The Bundesliga is back and this season it will have its own weekly column, which will focus on major stories on the pitch, but also from German football as a whole -- the terraces, the culture and, because it's Germany, the governance too.

On Matchday 1, Bayern Munich thumped RB Leipzig 6-0, Borussia Dortmund let a late lead slip against St. Pauli, drawing 3-3 at the Millerntor, and Koln celebrated their return to the top flight with a 90th-minute winner in Mainz.

Not such good news for Bayer Leverkusen, though...

Erik ten Hag suffered an ugly beginning at Leverkusen on Saturday, losing 2-1 at the BayArena against Hoffenheim, who finished 15th last season. Jarell Quansah scored on his competitive debut after his move from Liverpool, but that was the extent of the good news for Ten Hag, whose team struggled to create any chances from open play (0.89xG created) and looked vulnerable without the ball.

There are caveats though, beyond Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong having been sold and Ten Hag being new to the job. Malik Tillman was signed from PSV to provide some of the creativity that Wirtz took to Liverpool and is still a few weeks from full fitness. Loic Bade, the French international centre-back, has also joined from Sevilla, and he will hopefully make his debut after the international break.

So there are solutions coming and the Leverkusen we saw on the opening day are not necessarily reflective of what they may become. Hoffenheim also look far better than they were last season -- much more dangerous in attack, with former Koln forward Tim Lemperle looking a clever addition.

But there is a leadership deficit at Leverkusen. Wirtz's departure was the most significant, but Jonathan Tah also left for Bayern Munich, Lukas Hradecky, the club captain, joined Monaco, and Granit Xhaka was sold to Sunderland. Those were three significant personalities, each fundamental to the success under Xabi Alonso. All three were excellent during the double-winning 2023-24 campaign. But they were emotionally vital, too, and supplied much of the resilience that team became famous for.

Rewind to the end of the 2023 season and to Leverkusen's first-leg defeat by Jose Mourinho's Roma in the Europa League semi-final. In the second leg of that tie, chasing a 1-0 deficit, they were the better team. Ultimately, Roma were able to frustrate them, chiselling away at their superiority with gamesmanship and exploiting a talented team's naivety.

It was bitter night, but its long-term effect was to inform a change in strategy: Xhaka arrived from Arsenal in the off-season, so did Jonas Hofmann from Borussia Monchengladbach and Alejandro Grimaldo from Benfica. Speaking to The Athletic at Leverkusen's Saalfelden training camp that July 2023, Simon Rolfes, the club's managing director for sport, said it had been important to "rewire the dressing-room" chemistry. The club had the talent to succeed, but perhaps not the emotional balance that experienced players are able to provide.

Those are real qualities, too. Younger players who were part of that team say so much of its success depended upon those players. Regarding Xhaka, many describe how he understood when to stop the game, when to commit fouls, and how to help his team-mates when things were not quite going to plan.

It's worth remembering, too, that Leverkusen are a young club by design. They want to occupy the gap between the middle-class and elite, and that lends itself to having a squad full of young players who, typically, need veteran figures around whom to gather. It's a transient environment, and even success does not change that. This summer, the exodus -- Piero Hincapie seems likely to be the next participant, with Arsenal working on a deal -- is explainable by recognising that having won an unbeaten domestic double under Alonso, there is nothing realistic left to achieve at Leverkusen.

When that kind of change is occurring, it places more emphasis on team dynamics that are still maturing. Robert Andrich is the new captain and a good choice. Aleix Garcia and Patrik Schick are both in the late twenties now, and Grimaldo is still there too, but the squad hierarchies are dramatically different.

So while one challenge for Rolfes and Ten Hag was to literally replace the technical profiles that have been lost, the other is to nurture an entirely new side that has all the chemistry necessary to withstand the season's adversities. Based on the flimsy performance against Hoffenheim, that second part is going to take time, even if reinforcements are on their way.

Bayern Munich started in intimidating fashion on Friday night, beating RB Leipzig 6-0 at Allianz Arena and playing with all sorts of panache.

But there was still controversy in the decision to disallow Antonio Nusa's 'goal' in the second half, which would have made it 4-1.

That move started with a free kick deep in Leipzig's half, which was incorrectly taken by Castello Lukeba. Lukeba dribbled the ball from the spot of the free kick, rather than passing it, with several Bayern players spotting the infringement and protesting as the move developed.

After Nusa scored, the referee initiated a VAR check, but with the problem that "incorrectly taken free kicks" are not actually within its remit. Technically, it is not able to overturn a decision on that basis, regardless of how clear and obvious the mistake.

But it did it anyway. The goal was disallowed -- correctly -- and common sense was applied, albeit to the chagrin of a few VAR fundamentalists.

A DFB spokesperson explained on Saturday morning that: "Due to Bayern's unusually strong protests, the referee felt compelled to inquire with the VAR. The VAR then decided, in the spirit of football, to make an exception and briefly review the irregular free kick because no one would have understood if this goal had counted."

Premier League fans will remember the "occlusion" incident between Aston Villa and Sheffield United in 2020, when Villa goalkeeper Orjan Nyland carried the ball across his own goal line, only for goal-line technology to fail. Replays showed that a goal had clearly been scored at Villa Park, but the VAR officials were unwilling to go beyond its jurisdiction and award it on replay evidence.

Now such a precedent exists.

Congratulations to Union Berlin for a fine win over Stuttgart on Saturday, but also for an absolutely fabulous tifo before the game. For those yet to see it:

"Hold tight to your love," it says underneath, which is the title of a 1975 song by German rock pioneers Ton Steine Scherben.

There was a good reason behind it. Before the game, FCU goalkeeper Frederik Ronnow was presented his award for being voted Unioner of the Year by the club's supporters (with a 48.5 per cent share of the vote for those counting). It's the third time in a row that Ronnow has won the award and the only player in the club's history to match that achievement is Jan Glinker, another goalkeeper, who played for Union between 2002 and 2014, appearing for them in the fifth, fourth, third and second tiers of German football.

Is that Glinker in the tifo? Inconclusive. According to a very well-placed Union Berlin source, the kit and hair makes it more likely to be Sven Beuckert, who kept goal for the club between 2000 and 2003, and who started the DFB-Pokal final in 2001. Any contributions from amateur sleuths are welcomed in the comments section.

Heidenheim were beaten 3-1 at home by Wolfsburg in their opening game. A tough start for Frank Schmidt and his players.

Nevertheless, Leo Scienza scored one of the goals of the weekend, curling in a beautiful free kick in the first half. And Scienza is becoming one of the more significant players at the club. Last season, he scored a (brilliant) last-second winner in the relegation playoff against Elversberg, to keep Heidenheim in the Bundesliga, and he is key to their survival hopes again this year.

But Scienza is more than just his goals. He was born in Brazil and has been playing in Germany since 2020. He was formerly a futsal player, but wanted to try his luck in Europe and took a chance on an offer from Sweden in 2019, with what he thought was a first division side. It was not. Instead, he found himself in the amateur Swedish fifth division with Fanna BK, a provincial club from Enkoping, in the south.

Scienza was not earning any money, but the club's chairman fed him and let him live in his home.

"I didn't get a basic salary," he told SWR Sport in June, "so I slept on a small mattress in the basement for a year and a half."

He joined Schalke's second team in the Regionalliga in 2020, from where he moved to Magdeburg, SSV Ulm and then, finally, to Heidenheim in 2024, with whom he's now played in the Bundesliga and the Europa Conference League.

Those who know Heidenheim's story will recognise the symmetry: 25 years ago, when the club was reborn, they were playing in the fifth tier. Schmidt, the longest-serving head coach in German football history, took over in 2008, when they were still only in their regional Oberliga (fourth tier). It's been quite the journey -- for them and for Scienza.