Broadcast info
Who's playing: It's customary for the reigning Bundesliga champions to play the first game of the regular 34-match season, and as it's been the case for the past few seasons, the winner has been Bayern Munich. So, on Friday, it will be die Roten taking on Bayer Leverkusen at the Allianz Arena.
What time: Friday, August 18th at 11:30 PST/14:30 EST/18:30 GMT/19:30 BST/20:30 CET
What stadium: This game will be played at the Allianz Arena. This world-famous home ground can seat up to 75.000 fans for league games and 70.000 fans for international ties.
Which channel:
- In the USA: FOX Sports GO, fuboTV, FOX Soccer Match Pass, Fox Sports 1 USA, FOX Deportes
- In Germany: Eurosport 2 HD Xtra, TeleClub Sport Live, ZDF
- In the UK: BT Sport 2, BT Sport Live Streaming
- In Canada: Sportsnet Now, Sportsnet World Now, Sportsnet World
*View up-to-date broadcast listings
Match Facts & Stats
- Reigning champs tend to win their season openers. The last time this didn't happen was Bayern, in 2008
- Die Roten ended up drawing with Hamburg 2-2
- Since then, the team who have won the Bundesliga championship have won eight times in a row
- Die Roten have won five of those, whilst scoring 18 and conceding just three
- Bayern are undefeated in their last 22 home matches
- Bayern Munich have kept a clean sheet in 5 of their last 7 matches against Leverkusen in all competitions
- Bayern have scored at least 2 goals in 6 of their last 7 home matches
- The last time Bayer Leverkusen beat Bayern Munich was on May 2, 2015 (2-0)
Bayern aiming to build off recent positive results
Bayern Munich
Despite a disappointing pre-season, Bayern Munich seem to be slowly getting back on track. Although they did surprisingly lose to both AC Milan and Inter - two teams who have struggled in Serie A as of late - they were playing without the services of several key players, including Manuel Neuer, Arturo Vidal, and Jerome Boateng. They also had to make do without these same players during the Audi Cup when they took on tougher opposition like Liverpool as well as Napoli.
Nonetheless, they bounced back to beat Borussia Dortmund in the German Super Cup and crushed third-tier side Chemnitzer FC in the DFB-Pokal this past weekend, so will be brimming with confidence ahead of this match. New signing Corentin Tolisso could likely make an appearance in this match, but fellow addition James Rodriguez is still recovering from injury and so will be unavailable. Additional absentees include Javi Martinez and Thiago. Both Boateng and Neuer are in doubt for this fixture, and if Neuer does not fully recover in time, he could be replaced in goal by Sven Ulreich.
Bayer Leverkusen
Meanwhile, the visitors needed extra time to successfully see off lower-tier side Karlsruher SC. It remains to be seen whether that will take a toll on them ahead of this match, but that surely will have given new coach Heiko Herrlich some major food for thought that his men were unable to get the job done inside the regular 90 minutes. Bayer Leverkusen did bring in Lars Bender from Borussia Dortmund this summer, but saw some major changes in personnel that could heavily affect them this summer.
Bayer Leverkusen struggled horribly last term as they stumbled into 12th place. Hakan Çalhanoğlu has departed for AC Milan, whilst fellow Turkish international Ömer Toprak has moved on to German rivals Borussia Dortmund.
Match details, result and original broadcast info
This match has ended. Below are the original Live broadcast details for this match.
Live TV coverage and streaming in United States
Live TV coverage and streaming in United States
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