9. Third Party
It can be a bit tedious when a sporting league is dominated by two teams year in and year out. That’s part of what makes Atletico Madrid resurgence popular in La Liga—they’re a foil to the Barcelona and Real Madrid power coupling.
In the Bundesliga, that power coupling is Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund. But the only reason they’ve been able to establish this dominance at all is because Schalke has had their difficulties recently. Now that Schalke is getting back to where they belong, they figure to be the foil to the Bayern/Dortmund two-party system.
There are other candidates, of course, like RB Leipzig, but RB Leipzig has been around for all of a decade. Schalke 04 is known as such because they’ve been around since 1904—over ten times longer.
Trust in history to provide the balance. Schalke is the third party the Bundesliga needs.