Ottmar Hitzfeld has been sleeping a lot more easily of late, the veteran coach has stated on numerous occasions. Hitzfeld's relaxed demeanour owes much to his club Bayern Munich's summer transfer activities, conducted on a scale and to an extent hitherto unknown in German football.

The Bundesliga's most successful club has flexed its considerable financial muscle, capturing a host of expensive international stars in a bid to banish the memory of a disastrous 2006/07 campaign, but champions VfB Stuttgart and serial contenders Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen retain hopes of thwarting the Bayern juggernaut this term. And with the arrival of the new star names, the Bundesliga itself is hoping to make up lost ground on the leagues in Spain, England, France and Italy, both in terms of appeal, but also in UEFA's five-year rankings, which serve as the co-efficient in allocating places in European club competitions.

When the 45th Bundesliga season opens on Friday with Stuttgart entertaining Schalke, the German football family will be keenly watching the new faces brought in by the 18 clubs for a record total investment of around €180 million. It will be hard to top the drama and tension of the previous season when VfB sealed the championship shield on the very last day, but the wave of popular passion for the game unleashed by the emotive events at the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™, together with a hunger for exciting, attacking football, could roll on well into the new domestic season.

Star-studded Bayern under intense scrutiny
"I have to win trophies, that's very clear," Bayern coach Hitzfeld acknowledges. For the 20-times German champions and four-time European Cup/UEFA Champions League winners, failure to qualify for Europe's elite club competition for the first time in more than a decade was tantamount to a catastrophe. To avoid a similar calamity this term, the board headed by Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge opted to reverse a long-standing policy of financial prudence and dig deep into the club's well-filled coffers over the summer.

Youngster Jan Schlaudraff cost €1m, while €9m went on Argentinian prodigy Jose Ernesto Sosa, €11m on Luca Toni, a FIFA World Cup winner with Italy, €12m apiece for Germany internationals Miroslav Klose and Marcell Jansen, and a whopping €25m for gifted France midfielder Franck Ribery. Add to that the capture of Brazil veteran Ze Roberto and Turkey utility man Hamit Altintop on free transfers, and the Bavarians have invested some €70m in pursuit of a return to the glory days in the company of the Real Madrids, Barcelonas, AC Milans and Manchester Uniteds of this world.

Scorn and bemusement would have greeted Bayern had they not publicly set a target of winning all the competitions they enter this season. A first piece of silverware has already been added to the trophy cabinet, as Hitzfeld's new-look side coasted to the traditional pre-season League Cup title with comfortable victories over Bremen (4-1), Stuttgart (2-0) and Schalke (1-0). All that was achieved without the injured Toni, but the dazzling Ribery has already earned crowd-hero status, and it is little surprise to find Bayern installed as overwhelming favourites in the league, the DFB German Cup and the UEFA Cup.

Rivals in muted mood
The Bavarian Express could yet be derailed, as third division Wacker Burghausen came within an ace - or more precisely, a single spot-kick - of proving last Monday in the first round of the Cup, as the rank outsiders took the runaway favourites to a nail-biting penalty shoot-out before conceding defeat. Monday's goings-on will have been keenly followed all over Germany, but especially so in Bremen, where Werder are doubly keen to put one over their southern rivals following FIFA World Cup top-scorer Klose's acrimonious departure for Munich in late June.

Coach Thomas Schaaf's team overtook SV Hamburg to go second in the all-time Bundesliga points table last spring, and have long been most commentators' top tip to give Bayern a run for their money this term. General Manager Klaus Allofs pulled off the coup of signing Brazilian ace Carlos Alberto, a name pretty much in the same bracket as Ze Roberto, Ribery and Toni, but with influential Germany enforcer Torsten Frings facing two months on the sidelines with a serious knee injury and a stuttering pre-season behind them, the initial optimism in the Werder camp has become somewhat muted of late.

The other top teams are bent on proving that a team cannot be fashioned and moulded by money alone. Freshly recruited playmakers Yildiray Basturk (Stuttgart) and Ivan Rakitic (Schalke) will be tasked with orchestrating the play effectively enough to survive the Champions League group phase, with VfB also re-importing Brazilian goal-getter Ewerthon, formerly of Borussia Dortmund. However, Schalke lost the mercurial Lincoln to a lucrative offer from Turkey, and VfB no longer rate as youthful, carefree, nothing-to-lose outsiders. Coaches Armin Veh and Mirko Slomka have been noticeably reticent to comment in more than the most general terms on their sides' chances this season.

Re-invigorated HSV?
One intriguing question concerns the ability of the pursuing pack to close the gap between themselves and the big four. SV Hamburg, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer Leverkusen, 1. FC Nurnberg and Hannover 96 all look well-placed after a series of well thought-out raids on the summer transfer market. Hamburg and their Dutch international quartet comprising Rafael van der Vaart, Nigel de Jong, Joris Mathijsen and Romeo Castelen are probably the lead contenders, while Leverkusen have opted for prolific Greek striker Theofanis Gekas, the league's leading scorer in 2006-7.

In a departure from the conventional German model, Lower Saxony outfit VfL Wolfsburg have chosen to experiment with placing the entire burden of sporting responsibility on one set of shoulders. Former Bayern boss Felix Magath has been installed in a dual function as both head coach and Director of Sport, akin to the job of manager at an English club but rarely seen in the continental game. However, Magath himself combined the roles at Stuttgart from 2001 and 2004, taking the team from the relegation zone to a season in the UEFA Champions League.

Elsewhere, newly-installed Swiss supremo Lucien Favre will need to demonstrate that Hertha BSC Berlin can compensate for the loss of Kevin-Prince Boateng to England and Christian Gimenez to Mexico. Eintracht Frankfurt are fervently hoping to have nothing to do with the relegation dogfight this time round, turning to Asian experience in the shape of Japan pair Naohiro Takahara and Junichi Inamoto, and Iran veteran Mehdi Mahdavikia.

Ailton aims to outshine them all
Perennial strugglers VfL Bochum, Arminia Bielefeld and Energie Cottbus are surely destined to spend the next nine months battling the threat of relegation alongside promoted trio Karlsruher SC, Hansa Rostock and MSV Duisburg. MSV are hoping for a spectacular swansong from an old friend of the Bundesliga after hiring Brazilian striker 'Toni' Ailton, an eccentric but prolific goal-getter regarded with great fondness in Germany. The league's former top scorer has already fired a shot across the bows of his old rivals from Munich: "There's only one Toni, and that's me."

The curtain finally rises on the Bundesliga and its new all-star cast at the weekend, with entertainment and drama sure to come thick and fast in 2007-8.