Birth of "Bavarian Real" - Bayern enter the world of monster signings
Ozren Podnar
With the Saturday's 3-2 win over Stuttgart in Berlin, Bayern Munich have just completed a historic treble, adding the DFB Cup to Bundesliga and Champions League trophies. With the conquest of Europe in an all-German final against Borussia Dortmund at Wembley and the record-breaking national League title, this has been the most successful campaign in Bayern's history. In fact, this might be the dawning of a new era in European club soccer - the era of Bayern's domination.
Bayern's season has had many similarities with the start of what many considered Barcelona's era in 2008/2009. Then, the Catalans also won the treble, featuring a team full of extraordinary young players. Curiously, the man who managed Barca to the treble was the same one who is about to take over at Bayern. Only, for Barcelona Josep Guardiola was a cheap coaching solution found at home; for Bayern, he will be their most expensive coach ever.
The Bavarians have long prided themselves for being hugely successful despite refraining from the spending sprees typical of Real Madrid, AC Milan, Inter and more recently Chelsea. This is no more the case, as Bayern have joined the club of big spenders, arguably eager to emulate the club they so deeply despised until last year.
Not so different from Madrid
Bayern Munich have frequently slammed Real Madrid for their policy of buying success. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Franz Beckenbauer and Uli Hoeness rightfully criticised the flagship Spanish club for incurring tremendous debts in order to cope with their perennial rivals at Barcelona.
Unflattering parallels between Real and the debt-ridden Spanish economy have also been released from Bayern's offices, which angered both the people at Real and in those in the Spanish government.
Indeed, Madrid have been notoriously reliant on outside talent in their (not always successful) quest for an uninterrupted string of trophies. Homegrown players who have triumphed at Santiago Bernabeu have been ridiculously few ever since the demise of the legendary La Quinta del Buitre (The Vulture's Gang), styled after Emilio "El Buitre" Butragueno. Raul Gonzalez, Guti and Iker Casillas are the only ones that come to mind.
Recent Real's failures in La Liga, La Copa del Rey and the Champions League featured a mostly foreign-born squad with a foreign coach and zero home-grown players. Not even Iker made the team, due to Jose Mourinho's eccentric decision to replace him with Diego Lopez from Sevilla, punishing the regular number one for his lack of enthusiasm for Mou's schemes on and off the field.
Even though Bayern have had their share of big transfers, they have traditionally avoided engaging in the monstrous deals Madrid and certain English and Italian teams have been guilty of. Everything changed last summer, when Honess and Rummenigge splashed the German record of 40 million euros for Javi Martinez from Athletic Bilbao.
The Croat Mario Mandzukic was brought from Wolfsburg for 14 million euros, joining expensive stars like Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery, previously purchased for 25 million euros apiece. Last summer Bayern's ideal starting 11 (Neuer, Lahm, Boateng, Van Buyten, Alaba, Javi Martínez, Schweinsteiger, Robben, Muller, Ribery and Mandzukic) reached a value of 146.5 million euros, counting just the transfer fees.
The Gotze controversy
Bayern should be given credit for forming Lahm, Alaba, Schweinsteiger and Muller in their own academy, but the ratio is bound to change further towards the prevalence of purchased talent. The Germany public was shocked when Bayern released news about the signing of the wonderfully gifted Dortmund offensive midfielder Mario Gotze for a cool 37 million euros.
The news broke just a day after it became virtually certain that Bayern would meet Borussia in the Champions League finals. What was the purpose of making the transfer public at that very moment if not upsetting their rivals?
To add insult to injury, Bayern also released rum ours that the other Dortmund superstar, Robert Lew and ow ski, was also on the way to the Alliance Arena - news that has not been confirmed in the meantime.
As if that was not enough, Gotze was declared unfit for the finals due to a muscular injury. The player most likely to tip the scales at Wembley in Borussia's favour turned out to be unavailable for the big match against his future club. Now, wasn't that an amazing coincidence?
Still, Bayern will keep a comparative advantage over Madrid: they can afford to spend. Unlike Los blancos, breathing heavily under an estimated 600 million debt, the German club is debt-free. Hoeness and his henchmen run an institution that earned 368 million euros last season and is expected to top 400 million this season, only behind Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United.
On top of the membership fees from their 190,000 paying members, Bayern collect 75 million euros annually from broadcasting rights, plus a nine-figure sum from their impressive list of sponsors including Adidas, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Burger King, LEGO, Sheraton Hotels and resorts, Ebel, Trentino and Viagogo.
Try to beat this, Pep!
Bayern's revolution is not limited to the squad: last January, they landed Josep Guardiola, offering him a 16 million euro annual salary, which he could not refuse. Not that anything was wrong with their then manager Jupp Heynckes, the winner of six Bundesliga titles, a Champions League with Real Madrid and a UEFA Cup with Borussia Monchengladbach.
But, as Hoeness put it, "we would have forever regretted not having taken advantage of the possibility to hire such a first-class young coach when he was available."
Now that Heynckes has led Bayern to the Bundesliga-Champions League and FA Cup final treble with this weekend;s win against Stuttgart , Guardiola has suddenly became restless. He will have to deliver spectacular results at once, but how on earth will he be able to top this season's perfect achievement by the veteran Heynckes?
Pep, by the way, comes from an entirely different culture and may find it prohibitively difficult to implement his ideas on German soil. How ironic it would be if his adventure in Bayern were to turn into a catastrophe, and if Uli Hoeness forever regretted letting Heynckes go in the first place!
© Ozren Podnar & Soccerphile.com
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