Glossary
What do all the German football terms actually mean?
Short, plain-English definitions of the words you will meet across this site and in German match coverage.
By MiaSanMia Editorial · Last updated
- Mia san mia
- Bavarian dialect for "we are who we are" — the club's best-known motto.
- Rekordmeister
- "Record champion": the club with the most German league titles. Bayern have 34 German championships, 33 of them in the Bundesliga era.
- Bundesliga
- Germany's top division, founded in 1963. Bayern were not among the original 16 clubs.
- DFB-Pokal
- The German national cup, open to clubs across the divisions. Bayern have won it 20 times.
- Der Klassiker
- The marketing name for Bayern against Borussia Dortmund, coined for international audiences.
- Meisterschale
- The "championship salad bowl", the Bundesliga winners' trophy.
- 50+1
- The German ownership rule keeping a majority of voting rights with club members rather than investors.
- Hinrunde / Rückrunde
- The first and second halves of a Bundesliga season.
- Südkurve
- The south stand of the Allianz Arena: a standing terrace for league games and the home of the ultras.
- Raumdeuter
- "Interpreter of space" — Thomas Müller's own description of a role that does not fit a standard position.
- Die Katze von Anzing
- "The cat from Anzing", Sepp Maier's nickname, after his home town east of Munich.
- Der Kaiser
- Franz Beckenbauer, so called for the authority with which he played and later ran the club.