Bayern Munich are very nearly German champions. Either this weekend or next, depending on results, they will lift the league trophy for the 13th time in 14 years.
In 2026, that trophy, the Meisterschale, will be different. Heavier and wider, it has been taken apart and reassembled to make room for the next generation of champion sides; without this work, there would not have been enough space to engrave Bayern’s name.
The Bundesliga only began in 1963. Before that, German football was regional, crowning its national champion with a cup competition comprising teams that had qualified via the regional Oberliga system.
Between 1903 and 1944, that champion lifted the Viktoria Trophy. It was a statue of the Roman goddess Victoria, mounted on a plinth upon which the shields of the winning clubs were affixed, year by year.
(Bayern Munich/Bundesliga)
It’s spectacular in person. Today, the original is on display in the German Football Museum in Dortmund, where it has been since 2015. During the Second World War, it was presumed lost, having gone missing between being awarded to Dresdner SC in the summer of 1944 and the end of the war. It was only recovered after reunification, with many competing theories explaining its absence, but that created the need for a replacement: the Meisterschale, which was first awarded at the end of the 1948-49 season.
Unfortunately, for Nurnberg, that was a year too late. They won the German championship in 1947-48, the first season after football resumed following the war, but there was no trophy to give them. Instead, VfR Mannheim, now languishing down in the fifth tier of German football, became the first to lift the trophy the following year, after a 3-2 win over Borussia Dortmund in July 1949.
The trophy was made by Elisabeth Treskow, a renowned goldsmith and art professor from Cologne. Treskow was a pioneer in a male-dominated industry, but also a master of her craft, who created the trophy in collaboration with her students. Among them was Fritz Deutsch, a Czechoslovakian Jew who survived imprisonment at Auschwitz during the Second World War and whose work continues to be extraordinarily valuable.
The first version of the trophy they created was around 50cm wide, made from sterling silver and decorated with tourmalines. Between the five largest jewels sat five face plates, engraved with the names of every national champion since 1903. That part of the trophy remains the same — albeit with a tweak. The original plates had room for seven rows of champions. They were redesigned and replaced in the 1960s, making room for 10 rows per plate.
In 1981, the trophy experienced its first major expansion. A silver ring was added, again bejewelled with gemstones, creating a further two rows of engraving space. After a further redesign in 2009, that became three lines and space for every champion until 2025.
Which brings us to the present day and the latest round of work, carried out by Koch & Bergfeld. Based in Bremen, they are among Germany’s oldest silver manufacturers. They also make the cutlery used in German embassies around the world and, in 1967, designed and manufactured the current Champions League trophy, which Bayern also have a hope of lifting this season, having qualified for the semi-final by beating Real Madrid on Wednesday night.
But the Meisterschale first.
(DFL/Getty Images/Oliver Hardt)
The trophy was taken completely apart, into all of its constituent parts. Those different elements, including the gemstones, the face plates, and the additions made over the years, were all designed to join together; the Meisterschale is actually bolted together by dozens of tiny, ornate silver screws.
As the video below shows, they were cleaned and polished; in a few of the hidden places where the sections adjoin, particularly on the original shell, the trophy was starting to show its age after nearly 80 years.
The new outer ring is, itself, essentially in three parts. The design is the same — with five engraving plates, sanded, filed, and separated by tourmalines, fixed to the outer shell — but the section is now large enough to accommodate five lines of engraving on each of those plates, rather than the original three. It means that there is now room for another 30 years of champions and that the Meisterschale can remain in its current form until beyond its centenary, in 2049.
It also means that the trophy now measures 56cm in diameter and, as Bayern will find out if they better Borussia Dortmund’s result against Hoffenheim when they play Stuttgart on Sunday, weighs more than 11kg.
Vincent Kompany’s team are 12 points clear at the top of the table with five games to play and are already the highest scoring champions in Bundesliga history. This current Bayern have scored 105 goals in their 29 games so far, bettering the previous record of 101, set by the club during the 1971-72 season.
