The long wait to find out who will play who on the opening day of the 2017-18 season is over. The Bundesliga fixture list was released on Thursday and Bayern Munich have quite the opening game.Defending Bundesliga champions will open the new Bundesliga season at home against Bayer Leverkusen on August 18. The schedule for the 2017-18 season was revealed on the Bundesliga’s official website on Thursday, confirming the record champions would face Heiko Herrlich’s side.
Elsewhere, Borussia Dortmund travel to Wolfsburg, while Domenico Tedesco’s Schalke host RB Leipzig. Stuttgart start their Bundesliga return away in the capital, while fellow returnees Hannover face Mainz away. Perhaps the most exciting fixture on the opening matchday sees Gladbach host Cologne in the Rhein derby.
Dortmund will host Bayern Munich at the start of November, and two weeks later will face local rivals Schalke at home.
After Champions League games, Bayern Munich and Hoffenheim have both landed five away games and just one home game each. RB Leipzig have the opposite, while Dortmund have four home games and two away but must host both Bayern and Schalke in that time.
In traditional Bundesliga fashion, the order of the matchdays in the second half of the season mirror those in the first. So on the final Bundesliga matchday in 2017 and on the final day of the season in May, Bayern host Stuttgart, Dortmund travel to Sinsheim to face Hoffenheim and Leipzig have to go to the capital.
The full schedule can be found here on the official Bundesliga website.