Bayern Munich – The Cream of German Football
History
Bayern Munich, Fussball-Club Bayern München in full, is a professional football club based in the German city of Munich. It has a rich history that began at the club’s inception in 1900.
The team is German’s most successful club. However, much of its fame and fortune came since the 1960s. The team was formed when some MTV 1879 Munich Sports Club members left the outfit to form their team.
From 2005, the team has played its home games at the Allianz Arena, a 75,000-seater stadium famous for its exterior decorated by inflated ETFE plastic panels. Between then and 1972, the team used Munich Olympic Stadium (Olympiastadion) as the home ground.
Earlier Victories
Bayern Munich beat Eintracht Frankfurt in 1932 to win its first national title. Six years earlier, it had won the South German championship, its first major win.
Before 1963, West Germany had five regional top division leagues called Oberliga. Bayern Munich was a member of the Oberliga Süd (South). While competing in this league, the club won the German Cup in 1957 for the maiden time.
West Germany created the Bundesliga, a national league, in 1963. However, Bayern Munich had to wait for three seasons to be promoted to this top-tier league. By the end of the decade, the team had attracted the cream of Germany’s football talent, including Gerd Müller, Franz Beckenbauer, and Sepp Maier.
While turning up for Bayern Munich, Müller won the top scorer award for seven seasons and remains Bundesliga’s all-time leading scorer.
In 1967, the team won the European Cup Winners’ Cup. The first Bundesliga title came a season later, after which it suffered a seven-year dry spell before picking the Intercontinental Cup in 1976.
More Recent Wins
Three European Cup (now the UEFA Champions League) victories came back-to-back in 1974, 1975, 1976, and with those wins, Bayern Munich became the last team to manage the feat until Real Madrid in 2014-15 through 2017-18 seasons.
Overall, the team has won the Bundesliga 29 times and the DFB-Pokal Cup 20 times. It has lifted the League Cup six times and the UEFA Cup once. The team is the current UEFA Champions League champion. They have won the trophy six times.
They beat Paris Saint-Germain 1-0 in the finals that were played at the Estádio Sport Lisboa e Benfica in Lisbon, Portugal.
Notable Players
Over the years, Bayern Munich’s ranks have boasted some of the best footballers on the planet. Some of these, past and present, include Jürgen Klinsmann, a prolific goal scorer who helped Germany win the 1990 FIFA World Cup, and Oliver Kahn, who is regarded as one of the greatest goalkeepers that football has ever seen.
Other equally illustrious players who have donned the Bayern Munich colours, include Lothar Matthäus, Manuel Neuer, Michael Ballack, Arjen Robben, Franck Ribéry, Luca Toni, and Miroslav Klose. Jérôme Boateng, Thiago Alcântara, Robert Lewandowski, Bastian Schweinsteiger, and Claudio Pizarro have also played for the club at some point.
