Sport Replaced as champion
FC Bayern hit back so hard last time
As of: 4:03 p.m. | Reading time: 4 minutes
Leverkusen ends FC Bayern’s hegemony. At least for now. But a look at history reveals that changing of the guard is only short-lived. Most of the time, the Munich team hit the direct competition. BVB is a warning example.
For the youngest generation of football fans, April 14, 2024 will be a novelty: Bayer Leverkusen will become German champions for the first time and ahead of schedule and will end Bayern’s hegemony with its spectacular style of play. For eleven years, boys and girls interested in football in this country had seen no other title holder in the Bundesliga than Munich – now this equally impressive and enervating series of successes is coming to an end.
But there are also two groundbreaking questions associated with the celebration ceremony on the Rhine: How long will the German industry leader put up with such humiliation? And: How hard and mercilessly will FC Bayern now strike back?
A look at recent history reveals that Bayern were particularly good at sustainably weakening their immediate competition following rather average seasons. After the season, when the record champions were not at the top for the last time, he concentrated on a major personnel attack on Borussia Dortmund.
First Götze, then Lewandowski, finally Hummels
BVB won the championship twice in a row under Jürgen Klopp in 2011 and 2012 and also caused a lasting hangover for Uli Hoeneß and the other Munich makers with a 5-2 win over Bayern in the 2012 cup final. “The Empire will strike back, that is absolutely clear. When you get so close to Bavaria, there are certain escalations,” said Hans-Joachim Watzke. And the managing director was to be proven right with his prophetic foresight – to his own chagrin.
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Bayern’s setback, as announced by Watzke, followed with a year’s delay: in 2013, young star Mario Götze left Dortmund for a fee of 37 million euros and joined FCB. World-class striker Robert Lewandowski followed in 2014, moving from the Ruhr area to the Isar on a free transfer. In 2016, BVB’s head of defense, Mats Hummels, who trained in Munich, finally left BVB and returned to his hometown club.
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The club could no longer cope with the bloodletting. Apart from the two cup victories in 2017 and 2021, Borussia Dortmund has remained titleless since then. Is Bayer Leverkusen now threatened with similar trouble?
Alonso and Wirtz are staying – for now
At least the new champions were able to clarify the most important personnel details before the spectacular showdown on Sunday evening with the 5-0 win over Werder Bremen. Xabi Aloso, 42-year-old father of the sudden success, will remain with the club in the new season. The coach himself sees himself in good hands in Leverkusen and was able to resist Bayern’s advances in the search for a successor to the hapless coach Thomas Tuchel, who left in the summer.
Mastermaker: Xabi Alonso
Quelle: Getty Images/Lars Baron
A coup for Bayer. World-class playmaker Florian Wirtz also committed to staying, while the future of others such as the sought-after right-back Jeremie Frimpong is still unclear. He is high on the transfer wish list of the club, which has not had an exceptional player in this position since Benjamin Pavard left for Inter Milan in 2023. In recent weeks, Joshua Kimmich had even helped out as a right-back; it was only on Saturday that the national player returned to his usual position in defensive midfield in the 2-0 win over 1. FC Köln.
In addition to the extremely fast Frimpong, other Leverkusen master players should also be of interest to Bayern. With his mix of reliability and duel strength, Robert Andrich is the six that the club could urgently need – and that Tuchel has been demanding in vain for a year.
Flywheel Granit Xhaka also falls into this category. The Swiss knows how to set the pace and style of the game like no other. And the massive center forward Victor Boniface, who has just returned from a four-month injury break and was the “can opener” of the game with his goal against Bremen to make it 1-0, is now in the notebooks of many top European clubs.
It’s fitting for Bayern that they included a small declaration of war in their congratulations to Leverkusen. “FC Bayern’s series has broken, but we will now do everything we can to attack again,” said sports director Max Eberl. “FC Bayern’s goal is now: the bowl has to go back to Munich! We’ll see each other in the new season,” said President Herbert Hainer. And the Munich CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen explained: “We take this as a direct incentive, will work even harder and will not rest until the bowl comes back to Munich on Säbener Straße.”