene Adler, plugging the hole with 19-year-old Bernd Leno, who's loaned out for six months from Stuttgart. He deserved much of the credit for this weekend's goalless draw with Dortmund, which sent a signal to Klopp that this season would be more competitive than last.

Dutt's major headache is that Leverkusen have caught the Dortmund disease, scoring just a pair of goals despite generating fifty chances. With an offense that anemic, seven points is almost the maximum possible after four rounds.

Leverkusen used to be exciting but inconsistent; now they're consistent but unexciting. Strike prodigy André Schürrle, thus far goalless, could help to change that. He's going to have to, if Leverkusen are to have any shot at the crown. Title probability: 5 percent.

Dark horses

So will anyone else be in it with a shout? Last year's surprises Hanover and Mainz have shown that 2010-11 was no fluke, and Mönchengladbach have emerged as this year's overachievers. Those teams have 8, 7 and 7 points respectively. But it's hard to see any of them climbing the absolute summit.

A better bet for those who fancy a fling on a dark horse would be Schalke or Werder Bremen, both of whom recovered from dismal campaigns last season to win three of their first four.

Schalke's strike duo of Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Raul are thriving under new coach Ralf Rangnick, and Werder bad boy Marko “I like a girl with lots of silicone” Arnautovic has actually shown up to play this season.

As two of the traditional top clubs in the Bundesliga, both Schalke and Bremen are capable of putting together good runs. But Neuer's replacement for the Royal Blues, Ralf Fährmann, has to prove he can be consistent over a whole season. And Werder’s attacking anarcho-football is just as prone to entropy as it is to results.

Bayern and the other favorites will be mindful of this duo's early renaissance. But there's no reason yet for last season's top three to be quaking in their boots. Title probability: 15 percent.

Author: Jefferson Chase
Editor: Matt Hermann