Here are 30 interesting facts from the German Bundesliga 1, ahead of the start of the new season:

1. Adidas is supplying the new ball, to be used across the whole league. It’s called “Torfabrik” (“Goal Factory”) and identical with the infamous “Jabulani” World Cup ball.

2. Northern club HSV is the first to sell their stadium name for the third time. After AOL and HSH-Nordbank, the Stadium is now called Imtech-Arena.

3. Werder Bremen coach Thomas Schaaf (49) is the oldest manager in the league. 531 games since 10 May 1999.

4. The curtain raiser between Bayern Munich and Wolfsbuirg is broadcasted live in 197 countries.

5. Maik Franz (29/Eintracht) is currently the active player with the most red cards (6). over all record holder: Jens Nowotny (8).

6. Steve McClaren (49/ Wolfsburg) is the first British coach in Bundesliga history.

7. Felix Magath (57/Schalke 04) is the coach with most kids – six. Amongst players, Raúl has the busiest home, with five.

8. The total value of all Bundesliga players is currently around  1.66 Billion Euros. Most valuable team: Bayern Munich (298m), least valuable: St Pauli (29.4m).

9. St. Pauli has only one foreign player in their squad: Carlos Zambrano (21/Peru).

10. Nürnberg has the only Stadium in Bundesliga 1 that also features a running track – all others are football only.

11. % of foreign players in the Bundesliga: 48.8

12. Most spent on transfers before the start of this season: Wolfsburg, 23.4m Euros

13. Most loyal player: Oka Nikolov (36) – with Eintracht Frankfurt since 1994.

14. Most expensive Bundesliga player: Franck Ribery (27), 45m Euros

15. Highest shirt number: Ömer Toprak (21), wears the number 58.

16. Two clubs have live animals as mascots: Geißbock (Billy Goat) Hennes VIII. (Cologne) and Adler (Eagle) Attila (Frankfurt).

17. You can travel to Werder Bremen home games by boat – ferry to the stadium costs 3 Euros.

18. Club with the most fan clubs: Bayern Munich: 2553 with 184.387 members.

19. Dortmund holds the league record for most season tickets sold: 51.200.

20. Cologne’s goal keeper Faryd Mondragon is the oldest player in the league, at 39.

21. Hoffenheim is the only team to wear the same home shirts like last year – blue.

22. Kaiserslautern has the oldest team bus in the league. Their Mercedes bus is 10 years old and has over 280.000KM on the clock. It’s about to be replaced.

23. Gladbach player Marcel Meeuwis (29) has the largest tatoo.

24. Youngest team captain in the league is Andreas Beck (23/Hoffenheim).

25. Fabian Boll is the only player who still has a second job: Police Detective in Hamburg (20 hours a week).

26. Arthur Boka (27) is the smallest player (1.66m), Benedikt Pliquett (25/St. Pauli) and David Rozehnal (30/HSV) are the tallest, with 1.99m.

27. Electricity costs for Munich’s stadium amount to 8000 Euros per game.

28. Schalke and Frankfurt are the only two clubs with a chapel inside the stadium.

29. Timo Horn is currently the youngest player (born 12 May 1993, plays for Cologne).

30. Mainz has the oldest squad (average age: 26.7 years), Dortmund has the youngest (average age 24 years).