Goal.com profiles Germany's top division to show why it's the competition to follow over the 2011-12 campaign

It's unpredictable



More goals, more fans



You can watch tomorrow's superstars today



No diving



The past holds little currency



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By Clark WhitneyExactly 83 days have passed since the final round of the 2010-11 Bundesliga season and on Friday, at long last, the German top flight is set to resume. With the league having overtaken Serie A for superior performance in Europe over the last five years, four Bundesliga teams will compete for Champions League spots in the upcoming campaign.With the addition of an extra slot in Europe's elite tournament, there will surely be an added impetus for clubs to reach the upper levels of the German league, and based on results from pre-season, the title race may be wide open.Ahead of the restart,profiles the Bundesliga, giving the top five reasons why it's one to follow in 2011-12.It may be a cliche, but in Germany there is reason to expect the unexpected. With four different champions in the last five years and seven unique top three finishers in the last three years, the Bundesliga is either a paradise or a nightmare for gamblers.Almost every year, a darkhorse team (or more) emerge to disrupt the status quo. Consider Hertha BSC, who finished fourth in 2009, then were relegated a year later. And now, having won the 2. Bundesliga, they are back in the top flight once more. Just another typical example of the league’s tempestuous volatility.With an average attendance of 42,653, the German top flight was far and away the most watched European league last year. The audiences, almost always packed to capacity, witnessed an average of 2.92 goals per game, also a high among the top European leagues.In goals scored and attendance, the Bundesliga has for years been ahead of the competition in England, Spain and Italy. The atmosphere at games is unparalleled, with good reason given the energetic and attractive style of play that characterises German teams.Mesut Ozil, Manuel Neuer, Bastian Schweinsteiger … these are just a few of the superstar figures to have emerged in Germany over the last few years. With the continued success of young teams, players are being blooded at an increasingly early age. And due to the league’s strict rules regulating youth development, these athletes are proving to be as proficient and capable as those a decade their senior.Indeed, nearly a third of all Bundesliga players last year were 21 or younger before the beginning of the campaign, and the eldest member of Goal.com's team of the season was just 25. If there is one sporting area in which the German top flight by far exceeds the competition, it is in the quality of its youth.Hate it or love it, refereeing culture in Germany is decidedly laissez-faire. Officials tend to be very lenient with physical defending in the penalty box, and are reluctant to send off players without offering a second chance.While these refereeing tendencies come with some undesirable side effects - that defenders will push the limits and often get away with penalty-worthy offences - a bonus is that there is little incentive to play-act. Accordingly, rare is it that a player will go to ground without good reason.As German coaching legend Sepp Herberger once put it, "after the game is before the game." As soon as one match ends, preparation for another begins.Herberger’s famous words have become engrained in German football culture, and are at the very foundation of the Bundesliga’s dynamic state. There, the past does not matter: a historically inferior team will not view a match against top opponents as a lost cause, but instead as a chance for glory. There is neither a "losers' complex" nor a sense of entitlement, making for an uncommonly competitive league.