![]() ![]() I hated how the team played against Real Madrid in a single-goal defeat in the first leg in the semifinal of the Champions League in Pep’s debut season. The start of Pep’s tenure coincided with some big changes in my life overall, although Bayern was defending champions in every competition, I didn’t feel as connected to the team. Photo by TF-Images/Getty ImagesĪt the end, Heynckes left.with a treble. ![]() Jupp Heynckes had a legendary tenure at Bayern Munich. Moreover, I didn’t want Jupp Heynckes to leave. I didn’t exactly want a Barcelona manager to take over at Bayern, no matter what Guardiola’s credentials were. As someone who wasn’t a fan of tiki-taka and had seen Lionel Messi run rings around Manuel Almunia of Arsenal in 2010 after doing the same to poor Hans-Jörg Butt in 2009, I had had enough. I still remember the day I visited the Bundesliga’s official website and saw the announcement that Pep Guardiola was taking over at Bayern. Part of that is down to life events and part of that is down to events at the club. I was never quite out of love with the club I watched every game in the league and the Champions League but very few are imprinted in my memory between 20. And yet, Bayern has played football of the utmost quality, using some of Rangnick’s tactics (pressing the opposition incessantly comes to mind), over the past two seasons.Īnd that is credit to Hansi Flick, the man who made me fall back in love with Bayern Munich. Yet that one game between Bayern and Hoffenheim remains memorable to me football of such high quality is rare, especially in a season impacted by COVID-19. That game between Bayern and Hoffenheim in 2008 was almost the signal for a new German rivalry at the top until it wasn’t Wolfsburg would go on to win the title, Bayern would finish second and Hoffenheim would finish seventh. Years later, Hoffenheim would hire a young coach by the name of Julian Nagelsmann, who would take them to their best ever finish (third) in 2018 and generate excitement around the club again until his departure for RB Leipzig in 2019. Photo by Filip Singer - Pool/Getty Images Julian Nagelsmann will take over for Hansi Flick in July. Raphael Honigstein’s tribute to the match in the Guardian explained matters rather well, with Hoffenheim earning many plaudits for the way they played. The standard of the game and the speed at which it was played, left fans like me asking for more. The decider was scored by Luca Toni in the dying minutes of the game after Vedad Ibisevic had opened the scoring and Philipp Lahm had equalized. The best game of the first half of that season took place between Bayern and Hoffenheim, with Bayern eking out a 2-1 win. A village team by the name of Hoffenheim had been promoted halfway through the season, they would be crowned winter champions under the tutelage of a certain Ralf Rangnick. Klinsmann’s Bayern side did well in the first half of the season but that was not the fairytale story of the season. ![]() Bayern had rather embarrassingly lost out in the UEFA Cup the season before to Zenit St. There was hope and excitement around the appointment of a young coach, no less a former player, at Germany’s biggest club maybe Klinsmann would be the one who improved Bayern’s overall standard and who would guide them to a strong Champions League showing after years of rather abysmal performances, especially in the knockout rounds. It was the summer of 2008 Jürgen Klinsmann had been handed the reins at Bayern Munich with the minimal expectation of winning the league. ![]()
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