Bundesliga: Why is it called English Week?

After a 68-day World Cup and winter break, the Bundesliga returned on Friday with the top game between cup winners RB Leipzig and champions FC Bayern (1-1). Due to the unusually long interruption, the club’s calendar is packed to the brim and there is no time to regenerate. For the first time this year, there is one directly for the Bundesliga clubs English week – so three games within one calendar week. The first division teams play again on Tuesday and Wednesday, so they have another game between the regular games on the weekends.

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On the one hand, this offers the opportunity to quickly forget bad results or to stay in the “flow” with good results – on the other hand, the high workload entails a greater risk of injury for the players. Especially clubs with already smaller squads could have problems in the long run and be at a disadvantage compared to other teams with more players.

The explanation: The term English Week goes back to the staging of three league games within a week, which is a regular occurrence, especially in England. There, the Premier League clubs not only play their 38 league games, but also two cup competitions and occasionally in the European Cup and are therefore almost constantly in play. It’s even more extreme with the second division clubs: The clubs in the Championship have a total of 46 games in the league – an exhausting thing.

The term originally comes from cricket. Curious: In England itself, the term is not used. There they speak of a three-game week (“three-game week”) – in Germany there are on average one to three English weeks per season with game days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.