Opening day records, stats and facts in the Bundesliga

Bayern best marks

• No team has a better record than Bayern for opening day results. The Bavarian juggernaut averages 2.1 points per game from Matchday 1 fixtures – a league best mark.
• The record champions have celebrated the most victories (35) and scored the most goals (125) on Matchday 1. On 11 occasions, their opening day win was enough to send – and keep – them top.
• Curiously, the team in second after the first matchday has been relegated more times (seven) than going on to become champion (six).
• Bayern boast the record Matchday 1 win, thanks to their 6-0 triumph over Werder Bremen in the 2016/17 season opener, in which Xabi Alonso scored a Goal of the Season contender.
• The Bavarians have also been on the receiving end of the same scoreline. Back in the 1974/75 season, Udo Lattek took his European champions to Kickers Offenbach, who duly handed them a shock 6-0 thrashing.

Watch: How the fixture schedule is made

A portent of things to come?

• In the 57 Bundesliga seasons since 1963, 144 teams have been relegated. Just under a quarter – 23 percent – of those had kicked off their campaign with a win, though.
• Four teams have started the season atop the Bundesliga standings, only to be relegated come the end of the season: Hansa Rostock in 1991/92, Karlsruhe in 1997/98, Borussia Mönchengladbach in 1998/99 and most recently Arminia Bielefeld in 2002/03. Rostock's 4-0 win over Nuremberg was the largest opening victory by a team who would be relegated at the end of the campaign.
• Conversely, 76 teams who have sat in the bottom two after the opening game have ultimately avoided the drop.
• Teams that take a place in the bottom half of the table after the opening game are only slightly more likely to go down. Of the 144 relegated clubs, 75 were in the lower half of the table, compared to 69 in the top. Of those, 29 were already in the bottom three, 14 in the top three.

• Eleven teams have gone on to win the title after sitting top on the opening day. Bayern have done so seven times.
• No team propping up the table has ever won the title, but three teams have done so when 17th, including VfB Stuttgart in 2006.
• Borussia Dortmund have conceded the most Matchday 1 defeats (22), but are the last side to lose their opening game and still win the title, in 2010/11. Their Revierderby rivals Schalke have lost on the opening day 21 times.
• Hamburg hold the record for most opening draws (18). Among current Bundesliga clubs, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Stuttgart top the standings with 17 apiece.
• No team has conceded more goals than Bremen, who have seen their net ripple on the opening day a record 89 times.
• The opening day of the 1986/87 saw the most goals, with 42. The fewest came in 2017/18, when there were just 15.

Lewandowski laying down the law

• Four players - Klaus Fichtel, Eike Immel, Manfred Kaltz and Karl-Heinz Körbel – have featured in 17 opening day fixtures in the Bundesliga.
• Nobody has won as many times as Oliver Kahn, though, Der Titan, picking up all three points on 11 occasions.
• Gerd Müller may have a Bundesliga record 365 goals to his name, but Klaus Fischer boasts the most opening day goals with 13.
• Among active players, Robert Lewandowski has the most Matchday 1 goals with nine. The Pole has gone on to finish as top scorer in four of the last five seasons.

Watch: How Lewandowski has become the world's best No.9

• There were seven penalties on the opening day of the 1987/88 campaign, a record high. There have only been two seasons without a penalty on Matchday 1, and the last time that happened was 1988/89.
• A Bayern player has scored the first goal of a season a record 15 times. Prior to opening 10 of the last 14 seasons, they had done so just five times. Dortmund are next best with eight… MSV Duisburg, currently in the third tier, are next on that particular list.
• Lewandowski’s Bayern teammate Müller is the only player in history to have scored the first goal of the season three times (2010, 2014 and 2018). Timo Konietzka (Dortmund, 1963 and 1860 Munich, 1965) and Atli Edvaldsson (Dortmund 1980, and Bayer Uerdingen, 1986) have two apiece.

• The highest average Matchday 1 attendance was recorded in 2011 (51,344). Dortmund, Bayern and Hertha Berlin – owners of the three biggest stadiums in the land – were all at home that day.
• Lewandowski had won each of his last eight opening day fixtures in the Bundesliga (2011-18) prior to last year's 2-2 draw with Hertha. That is a record ahead of teammate Müller (7 from 2012 to 2018).