Could Bayern Munich finally come unstuck? Sometimes, in recent years, it has felt as though those predicting genuine competition for German football’s dominant club at the beginning of a Bundesliga season are clutching at straws. This time, as they go for a record sixth successive title, maybe there’s a glimmer of reason behind neutrals’ hopes for an open tussle.

Bayern have looked far from their best in pre-season. The results may not count, but concern around the club is real. Losing 4-0 to Milan, a club who have been catching the eye with an ambitious recruitment drive, in Shenzhen, is one thing. Being humbled twice in two days at the Allianz Arena, in front of their own fans, by Liverpool and Napoli, was something else entirely.

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“There are still two-and-a-half weeks to go until the start of the season,” said Karl-Heinz Rummenigge after the opening night humbling by Liverpool in the Audi Cup, but he was neither making excuses nor masking his concern. Die Welt had referred to that performance as “frightening” and even if you chose to take it as a mere training exercise, it was so un-Bayern-like in every way that it felt like imposters had stolen the kit and invaded the pitch.

Since then, of course, they have the DfB Super Cup to point to, after Bayern won the season-opening trophy against Borussia Dortmund at Signal Iduna Park (albeit on penalties after a scruffy late own goal from Roman Bürki saved them from defeat). The reality is that the doubts are a hangover from last season and more specifically, the 45 minutes of the Champions League quarter-final, first leg against Real Madrid at the Allianz that turned Bayern’s – and Carlo Ancelotti’s – season upside down.

Rummenigge has not stopped talking about the refereeing injustices of the return leg, but both he and Ancelotti know that it was that dreadful second half in Munich that left Bayern prone. The problem for the Italian is that it will not really be until spring that he can properly prove the doubters wrong, though he has plenty to sort out in the meantime. Part of Bayern’s pre-season vulnerability has been the absence of Manuel Neuer, with Sven Ulreich a big step down as a replacement, while integrating James Rodríguez will have to wait until autumn after the on-loan Colombian suffered a serious muscle injury in that awful Audi Cup week.

There is more hope surrounding Corentin Tolisso, the club record signing from Lyon, who has shown promise so far. Though the already-missed Philipp Lahm declined the sporting director role, the club have tried to inject some more Bayern DNA behind the scenes by appointing Hasan Salihamidzic to the job instead.

The main problem with the theory of Bayern being open to challenge is, as with last season – when they were far from imperious for much of the campaign – Borussia Dortmund do not appear to be in the best shape to take advantage. Nobody on either side came out of the messy exit of Thomas Tuchel especially well, though after his fractious relationships with various figures behind the scenes, the club could find itself on a more even keel. Peter Bosz seems like a logical enough replacement in isolation, given his work with Ajax’s promising young players last season, but it is hard to spot any linear thinking in the appointment with Nice’s Lucien Favre, the first choice, being a very different sort of leader, as was another name in the frame, Peter Stöger of Köln.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Dortmund’s Ousmane Dembélé is wanted by Catalan giants Barcelona and leaves BVB in a real spot. Photograph: Bernd Thissen/AP

BVB seemed to have at least sorted out their transfer dealings early, with the incoming Omer Toprak and Mo Dahoud signing before last term was done, but after speculation around top scorer Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang subsided, the Ousmane Dembélé saga blew up after Neymar left Barcelona for PSG. It’s clear to Bundesliga watchers exactly why the Catalan giants would be going for the young Frenchman, but it leaves Dortmund in a real spot. At 20, he is already the player who makes things happen for them in an attacking sense and would be devilishly difficult to replace, no matter the transfer fee received.

At least Mario Götze will be pleased with Bosz’s arrival – the club bringing back the former Dortmund darling did not please Tuchel in the least – and it’s good to see Germany’s World Cup-winning goalscorer recovering strongly from a career-threatening metabolic condition. BVB still looked stretched at the start of the campaign, with midfield lynchpin Julian Weigl and Raphaël Guerreiro missing the start of the season, as will André Schürrle, while Marco Reus – who ruptured knee ligaments in the DfB Pokal final – will not return until 2018.

There is some belief in the RB Leipzig camp that this is their chance to throw a cat among the pigeons to an even greater extent than they did last season. With their Champions League participation ratified by Uefa after questions of a conflict over interests with Red Bull Salzburg, Ralph Hasenhüttl’s side have withstood significant pressure to hold on to key midfielders Emil Forsberg and – especially – Naby Keïta, who give the team so much of their energy to surge in transition.

There are even signs that Leipzig could be less reliant on their star pair, with Oliver Burke (who mainly had to make do with cameos from the bench after arriving last term) and the new arrival Bruma, the Portugal under-21 wide man who stood out for Galatasaray last season, looking like they could work as a wing duo for Hasenhüttl. The key point is that, even with success, the club have not deviated from their under-25-focused recruitment policy, with France under-21 forward Jean-Kévin Augustin arriving from Paris Saint-Germain with plenty to prove.

Hamburg’s last-day escape was followed with vows of “never again” – then they opened this season with a humiliating DfB Pokal elimination by Osnabrück

Leipzig, like Hoffenheim, will have to cope with dual demands of a first-ever European campaign. Feted young coach Julian Nagelsmann’s side are guaranteed a minimum of a Europa League spot, whatever happens in next week’s Champions League play-off second leg against Liverpool. With the feeling that he will end up at Bayern at some stage, how Nagelsmann deals with this will be watched closely, especially if Ancelotti runs into problems.

The coach will have to do without Niklas Süle and Sebastian Rudy, who both moved to Bayern, and Süle in particular will be missed. The loan signing of Serge Gnabry from the Bavarian giants is a real plus, though, with the former Arsenal man’s game suiting the team’s zesty attacks down to the ground.

Köln are also Europe-bound, in their case for the first time in 26 years, but they have an even bigger loss to cope with. Anthony Modeste’s on-off move to China finally came to fruition last month, and he will be missed after his 25 Bundesliga goals last term. Jhon Córdoba, bought from Mainz, will nominally replace him, while much of the colossal Modeste fee is going on youth such as Jorge Meré and the highly fancied left-back Jannes Horn (Wolfsburg), with an eye firmly on the future.

In the capital, Hertha are back in Europe too. Pal Dardai has lost the now injured defender John Anthony Brooks to Wolfsburg, bringing in Marseille’s unpredictable Karim Rekik in his place, but the arrival of Davie Selke gives one of Germany’s young talents a platform to shine. The extra depth in the forward department will come in handy, too.

A clutch of underachieving giants have made significant changes in their desire to cut the gap to the European places, and perhaps none more so than Schalke, who fired Markus Weinzierl after a disappointing campaign, with 31-year-old Domenico Tedesco taking the reins. Tedesco is highly regarded, but with just a short (if successful) spell in the second tier with Erzgebirge Aue as experience in the top job, it’s a huge risk in a high-pressure environment. The new man’s 3-4-3 system, with a nice smattering of flair and including a renewed Yevhen Konoplyanka, looks interesting, though.

Bayer Leverkusen, after their brush with relegation last term, have gone for a familiar name in Heiko Herrlich, though even at 45, the club’s former striker has no top-level head coaching experience, and the sales of Hakan Çalhanoğlu, Javier Hernández and Toprak make this season a real reboot for Die Werkself.

Wolfsburg went even closer to the drop, escaping in a relegation play-off with Eintracht Braunschweig, and Andries Jonker has been given the proceeds from the exits of Ricardo Rodríguez and Luiz Gustavo (and more) to spend on a team reshape, with Brooks and the Spanish midfielder Ignacio Camacho tidy pick-ups.

Borussia Mönchengladbach and Werder Bremen both veered from the sublime to the ridiculous last season, and will search for more consistency. At the bottom, Hamburg’s last-day escape was followed with vows of “never again” – then they opened this season with a humiliating DfB Pokal elimination by Osnabrück. Freiburg might struggle to follow up last season’s excellent first campaign back up, with key men Maximilian Philipp and Vincenzo Grifo off to Dortmund and Gladbach respectively. The Europa League exit to Slovenia’s Domzale was bitterly disappointing too, but Christian Streich’s side should have enough to stay out of trouble, with Florian Niederlechner and Çağlar Söyüncü in the squad.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Domenico Tedesco is highly regarded, but with just a short spell managing in the second tier his appointment by Schalke is a huge gamble. Photograph: Axel Schmidt/Reuters

Eintracht Frankfurt’s recruitment strategy has been imaginative, with Kevin-Prince Boateng set to join as well, but much depends on how quickly striker Sébastian Haller – prolific in the Eredivisie – adapts to Germany, with Niko Kovaç hoping he does better than the previously heralded likes of Luc Castaignos and Haris Seferovic. Their excellent Pokal final display should not mask their freefall in the second half of last season, plus key midfielder Marco Fabián is out injured for the restart and needs replacing, fast.

Augsburg – whose experienced skipper Paul Verhaegh joined Wolfsburg – and Mainz will aim to stay away from danger too, and the latter’s new coach will aim to get new boys Viktor Fischer and Alexandru Maxim truly fulfilling their potential.

The promoted sides, Stuttgart and Hannover, will be welcomed back by the Bundesliga, with their traditionally big support bases. Stuttgart look the better set, and experienced signings such as Ron-Robert Zieler and Holger Badstuber should breed confidence. The headlines made by Hannover so far haven’t been as positive, with long-standing investor Martin Kind given the go-ahead by the club’s board to fully take over the club.

With last season’s top-tier arrival of Leipzig, the preservation (or not) of the 50+1 is as sensitive an issue as it’s ever been, and completion of Kind’s deal would make Hannover the league’s fourth exception to the rule. He has been given police protection recently as fans’ anger rises. Hooliganism is another worry as the season begins. Dortmund CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke recently spoke to Bild about his belief that the nation’s ultras are “closing ranks”, while Köln sporting director Jörg Schmadtke spoke out recently about the use of banners saying “Krieg dem DfB” (war on the DfB), though many will argue this refers to what some supporters see as the sanitisation of the game in Germany, rather than actual violence. The ugly scenes in the DfB Pokal tie between Hansa Rostock and Hertha Berlin, though, were an unwelcome intrusion into the start of the campaign.

Whatever the destination of the title this season – and yes, it’s probably still heading south – let’s hope that the campaign is peacefully observed, without dimming the spirit that makes the Bundesliga experience such an enjoyable one.