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BAYERN MUNICH

Words Uli Hesse Additional reporting Oliver Trust Portraits Shamil Tanna

Europe’s top team? The world’s top coach? You ain’t seen nothing yet. Bayern Munich reveal exclusively to FourFourTwo how they are combining the old with the new in a bid for global domination

BAYERN MUNICH

BAYERN MUNICH

BAYERN MUNICH

I

t may be hard to believe, but Bayern Munich live just like you and me. Normally when FourFourTwo sets out to glimpse behind the scenes of the leading clubs in the world by walking into the inner sanctum and talking to the key players and the men who call the shots, it means travelling to some leafy suburb or even a walled resort somewhere in the countryside. But when you pay a visit to the reigning Champions League holders, you simply take the subway to the most ordinary part of town, turn left and stroll down the pavement, occasionally evading old ladies with shopping bags and schoolchildren on BMX bikes.

The name of the street – Sabener Strasse – is famous in Germany because of the Bayern connection. But it’s just an unassuming tree-lined residential road in south-east Munich. You walk past five-storey tenement blocks, followed by a row of semi-detached houses. And then, abruptly, you stand in front of a long but low, red and white building which looks like one of those functional state schools they used to build in the late 1960s.

And that’s it. That’s the heart and soul of what is currently the most unstoppable of football juggernauts, Bayern Munich FC. Bayern have been training and working, thinking and breathing, plotting and planning here for many decades. Everybody knows, though, that the place has long since become too small for one of the biggest clubs on the planet. This realisation was hammered home during the summer, when Sabener Strasse became the new job address of a Catalan so universally famous that he is known simply as ‘Pep’ wherever you go. “We’ve always had a lot of media interest here,” says Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Bayern’s CEO, with a faint smile.

“But when we announced that Pep Guardiola would become our new coach, it topped everything. It was like a bombshell.”

In fact, on the day FFT arrived for this in-depth investigation, it was in the truest sense of the expression a challenge to even set foot in the club’s hallowed headquarters.

That’s because the corridors of power were littered with removal boxes. Yet another large-scale redistribution of office rooms was underway to use more efficiently what little space the building offers. It’s not that Bayern can’t afford to move to a bigger place

Bayern made a “secret mission” to meet Pep prior to his USA break

“Welcome to our humble abode...”

Bayern keep it real at Sabener Strasse

– the club holds down fourth place in the Deloitte Football Money League and will, in contrast to everyone else on that distinguished list, be completely debt-free in a handful of years.

No, there are more intangible considerations which make Bayern reluctant to leave this working-class area and move away from the normal families who literally live next door.

“Many clubs don’t have a philosophy: they are driven by investors who only want success,” says Uli Hoeness, Bayern’s president and a former team-mate of Rummenigge’s, more of which shortly. “In their effort to get to the top, they pay only little attention to the fans, the people. But for Bayern, involving these people plays a central role. It always comes as a shock to those who don’t think this is possible, but for our fans and members, this is more than just a club. It’s home. It’s deep affinity. It’s a surrogate family.” And uprooting a family is not an easy decision to make, hence the club’s hesitation to relocate.

Bayern Reserves + 1860 Reserves = a surprising amount of aggro

During our round-table talk with Bayern’s leading officials, Rummenigge underlines Hoeness’ remarks about the club’s philosophy by recalling the day in the summer of 2012 when he travelled to Barcelona on what he calls “a secret mission” to have his first long conversation with Josep Guardiola. “It was before he went to New York,” says Rummenigge. “We chatted for five or six hours and I explained to him what makes this club tick. For instance, I explained that we don’t always train behind closed doors. I told him that we regularly have training sessions that are open to the public.

I think we are the only club among the top 10 in Europe to still do this, but I told Pep that it was important to us, because we want to live in harmony with and close to our fans and give them the chance to see someone like himself, Pep Guardiola, from up close.” Rummenigge still sounds a bit incredulous, or maybe just pleasantly surprised, when he adds: “Pep immediately said: ‘That’s no problem at all’.”

Well, it may not have seemed like a problem that afternoon in Catalonia, but it’s safe to say that Guardiola was forced to slightly qualify his enthusiasm as soon as he saw what inviting the public really means. There was so much interest in his first proper day in the new job – June 26, 2013 – that it was never even an option to hold that debut training session at Sabener Strasse. It had to be moved to Bayern’s shiny stadium, the Allianz Arena on the outskirts of Munich. And even though the club charged admission (for charity), some 10,000 people came out to see Pep up close.

Less than four months later, Guardiola asked the club to buy a few large tarpaulin covers so that he could veil one of the Sabener Strasse pitches and conduct the final training session before a game in secrecy.

Bayern Munich: A Brief History

From Bavarian minnows to a continental colossus

Words Titus Chalk

are in fact two Bayern Munichs. This dawns on us when, after the photoshoot is wrapped up, we momentarily get lost in the bowels of the club headquarters, open the wrong door and suddenly find ourselves in a dressing room. Facing FFT are a dozen or so teenage girls, clad in red Bayern kits and looking at the intruders with the sort of calm seriousness that betrays athletes waiting for a game to begin.

Since our retreat is hasty, we never find out which sport they play. Because you cannot automatically assume they are footballers.

While there are eight pitches behind the Sabener Strasse headquarters, the building itself also houses a spacious gym for sports

such as handball or gymnastics. In fact, its walls are covered with (English-language) adages for basketball – “No candypassing” or “Be part of the solution, not the problem” – and when we later call the club to find out who those girls were, someone suggests they may have been NBA-style cheerleaders.

Here, in that gym, you can still feel the origins of Bayern Munich – a non-profit, charitable club that belongs to its 223,985 members and offers them a variety of sports, from bowling to chess (or “block pushing”, as Bayern legend Franz Beckenbauer liked to call it). This is the “home” and the “surrogate family” Hoeness has mentioned. These days he is their patriarch, because three years ago, in November 2009, the club members elected him the new president and successor to Beckenbauer. It’s the traditional German club model and one that will have been very familiar to Guardiola, as Barcelona are also a registered association owned by the members. You could say this is the old Bayern.

There is another place, not far from this gym, where you can feel and almost touch the old Bayern. It was a coincidence, but on the damp, dark autumn day that FFT first came to Munich, Bayern’s reserve team played 1860 Munich’s reserves in the venerable but decrepit Grunwalder Strasse stadium. The ground is just a brisk walk from Bayern’s headquarters, so we decide to have a look.

It’s not easy, though. Police in full combat gear are blocking the main road outside the ground. The game is sold out, we are informed, and trouble is expected as there is no love lost between the two city rivals. And indeed, the referee will have to stop the game numerous times on account of flares and smoke bombs.

While it’s a competitive game – an encounter in the fourth division of the German league pyramid – it seems fairly over the top to get this fired up during a game between reserve teams. But as an 1860 fan explains: “This is the only derby that’s left. We used to share this very ground with Bayern until the early

Above right “Open training sessions? No problem. It’s not like anyone will turn up” Right Privacy at Sabener Strasse

Now that Guardiola has entered the picture, we should probably have a closer look at what got him to Munich and where he wants to take Bayern. However, first it’s necessary to understand where the men who brought him here – Hoeness and Rummenigge – are coming from, what they represent and what their roles at the club are. Or rather, at the clubs. Because even though many people outside Germany aren’t aware of this, there

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Franz John and his team-mates break away from the Munich Gymnastics club to form Bayern Munich FC and join the German FA.

Bayern get up and running with their first German title.

Oskar Rohr and Hans Welker score the goals in a 2-0 triumph over Eintracht Frankfurt to clinch the trophy.

During WWII, 243 members of Bayern Munich are drafted.

The club merges with FC Alte Haide and plays as Bezirk Schwabing in the re-organised regional league.

Bayern snag their first German Cup with a narrow 1-0 win over Fortuna Dusseldorf.

Rudi Jobst nets the winner in the 78th minute.

Legendary goalkeeper Sepp Maier graduates from the club’s youth ranks, where he has played since 1958.

‘The cat from Anzing’ spends his entire career at Bayern, retiring in 1979.

On 6 June, Franz Beckenbauer makes a goalscoring debut for Bayern in a 4-0 win against St Pauli.

The willowy libero had originally planned to join fierce local rivals 1860 Munich.

Bayern earn promotion to the Bundesliga, under famous Croation firebrand Zlatko Cajkovski. They finish third the following season, while across town 1860 are crowned champions.

Not to be outdone, Bayern cap a fine season with another cup win.

Meidericher are the victims this time, losing 4-2 as Bayern romp to victory.

Bayern sample their first continental success, stunning Europe to win the Cup Winners’ Cup. In a virtual home game in Nuremberg, Bulle Roth strikes to see off Rangers.

Bayern finally get their hands on the one that matters: the Bundesliga trophy.

They win the cup, too. Super striker Gerd Muller (right) is voted German player of the year.

Novice coach Udo Lattek controversially replaces Branko Zebec. Lattek recruits youngsters Uli Hoeness and Paul Breitner and founds an iconic team.

Bayern move into Munich’s swanky new Olympic Stadium.

Die Roten become the first team to win the Bundesliga three times in a row. They are also the first German side to get their hands on the European Cup.

Dettmar Cramer takes the helm from Lattek and steers Bayern to glory. At Parc de Princes in Paris they beat Leeds 2-0 to win a second European Cup.

BAYERN MUNICH

BAYERN MUNICH

entire landscape of the German game, not because he was passionate about football but because he was passionate about the marketplace. “When I started in 1979,” Hoeness says, meaning the day he became Bayern’s business manager at only 27 years of age, “we were a simple football club. Things like marketing and merchandising didn’t play a role; there was very little TV money. When the weather was good, people came to watch us. When the weather was bad, they stayed home. But we were totally dependent on attendances – 85 per cent of our revenue came from ticket sales.”

That was a risky situation for a club that could neither rely on an owner with deep pockets nor hope to attract any investors.

And so Hoeness set about making the club more independent from sporting success (and the weather), and yes: more commercial.

“I went to America to study gridiron and baseball, where they already made millions from merchandising,” he says. “I also went to have a look at Manchester United, who had a unique role in football at the time. We adapted some of the things we saw. Today our average attendance is twice as large as it was back then, but ticket sales account for only 15 per cent of our turnover.”

All this explains why most people consider Hoeness to be synonymous with Bayern. Not just because he has been around forever and was often the club’s loudest and most prominent mouthpiece.

Also because he has played a crucial role in

creating the ‘other’ Bayern Munich, a commercial behemoth so powerful that it could part with more than £31m to snatch Athletic Bilbao’s defensive midfielder Javier Martinez from Manchester City’s grasp without batting an eyelid. (Well, some board members did flinch, but we’ll come back to that.)

In 2002, four years after the German FA had allowed clubs to turn their professional football divisions into limited companies which had to remain in the possession of the parent clubs (the now-famous ‘50+1 rule’), Bayern created the subsidiary Bayern Munich plc.

This is the team you see on television. This is the team Pep Guardiola coaches. Two big German enterprises, Adidas and Audi, together have an 18 per cent stake in this company; the rest is owned by the ‘old Bayern Munich’. The company’s chairman is a former team-mate of Hoeness, another player who won European Cups with Bayern way back in the 1970s – Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.

Unlike Hoeness, Rummenigge hasn’t spent all the intervening years at Bayern, but he returned to the fold as early as 1991 and has been working for the club ever since. It’s why Hoeness says: “The club’s structure is very unusual, because we’ve always taken the long view. Look how many business managers, presidents or board members we have had over the last 30, 40 years. Not many. If you compare that with other clubs, there’s a big difference.”

All of this – the club’s tradition, its leadership continuity, its robust financial health and the fact that all decisions are made by football people instead of overseas investors – goes a long way towards explaining what happened on a Tuesday evening about three-and-a-half years ago. Hoeness and Rummenigge were sitting in a restaurant in the Allianz Arena, waiting for a pre-season tournament game between Bayern and Milan to begin, when suddenly the coach of another participating team walked in – Pep Guardiola. The three men struck up a conversation, in the course of which it became obvious that the Catalan had spent the day gathering information about Bayern. “And then, just as he was about to leave,” Hoeness recalls, “he turned around and said: ‘I can imagine working for Bayern Munich’.” It was more than a casual remark and none of the three men would forget it.

“The whole world knows Bayern Munich,” says Thiago Alcantara. Like so many footballers, the young Spaniard is an almost inconspicuous figure when you meet him in person. However, he looks and sounds like

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A tumultuous period reaches a nadir when the club lose 2-1 to Norwich in the UEFA Cup, their only loss to a British team at the Olympiastadion.

Beckenbauer steps in as caretaker after underwhelming stints from Giovanni Trapattoni and Otto Rehhagel. The Kaiser leads the team to UEFA Cup success.

“Football, bloody hell!” Even Alex Ferguson can’t believe it as his Man United side break Bayern hearts in the dying second of the Champions League Final.

Bayern snatch the Bundesliga title from Schalke in injury time on the final day. They win the Champions League too, beating Valencia on penalties in Milan.

’70s. They were still a football club back then, and we could compete. Then they moved into the Olympic Stadium and earned tons of money. Now they are…” He’s searching for words that could describe what Bayern are.

Finally he says: “Now they live in their own universe.” Then the final whistle goes.

1860’s reserves have won the game 2-1.

The fan raises his arms in celebration and chants: “We are the city’s number one!”

He’s right, you know. Not about being number one – that was just defiance soaked with sarcasm. No, about Bayern and their own universe. Almost all the big clubs in the world define themselves through what they aren’t as much as what they are. The most obvious example, of course, is Guardiola’s old club, Barcelona. The club lives in some kind of symbiosis-cum-deathly-embrace with Real Madrid and would be something totally different if their fierce rivals didn’t exist.

You find this mechanism everywhere you look. Manchester United, for instance, were for many years almost manically driven by the wish to finally eclipse Liverpool’s titles record.

Italy’s triangle of power comprises Milan, Inter and Juventus. And the same principle fuels football in smaller leagues – think of Ajax and Feyenoord or Benfica and Porto. Yet Bayern…

Well, Bayern are an entity unto themselves.

The club haven’t had a proper, durable domestic rival since Borussia Monchengladbach fell by the wayside at the beginning of the 1980s. And of course this has left its mark.

Bayern are the most popular club in Germany, but at the same time they are also the most passionately loathed (many Bayern fans like to wear shirts that declare ‘Your hatred is our pride’). What particularly annoys other teams’ supporters is Bayern’s almost palpable imperiousness – they like to refer to the club’s stadium as the ‘Arrogance Arena’.

However, if you’ve lifted 22 league titles since the formation of the Bundesliga in 1963 while the next best teams, Monchengladbach and Dortmund, have won less than a quarter of that (five each), you are probably entitled to a bit of arrogance. It must be hard not to feel imperious when you are the master of your own universe.

The man who played the most important role in building this universe is the son of a butcher from Ulm, 100 miles west of Munich, who had all but agreed to join 1860 when coach Udo Lattek convinced him to play for Bayern instead. That was in 1970, when Uli

Hoeness was 18 years old and one of the fastest young players in the country. Over the next few years he’d win everything there is to win – including three European Cups in a row – but lose his health after a close encounter with Jimmy Armfield’s Leeds side, in particular the studs worn by left-back Frank Gray.

“When I suffered my first serious injury, in the 1975 European Cup Final in Paris, I never properly got back onto my feet,” Hoeness remembers all these years later, looking out of the window and at the chestnut trees that give Sabener Strasse such character. “The problems started with the medical care. I’d damaged my meniscus, but nobody detected that. All they said was, ‘It needs some rest’.”

At this point in the tale, the man sitting to Hoeness’ right sniggers and shakes his head.

“That’s what they always told us, too,” Matthias Sammer adds laughing, without any detectable bitterness although he knows all about crippling injuries. “They just said: ‘Let’s give it some rest and put some ice on it, maybe some electrotherapy’.”

Sammer had to finish his own active career in 1998, shortly after he was voted European Footballer of the Year, also because of a ruined knee. Like Hoeness, he managed the transition from the pitch to the sidelines well, first working successfully as a coach, then for the German FA and, since July 2012, as Bayern’s director of football.

The difference between the two is that Hoeness became a spectacular success in his second career, changing the club and the

Below Hiring ‘the Grouch’, Matthias Sammer, as director of football ensured Bayern wouldn’t rest on their laurels

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Not content with winning it twice, Bayern grab a third European Cup in a row. Franz Roth scores the winner against St Etienne.

Franz Beckenbauer wins the Ballon d’Or for the second time and departs for the New York Cosmos. A great team starts to unravel.

Even Karl-Heinz Rummenigge cannot prevent Bayern slipping to a 1-0 loss in the European Cup Final against Aston Villa. The wait for renewed success on the biggest stage goes on.

Bayern win a third Bundesliga title on the trot, concluding Udo Lattek’s second stint in charge at the club. In his stead arrives Jupp Heynckes for the start of an epic on-off love affair.

Letting fans hug players is a key part of Bayern’s philosophy. Sort of

“We all agreed that €40m was too much to pay for a player”

Caption in here please yeah thasnks Caption in here

and how good Bayern really were until the one-two punch of signing the most coveted coach on the planet and then knocking Juventus and Barcelona out of the Champions League with stunning ease woke up the whole world.

Bayern’s Wembley appearance in May was the club’s third Champions League final in only four years, yet large parts of the foreign media appeared so startled by Guardiola’s decision that you could be forgiven for thinking Bayern had operated below their radar for years.

Above The signing of Javi Martinez was the start of Bayern’s new transfer policy: spend big when you need to. Pep will raise a glass to that

a man who is at ease with himself and has quickly settled into his new surroundings (“I’m looking forward to my first snowball fight,” he says enthusiastically). When he’s asked what he knew about the club before Guardiola urged Hoeness and Rummenigge to part with £22m for the 22-year-old’s services, his reply comes in excellent English.

“Every football fan watches the Champions League – and Bayern are a mainstay there,” he says. “Everybody knows that this is a special club which stands for financial health and football at the highest level.”

Still, it seems that many people outside Germany didn’t notice how special, how rich

Maybe it’s because for a long time Bayern actively avoided what always grabs the attention: big-money deals. Until Franck Ribery joined in 2007, the club had never spent more than £16m on a footballer, mainly because Hoeness vehemently refused to go into the red for a member of the playing staff.

(The debts which Bayern do have stem from building the Allianz Arena. The naming rights to this stadium, incidentally, were sold to the same Munich-based global player on the financial market where Beckenbauer trained to become an insurance rep back in the ’60s.)

In fact, they are still careful with money.

“I clearly remember the day we were talking about the Martinez transfer in this very room.

Uli and Matthias were present,” Rummenigge says, gesturing towards Hoeness and Sammer, “plus Jupp Heynckes and Karl Hopfner.”

(Heynckes was Bayern’s coach at the time, Hopfner oversaw the club’s finances for many decades until his retirement last year.) “All five of us agreed that €40 million was too much,” Rummenigge continues. “We had tried everything. Jupp even attempted to reason with Bilbao’s president, who had once played under him. But this was the amount written into the get-out clause and he wouldn’t budge.

And so even Jupp said: ‘40 million? No, we probably shouldn’t be doing this’.”

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Bayern move into their current home, the €340 million Allianz Arena. They immediately baptise it with a league and cup double under Felix Magath.

Jurgen Klinnsman is appointed Bayern boss and installs Buddha statues at the training ground. Oddly, things go quickly downhill from there.

The abrasive Louis van Gaal takes the reins. Though his tenure is not an unmitigated success, he is credited with bringing 4-2-3-1 to Sabener Strasse.

Bayern are outclassed in the Champions League Final by Jose Mourinho’s Inter Milan.

This one really hurts.

Bayern lose the Champions League Final in their own stadium, to Chelsea. On the domestic front Borussia Dortmund are a cut above.

Bayern appoint the world’s most in-demand coach, Pep Guardiola, then snaffle Mario Gotze from rivals Dortmund and win a first treble.

BAYERN MUNICH

But as we all know, Martinez did eventually move to the Munich giants. The reason is that a number of events over the last couple of years have led Bayern to reconsider, or maybe just modify, their approach. One was the fact that transfers and wages exploded on the international market, not least because of American billionaires, Arabian sheiks or Asian conglomerates investing huge amounts in England, Spain or France. Bayern were suddenly facing a situation in which being sensible and responsible could mean being left behind on the European stage.

And then there was Borussia Dortmund.

When Jurgen Klopp’s young team won the 2011 Bundesliga title, the anxiety in Munich was muted, as regular slip-ups have become an accepted part of Bayern’s dominance in Germany – after all, underdogs like Stuttgart and Wolfsburg had also recently won the league. But Dortmund did it again a year later, and now there were serious worries around Sabener Strasse, intensified by an unexpected event that can only be called traumatic. Losing the 2012 Champions League Final to Chelsea was heartbreaking because it happened at home and it was a shock because it happened in such un-German fashion – conceding late equalisers and missing penalties was supposed to be an English speciality, not a Bavarian one.

“After that Chelsea defeat, we had some very intense discussions in these offices,” says Hoeness. “We wanted to determine our weak spots. See, it wasn’t only the Champions League final. At that point, we were also far behind Dortmund in the Bundesliga and had lost the German cup final to them. So we brutally analysed the situation to find out what the problem was.” He adds: “And then we made some decisions which don’t seem to have been all that bad.”

One of the decisions was to not sack Jupp Heynckes even though he had just lost out

“In 2012, our squad was too small to compete in Europe and domestically” on three trophies, normally an unforgiveable sin in Bayern’s universe. Another decision was to lure Matthias Sammer away from his post at the German FA and make him the club’s director of football. His task was, as he puts it during the talk with FFT, “to ensure stability and sustainability in sporting terms”, meaning coming up with a concept that promises long-term success. Equally important was Sammer’s reputation as a fiercely ambitious and competitive man who is rarely satisfied (as a player, he was called ‘the Grouch’). His presence at the club, Bayern’s directors will surely have hoped, would make sure that complacency could never again be a problem.

But the most important decision Hoeness and Rummenigge made in the wake of the Chelsea debacle was to become more active in the transfer market. “We must not forget that the squad had been good enough to reach two Champions League finals,” says Rummenigge.

“And yet we talked at length about what we could do to improve it and make sure we would be successful at the third attempt.”

Hoeness adds: “One of the results of our analysis was that the squad was too small to compete both domestically and in Europe.”

Above Defeat to Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League Final led to “very intense discussions”

And so the protracted discussion about the Martinez transfer was not over when Heynckes said the player was too expensive. A year earlier, Bayern’s decision-makers would have probably closed this particular chapter upon hearing words to that effect from their coach, but times had changed. “I looked at Jupp and said: ‘Let me ask you just one question,’” explains Rummenigge. “‘Will this player give us that little bit of extra quality which we need?’

And Jupp’s answer was: ‘Yes’. We all looked at each other. Finally we said: OK, if that’s the case, then let’s do it.”

Rummenigge pauses for a moment before adding: “Hindsight is perfect vision, but Martinez did make the difference in the truly crucial games against Juventus and Barcelona and especially in the final at Wembley, when he took the reins in midfield and made sure we would walk off the pitch as the winning team.”

It’s safe to assume that even the biggest optimists at Sabener Strasse were surprised by how thoroughly all those major and minor adjustments paid off. Bayern became the first German club to win the treble – and did it in great style. “I have the impression that the club is extremely popular at the moment and that even most people who aren’t Bayern fans see the club in a positive light,” is how Thomas Muller puts it. “The main reason is that we play an exciting, attacking game and that the players’ conduct on and off the pitch has been so likeable.”

The lanky, idiosyncratic Muller himself is the best example to illustrate this: he is humorous, eloquent, down-to-earth and has an endearing tendency to not take himself too seriously. When he was interviewed on television after scoring two goals against England at the 2010 World Cup, he politely asked the reporter if he could say hello to “my two grannies and my grandpa”. He has been playing for Bayern Munich since he was

The Five Rules of PEP

How Germany might see a different Guardiola – but not that different

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Words Alima Hotakie

Possession, Possession, Possession It’s no secret that Pep Guardiola is an advocate of possession football. He has taken a side already highly skilled at keeping the ball to another level. His Barcelona sides dominated through possession and short passes, and Pep wants Bayern to rule the roost in a similar fashion. For the Catalan, keeping the ball is everything – a route to domination.

2 Pressing and ball recovery Guardiola stresses the pressing game. He encourages Bayern to press further up the pitch and play a higher line than they were used to under Jupp Heynckes. At times he switches to a 3-4-3, a shape Barcelona naturally morphed into when dominating midfield. The 42-year-old now has the Roten religously counter-pressing, also emphasising attack through the middle.

[[1L]] February 2014 FourFourTwo.com

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The false nine

A single pivot

Multiple roles

While Guardiola tried a false nine during pre-season, the use of Mario Gotze there hasn’t yet come to fruition. He has employed Thomas Muller as a centre-forward, and the results have been mixed. Some games Muller excels, but when he does not, it is obvious the team need Mario Mandzukic, as the game against Plzen demonstrated. Don’t bet against Guardiola reverting to a false nine in future, though.

At Barça, Pep often used Sergio Busquets as a single holding midfielder, with Xavi and Andres Iniesta in front. Now he’s introduced the 4-1-4-1 to the Bavarians. Initially Lahm was used in that role, mainly due to injuries, but he has also used Schweinsteiger and Martinez in that position. It has also been observed that without the ball, Bayern resemble Barcelona by reverting to a 4-3-3.

There’s no denying Guardiola has splendid positional awareness of players: Busquets, Javier Mascherano, Messi and Fabregas are all examples of his proclivity to make multiple use of players. It’s no different at Bayern, where he’s experimented with Lahm in midfield, Muller as a striker, Kroos away from a central attacking midfield role and even Martinez shifting into a No.10 role against Dortmund.

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10, so he knows what he’s talking about when he adds: “We no longer have the image we did 10 years or so ago, when there was the mandatory last-minute goal to secure a lucky win and people resented the club.”

Ironically, the key figure of the club’s annus mirabilis was probably Uli Hoeness’ good friend Jupp Heynckes, a man in his late sixties who was already in his third stint as Bayern coach. “He was incredibly motivated to play a super season,” Rummenigge remembers.

“He would call me every day during my holidays and talk for two hours about what to change and who to buy.”

Heynckes rallied the team behind him – Franck Ribery and Germany defender Jerome Boateng went as far as saying he was a “father figure” for them – and he managed to instill a much-needed defensive discipline. In fact, the single secret behind the treble was that even free-roaming attackers like Ribery and Arjen Robben learned to think like defensive midfielders and work for the team.

So why was it ironic that Heynckes managed to turn a really good side into the best team on the continent, perhaps the world? Because while the coach that Bayern’s management had decided to stick with was planning his revenge on the world to redress Bayern’s balance of the last three years, and was in fact laying the foundations for the greatest season in club history, word reached Rummenigge that someone wanted to talk to him. Pep Guardiola was about to spend his sabbatical in America and asked for a meeting before he left.

This was the five- or six-hour-conversation during which Rummenigge explained what Bayern are all about – and Guardiola told his German guest what he was all about.

“He wanted to know if it would be a problem that he doesn’t give single interviews,” Rummenigge says. “I didn’t even ask him for the reason; I just said it would be OK as long as he would do an adequate number of press conferences.”

Bayern’s CEO, who has approximately 40 years of almost constantly talking to the press behind him, smiles and adds: “It’s astonishing how popular you can become without doing one-on-one interviews. Normally journalists are peeved when you flatly refuse to do them.”

The two men agreed to stay in loose contact and wait until Christmas to see whether or not anything could come of all this. Rummenigge travelled back to Munich and informed the other main characters. One member of the inner circle was particularly amazed upon hearing the news. “When I was working for the German FA, we closely analysed Barcelona,” says Sammer, “from the personality of their coach to their style of play. The team had an identity. It had individuality, quality, stamina, style, class. We even studied Pep Guardiola’s press conferences and I liked the things that he said.” He smiles and points at the wall, indicating a room across the corridor.

“And one day I was sitting over there, with Karl-Heinz, talking about the future, about long-term concepts. Suddenly he asked: ‘What about the matter of the coach?’ I replied: ‘What about it?’ And he said: ‘Pep Guardiola’.

[[1L]] February 2014 FourFourTwo.com

Guardiola gave his first Bayern press conference in pretty good German I almost fell over backwards. I had just spent four years analysing this man!”

The problem, of course, was that they all respected and admired Heynckes. As luck would have it, the coach was in the final year of his contract, which put Bayern in the comfortable position of having two options.

“We were very happy with Jupp Heynckes’ work,” says Hoeness, “and if Pep Guardiola hadn’t at one point signalled to Karl-Heinz that something might be in the offing, we would have extended Jupp’s contract.”

But the signal had been made and so Bayern decided to wait and see what would happen.

“It would have been careless to not embrace this opportunity which would probably never present itself again,” Rummenigge explains.

“Guardiola represented everything we wanted.

Here was a great coach with a clear-cut plan who was also known to have a soft spot for working with homegrown youngsters.

Not to mention that he would be an unbelievable figurehead for the club.”

Hoeness adds: “We were very proud that someone like Pep Guardiola, who could have coached any club in the world, had made it clear very early on that what he wanted to do was join Bayern Munich.”

Some five months after his first public training session in charge of Bayern Munich, Pep Guardiola sighed deeply.

The look on his face spoke of disappointment mixed with helplessness.

Top The drinks are literally on Bayern Above The whole team was behind Heynckes. Literally Below “It’s astonishing how popular you can be without doing oneon-one interviews”

He didn’t even glance at the assembled journalists but instead focused on an area in front of the first row of seats, as if somehow lost in thought. Then he began the press conference in a halting voice. (You will surely have heard that Guardiola gave his entire first Bayern press conference, when he was presented to the media back in June, in pretty good German, having studied it in New York for eight months with a teacher who supports Dortmund. What you don’t hear so often is that his command of the language hasn’t noticeably improved since then.)

“Congratulations to Markus and his team,” he said slowly, meaning Hoffenheim coach Markus Gisdol. Then he explained how the hosts’ tactics had thwarted Bayern’s efforts by leading to superiority in the centre of the pitch.

“They had six players in midfield, because [French striker Anthony] Modeste controlled Martinez and they left [Bayern’s centre-backs] Dante and Boateng unmarked.” Guardiola shook his head, shrugged his shoulders and explained that you couldn’t really win such a game. “We have to make corrections. We have to change our concept,” he said. When a reporter wanted to know if he meant the attitude or the tactics, the Catalan replied: “It’s the tactics. The reason I’m sitting here is that I’m the one who has to improve the tactics.”

He finished the press conference (still no one-on-one interviews, of course) by saying: “This league is a great experience for me. The grounds are unbelievable and they are always full. The teams are very dangerous. They are all physically strong, they have a good concept, the players are comfortable on the ball. It’s a good test for me as a coach. I have to improve as quickly as possible.” He shook his head some more, adding: “I need time to learn more about my players and the Bundesliga.

But I’m surprised by the standard. When I was at Barcelona, we played many games against German teams. But it’s something entirely different when you’re here.”

Guardiola is such a charismatic person and at the same time he comes across as so amiable that the first impulse was to rush over, give him a hug, maybe a kiss on his shaven head, and say: “Don’t worry, Pep, it’ll all turn out well in the end. Just hang in there, mate!” But then you remembered that there was no reason at all to console this man.

Despite his sombre, doubt-filled statement, his team had actually won the game. In fact, when Guardiola took over the side, his players simply continued doing what they had started to do under his predecessor: win more or less everything. In the first week of November, Bayern broke Hamburg’s 30-year-old record by going 37 league games unbeaten. In the last week of November, Bayern broke Barcelona’s 10-year-old record by winning 10 Champions League games in a row. In the first week of December, Bayern broke their own record of collecting more than 87 league points in a calendar year. In the second week of December, Guardiola broke a 35-year-old record by remaining unbeaten in his first 15 Bundesliga games. And so on and on it went.

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Most experts regard Philipp Lahm as the best One could be forgiven for thinking that this is right-back in the world. He has been shuffled almost par for the course. After all, the best around quite a bit over the course of his career, team in Europe had not only been bolstered by one of the biggest talents in Spain, Thiago, and because he also happens to be one of the best left-backs in the world. So what did Guardiola Germany’s best young player, Mario Gotze, but do with a man who can fill both positions also by one of the most successful coaches expertly? He put him in midfield, of course. in the world. Yet you couldn’t really expect the “I played there a few times during pre-season transition to run this smoothly. “When a new preparations,” says Lahm. “Then I had a talk coach comes into a club, there are always with the coach during which he told me that changes,” says Philipp Lahm, Bayern’s he liked the way I interpreted the role. So then Munich-born captain. “Every coach has his he played me in front of the defence, also own idea of football and his own personality. because we had a few injuries in that position.”

So you always have to adapt. Plus, our new (First Thiago was sidelined, then Martinez, then coach had been away from the game for one Bastian Schweinsteiger.) Lahm insists that the year and before that he had won everything position is not a problem for him and that the you can win at club level, so there was team’s new tactics aren’t hugely different: a tremendous amount of interest in him.”

“It didn’t come as too much of a surprise for And there was another thing that could me that I could fill this position, because easily have caused problems, because I played there in youth football and had Guardiola’s self-characterisation as the man already helped out in midfield on occasion. who “has to improve the tactics” has led to Also, outwardly it appears as if we’ve changed many changes on the pitch, from his team our system, but if you look more closely we still selection to who plays where and how. have three central midfielders on the pitch.”

He prefers having only one holding midfielder The funny thing is this: when you actually instead of the duo Heynckes normally watch Lahm play in midfield for the first time, used. Sometimes he benches free-scoring it’s a jarring sight for a few minutes, because centre-forward Mario Mandzukic and uses attacking midfielder Muller upfront, sometimes you’ve become so used to him running up and down the wing. But then gradually you Gotze plays as a false nine, sometimes realise why Guardiola, after only a few weeks Mandzukic is in the team but moves over to in Munich, referred to Lahm as “the most the flank to create space for Robben to run intelligent player I have managed in my into. “Like everyone else, we get the line-up career”. The Germany captain reads the game at 2.30pm [an hour before the game],” so well and is such a sure passer of the ball Hoeness chuckles. “Sometimes we say: ‘Well, that he is indeed an invaluable asset in central that’s what I would have done, too.’ And midfield. When the final whistle goes, you sometimes we go: ‘You must be kidding!’” scratch your head and wonder why you would Amid much laughter and desk-slapping in waste such a natural playmaker in defence. the Sabener Strasse office, Rummenigge So is all fine and dandy in Pep’s wonderland? adds: “No, we don’t say that. What we really For the time being, and as long as he keeps say is: ‘He has a lot of nerve today.’” Cue more winning, yes. But potential unrest is never far laughter. Plenty more. However, it’s the kind away at a club of this size, especially in a year of carefree cheerfulness that comes from that culminates in a World Cup. If everyone’s winning football games week in, week out. healthy, some big names will find themselves While Guardiola’s the-world-is-coming-to-anbenched and could start worrying about their end performance after the Hoffenheim game chances of making the squad for Brazil – or may have partly been just his spiel, it was in maybe even only about their role at the World at least equal parts heartfelt. His attention to Cup. On the day we met Lahm, a magazine detail is so strong that he knows there are still published an interview with the player in which hitches and he has so much experience that he complained it was “difficult to change he knows these hitches could have easily positions from game to game” and cost his team a league game here or there. added that: “When the World Cup Muller, ever the free thinker, dismisses kicks off, I want to know if suggestions that Bayern are actually doing I’m supposed to be a holding better than they could have hoped for, midfielder or a full-back.” considering there have been While Guardiola has created this so many changes. potential conflict himself, there “We have a squad full are also a number of pitfalls of players who are hard The free-thinking, he simply inherited and has to beat if they are on straight-talking little control over. top of their game, Thomas Muller In November 2012, regardless of the tactical the Catalan called system,” he says. “That’s why Rummenigge to tell him I didn’t reckon we would get that yes, something could come of all off to an extremely bad start.” this and he would like to join Bayern.

But the man who’s now walking At about the same time, Arjen Robben towards us to take Muller’s place at was asked about the fact that Heynckes’ the interview table (more precisely, contract still hadn’t been extended and a wooden bench) is the best case replied: “If he’s still fit, he can carry on in point for the risk Guardiola has with us. At the moment there is no taken. And maybe also why better coach for Bayern.” it was a calculable risk.

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BAYERN MUNICH RECORDS SINCE SUMMER 2012

Greatest in a generation? Have your mind blown by these Opta stats Champions League

1

In 2012-13, Bayern became the first German team ever to win the treble (Bundesliga, DFB Cup and European Cup/ Champions League).

By beating CSKA Moscow 3-1 away, Bayern recorded their 10th straight win in the Champions League. Manchester City stopped them from making it 11. The previous record had been held by Barcelona (nine straight wins in 2002-03).

2

Bundesliga

9

In 2012-13, Bayern picked up 91 out of a possible 102 Bundesliga points. The old record (Borussia Dortmund 2011-12) was 81 points.

Additionally, Bayern collected 29 wins in 2012-13 – a new all-time Bundesliga high.

In the same season, Bayern were the first team in Bundesliga history to win each of their opening eight games. Additionally, they became the only team to win their first 14 games of the second half of the season (after the winter break).

Those 14 wins in a row (matchdays 18-31) were also a record for consecutive Bundesliga wins in general. Previously, no team had managed more than 10.

At the end of the 2012-13 campaign, Bayern held a 25-point advantage over second-placed Dortmund – the highest-ever difference between two teams next to each other in a Bundesliga table.

Bayern made sure of the 2012-13 title on matchday 28 with six games to spare, meaning the Bundesliga title was decided earlier than ever before.

Die Roten conceded just 18 goals in the 2012-13 Bundesliga, an all-time record low. Their goal difference of +80 also was the largest (by far) in 50 years of Bundesliga football.

Bayern kept 21 clean sheets in the 2012-13 season, improving the league record by two.

10 11

3

12

4

13

5

14

41 points from the first 15 games has never been achieved by any Bundesliga team before.

Pep Guardiola is the only manager in Bundesliga history to remain undefeated in his first 15 games. Karl-Heinz Feldkamp previously held the record with 14 games without defeat at Kaiserslautern in the late 1970s.

Bayern are currently unbeaten in 40 Bundesliga games. The previous record was held by Hamburg (36 games between 1982 and ’83).

They have not lost any of their last 26 away games in the Bundesliga, equalling their own record from 1985 to 1987. Their next Bundesliga game away from home will be on January 25.

The Reds have scored at least one goal in their last 52 Bundesliga games.

The previous record had been 36 straight games (also Bayern, 1973-74).

Bayern have picked up 90 points from 32 Bundesliga games in 2013.

The previous calendar year record: 87, Bayern in 2005.

6 7

8

15

16

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In December, Hoeness travelled to New York to speak to Guardiola and shake hands on the deal. Everything seemed perfect, but from that moment on, Bayern’s perfect peach of a season began to collect some blemishes.

There was, of course, the fact that Heynckes cannot have been too happy about this development and how late he learned about it.

He was, and is, too much of a gentleman to say anything that would reflect badly on his friend Hoeness or the club, but some think he was so hurt that he became determined to leave his successor the most difficult of legacies. Or, as the renowned German magazine Der Spiegel summarised the months that followed: “Heynckes’ bitterness about this treatment becomes his impetus. He knows he has only half a year left. He makes the most of it. Until now, people thought Guardiola’s successes would be a problem for Heynckes; suddenly it seems to be the other way round.”

Then there was the unsavoury story of Gotze’s move from Dortmund to Bayern. The news that the silky-skilled youngster would activate a get-out clause in his contract and join Bayern for roughly £30m broke at the worst of all possible moments – on the day in April before Dortmund were to meet Real Madrid in the Champions League semi-final first leg. Since football fans are as susceptible to conspiracy theories as other people, quite a few Dortmund supporters became convinced that someone from Sabener Strasse had leaked the story to cause upheaval in Borussia’s camp.

This theory was never proven, yet the Gotze transfer served to dim “the positive light”, as Muller put it, in which people had begun to see Bayern, especially when it was followed by Dortmund striker Robert Lewandowski’s announcement that he, too, was determined to join the Munich giants. Ever since the late 1980s and early 1990s – when Bayern first signed four players from Nuremberg in just three years and then no fewer than six from Karlsruhe (among them Oliver Kahn and Mehmet Scholl) – it is a widely-held belief among German fans that whenever Bayern suspect another club could grow into a serious competitor, they use strong-arm tactics. Read: poach the best players from that team.

“We do not sign players to weaken a rival, we sign players to make Bayern stronger,” Rummenigge says emphatically, but it’s unlikely he can convince the doubters. It’s also unlikely he is even trying: if there’s one thing the treble-winners from Munich will never win, it’s a popularity contest in Germany, and Rummenigge knows this all too well.

Gotze himself is still visibly unhappy about how his decision to move was made public, and the outrage it triggered. Since the big game against Dortmund was only a few days away when FFT talked to the young phenom, he was careful not to add fuel to the fire.

“I would have hoped for a more harmonious farewell,” he says. “It was an entirely new situation for me. Not only concerning the reactions; it was also that I was living at home with my parents and dared to make the move to another club in another city for the first

[[1L]] February 2014 FourFourTwo.com

Mario Gotze runs the gauntlet on his return to Dortmund

“Reckon anyone will notice if I take it home with me?”

“We do not sign players to weaken a rival, but to make Bayern stronger” time. But it’s a hallmark of Bayern that they make it as easy as possible for you and offer you every conceivable support.”

Another challenge Guardiola probably did not expect to face is the so-called ‘mole’.

According to the newspaper Bild, the Catalan lost his cool in mid-November when he found out that one of his players was leaking inside information to journalists. The tabloid quoted him as having told the squad in the dressing room: “No matter who it is, heads will roll.

I will throw him out. He will never play under me again.” As hardly any observer failed to point out, the fact that this statement quickly reached the general public indicates that the mole wasn’t unduly concerned by Pep’s threat.

The reason is probably that close connections to the press, particulary Bild and its offshoots, have a long tradition at Bayern (club legends Beckenbauer, Kahn, Lothar Matthaus and Stefan Effenberg were or are all columnists there). It’s an irritant Guardiola must learn to live with. After all, he has joined a club in which he is by no means the only football legend, a unique Bayern characteristic we will come back to in a few moments.

But the most worrying incident of all – and the one that could have the most serious repercussions in the long run – had nothing to do with football.

Last January, only four weeks after travelling to New York with

Below Lewandowski looks set to follow Gotze from Dortmund to Munich

a contract for Guardiola in his suitcase, Uli Hoeness turned himself in to the tax authorities. He disclosed a secret Swiss bank account and admitted to having earned considerable amounts of money from shares and currency dealings for which he had failed to pay income tax. This voluntary disclosure was made in the hope it would grant him exemption from punishment, but two days before FFT first travelled to Sabener Strasse, the Munich district court decided Hoeness will have to go to trial, starting on March 10, 2014.

The affair was a scandal of massive proportions in Germany – after all, Hoeness is one of the most prominent and most easily recognisable people in the entire country – and it badly hurt the image of the club and the man. Der Spiegel headlined it ‘The Rise And Fall of a Soccer Saint’, referring to the fact that Hoeness used to be widely lauded for his social consciousness and charitable work, and chants from opposing fans such as “Stand up if you pay tax” became common at Bayern games.

However, in the greater scheme of football things, the more pressing concern is: what happens if the worst possible scenario becomes reality and Hoeness is sentenced to jail time? Nobody is bigger than the club, but even his worst enemies cannot really imagine a Bayern Munich without Hoeness. It would be a cruel joke indeed if what made Bayern into what they are today – Hoeness’s love of money and making deals – would end up hurling the club into a serious identity crisis.

For the moment, though, a scary thought of a very different nature enters your mind the more time you spend around Bayern.

The club have been among the two best teams in Europe for three of the past four years and have assembled an outstanding squad that is both extremely balanced and very deep.

The side is so impressive that columnist Graham Ruthven went as far as saying that “this Bayern Munich team isn’t just the greatest in Europe, but the greatest in a generation”, while Hans-Joachim Watzke, chairman of rivals Borussia Dortmund, stated: “Bayern are the best team in the world right now. As a sportsman you just have to accept that.” Now, what if all this is not the pinnacle, but merely the beginning?

We’re not talking about Guardiola and his plans for the future here – not yet – but about something much more powerful than even Pep’s vision: economics. As early as two years ago, Hoeness predicted that Bayern would become “the richest club in the world” in the not-too-distant future. It sounded far-fetched at the time, considering that the Abu Dhabi United Group had just invested hundreds of millions of pounds in Manchester City, exactly the sort of sudden influx of money a club owned by members will never have (unless it issues shares, but that’s something Bayern have avoided so far and don’t intend to do).

But now the Financial Fair Play regulations, which will be properly implemented next year and basically say you can only

BAYERN MUNICH

play against Mainz. It was nine o’clock in the spend what you earn, appear about to become morning, but there were 40 or 50 Bayern reality and they should dramatically level the fans in the bar. Half of them were Americans. playing field. Rummenigge, who is not only They even had their own stadium announcer!

Bayern’s chairman but also chairs the He held a microphone and would announce European Club Association (ECA), is optimistic the goalscorers. It was very impressive.”

Financial Fair Play will do what it says on the This must be the best of all possible times tin. “I think we need it; it’s a must,” he explains. for someone like Wacker to spread Bayern’s “Back in 2008, when Michel Platini first said gospel – a great team coupled with a popular, he was worried about the game’s economy, high-profile coach. When we ask him if he a survey found that 63 per cent of all clubs in feels like he has walked into paradise, he Europe were losing money. I don’t know many smiles and replies: “I’d say this is paradise and lines of industry that can produce a figure like also pressure.” He points out: “Our foundation that and still have a legitimate future.” is very, very good. But for what we want to He goes on to explain that it’s not as if achieve, success on the pitch is essential.”

UEFA simply decreed the new rules; the clubs And this is where Guardiola comes back into themselves decided this was the only way the picture. In some ways, he is just another forward. “In 2010, we had a general assembly Bayern coach, meaning it’s not as if people in Manchester,” he says, referring to the ECA, hope he will deliver silverware – he has to. “and 151 clubs from all across Europe were At Sabener Strasse, there are no laurels to rest present. There was a great argument over upon. “What happened last season is as good Financial Fair Play. In the end, I said we had to as forgotten, for the players in any case. have a democratic vote on this. And all 151 Everyone starts from scratch,” Gotze tells us, clubs voted to bring in Financial Fair Play.” proving that even recent arrivals learn this rule Bayern don’t want to appear as the shining quickly. He adds: “We all know this from every model everybody should attempt to copy. club; perhaps it’s a bit more pronounced here.” (“We are convinced that the path we decided Robben, who’s going into his fifth season to follow is the right one,” says Hoeness, “but with Bayern, has become so used to constant during FFT’s Bayern summit whom hardly a fan Above Robben we’re not pointing a finger at others saying pressure that he doesn’t roll his eyes when FFT would recognise on the street. His name is we’re right and you’re wrong, because we clinches the treble, asks him what goals could possibly remain Jorg Wacker. He is a lifelong Bayern supporter don’t know if our system can be applied but it’s only the start after a treble-winning season. Instead, he and the club’s most recent executive board everywhere.”) But there’s no denying that not rattles off his list of aims with something member. The Bayern website says that his many clubs on the continent can face the next approaching glee: “Well, there was the responsibilities are “internationalisation and few financial years with as much optimism European Super Cup, of course, which we won. strategy”. He himself says: “It’s about more as Bayern. In fact, many now come to Munich Then nobody’s been able to defend the strongly positioning the brand, the product, to learn how to conduct proper business. “Yes, Champions League title and we want to try the philosophy of Bayern Munich on the we now have regular visitors,” Rummenigge to be the first team to do it. We also want international stage. Our competitors are no admits. “Some are clubs from the so-called to win the Bundesliga again. This is very longer the other Bundesliga teams but Man ‘big five’ countries, but there are also many important to us: Dortmund have won the United, Barcelona, Real Madrid. We have to teams from Eastern Europe, where almost league twice in the past three years, so we think globally.” He adds: “I was in New York the every club is dependent on an oligarch. They still have room for improvement there. other week and went to a bar to see Bayern truly have their work cut out for them.”

There’s also the Club World Cup. As And the Germans have another very strange as it may sound, you always powerful ally: the potential for growth. start with nothing all over again.”

During the first decade of the new But as Hoeness has already millennium, the big clubs from England, pointed out, this is a club that Spain and Italy outdistanced the prefers to take the long view.

Bundesliga teams primarily on And so Guardiola’s job, for account of hugely lucrative want of a better phrase, is foreign rights. England and Karl-Heinz Matthias Sammer Jorg Wacker Uli Hoeness to lay the foundations for Spain, particularly, have Rummenigge Sporting CEO Executive board President the kind of dynasty he a language advantage, CEO member created in Barcelona and especially in the Americas, build a team that has, to that will not go away. But use Sammer’s expression, another reason why the “an identity”. As was the Bundesliga fell behind was case at the Nou Camp, this that it lacked ‘sex appeal’. identity will be based on ball And this has changed so possession, a philosophy thoroughly that there is now that’s not new to the club a dramatic surge in interest because it was also what in German clubs. Suddenly Louis van Gaal preached when huge and as yet untapped he joined Bayern in 2009. markets are opening up to “The important thing is that Bundesliga teams, and nobody we have the ball,” says Muller, stands to profit more from them “because it means the other than the club whose name team can’t score. But we also translates as ‘Bavaria’. Pretty have to have many players soon, Bayern are going who are hungry to win the to open offices in New York ball.” This translates into and the Far East. an aggressive pressing game Which is why a man is sitting and that’s something between Hoeness and Sammer

“Our competitors are no longer Bundesliga teams.

We have to think globally”

BAYERN MUNICH

Bayern never really managed to do consistently under Van Gaal. “One of Guardiola’s objectives is creating superiority in numbers,” says Thiago, who joined Barcelona at age 14 and is more than familiar with Pep’s methods.

“Always having two players against one opponent – that’s what the team strives for.”

However, Guardiola is far too smart to try and just transplant tiki-taka. A certain cold-blooded efficiency has always been part of Bayern’s psyche and the Catalan isn’t afraid to fall back upon this quality when needed.

There have been games this season, such as the Champions League match away at Viktoria Plzen, where Bayern’s short-passing approach came to nothing. It was finally won through a ruthless old-school approach: Guardiola brought on Mandzukic, who scored with a classic header from a Lahm cross.

It’s not all about the game, though. Bayern also have an eye towards who plays it. “Our aim is to be in a position where we can make transfers that will immediately help the team and thus secure success,” says Sammer. “But at the same time we want to be a club that values sustainability. I think we are now one of the teams that has the greatest number of homegrown players, and from different generations, too. It’s quite astonishing, really, when you think about it: Schweinsteiger, Lahm, Muller, Holger Badstuber, Toni Kroos, David Alaba... many people forget Diego Contento, who more or less grew up on Sabener Strasse. I think this is a powerful, vigorous approach.”

What this means is that Bayern want to have their cake and eat it. They want to buy big and produce their own stars. They want to maximise both success and profit while being close to their fan base and honouring the wishes of their members. They want to be a global brand and a club owned by its fans.

They want to be Pep and Jupp — fuse the Catalan version of Total Football with German power football. And guess what? At times they have already come close to pulling it off.

Eight days after our pow-wow at Sabener Strasse, Guardiola faces his first truly stern test: the game away at new nemeses Borussia Dortmund. The hosts have many injury problems – not a single member of the back four from the Champions League final is available. Yet, once again, Dortmund give Bayern a run for their money and for well over an hour the game hangs in the balance. In fact, Borussia probably have the more promising scoring opportunities. The problem is that Bayern have everything else.

They have such a deep squad that Guardiola can take off Jerome Boateng just because he’s picked up a yellow card and even the slightest chance of him being sent off constitutes too much of a risk in such a close, massive match.

They have an awe-inspiring Philipp Lahm, who starts the game in defensive midfield and then moves into the hole after the interval. They also have a coach who isn’t afraid to make a leap of faith and tells his players to eschew building from the back and send long balls into the final third of the pitch to neutralise Dortmund’s pressing game. Finally, they have

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Bayern want to maximise success and profit while being close to their fans the big-money transfers. Around the hour-mark, Guardiola brings on Gotze and Thiago. The former scores the opening goal, the latter starts the counter-attack which ends with Robben making it 2-0. Three minutes from time, two homegrown players, Lahm and Muller, link up for the third. Game over.

It isn’t Bayern’s best performance so far – that may have been the demolition of Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium in early October – but it’s impressive enough to make you wonder what could derail this seemingly unstoppable red machine. In the past, the answer to that was always the same: egos.

Bayern’s complex power structures have turned out to be a minefield for many a coach, from Otto Rehhagel to Jurgen Klinsmann and Louis van Gaal.

It certainly isn’t normal for such a big club to be run or represented almost entirely by former star players with a deep knowledge and understanding of the game. After all, there are not only Hoeness, Rummenigge and Sammer, there is also honorary president Franz Beckenbauer. He is no longer involved in the decision-making process, but he remains a constant presence in the media.

Particularly the foreign press loves to quote him because he will sometimes voice strong opinions. They don’t have any relevance whatsoever, because Germans know that the man everybody calls the Kaiser is equally quick to change his opinions.

But newcomers like Guardiola often

Top Lahm and Muller toast their good fortune Above Performance of the season against Manchester City

The Kaiser is a figurehead for Bayern

need some time to learn all this, to understand the hierarchies.

“Actually, I think he appreciates this club structure,” Rummenigge says. “Let me give you an example. When we discuss transfers, the coach sits at the table and together we talk about what we need, what we should do and how we should do it. I don’t think he was used to this from Barcelona, where most decisions are made by the president. A while ago, Matthias and I had a talk with him about the schedule for the 2014-15 season. I said we would like to go to the USA for about a week in the off-season and asked him if this would be a problem. He said: ‘It’s your decision to make.’ I replied: ‘No, we must decide this together, because you have to plan the team’s pre-season preparations.’ He was surprised that we had even asked him!”

“Structures change,” Sammer interjects, “but a club’s spirit remains. Having faith in people and working together – that is the secret of success. And that is Bayern. The point is that Pep knows that the people at the club have confidence in him. And that makes him a wonderful person to have a conversation with.”

“I have never understood this latent criticism that we have too many elephants, too many football people who must be making life hard for the coach,” Hoeness adds. “We are treble-winners. We top the league table. We’ve had a good financial year. It can’t be all bad.

In fact, I think a coach prefers such a situation.

He has to talk to the board anyway. And it’s better for him to talk to people who know the game than to talk to people who know nothing about football but think they do!”

It’s on the way back home that one realises Bayern may live like you and me… but that’s not how they compete. You walk down Sabener Strasse through the drizzle until you can see the floodlights from the Grunwalder Strasse stadium. This is where Beckenbauer and Hoeness played their first Bundesliga games. If you ask the taxi driver to take a slight detour on his way north to the airport, you will pass the majestic yet delicate Olympic Stadium after half an hour or so.

This is where Rummenigge scored the first of his many goals for Bayern. Another 15 minutes and you can see the Allianz Arena right next to the motorway. This is the only home ground Thomas Muller knows. A mere mile further, the city of Munich ends.

Spiritually and administratively, Bayern have stayed true to their inner-city roots. However, in their quest for sporting glory, they moved the actual playing field further and further away from those roots. You could say one of the two Bayern Munichs has literally come within only a few steps of leaving Munich altogether. Maybe that is the real challenge for the future, not becoming a global player or winning more silverware.

Maybe the challenge is how to combine world domination with being a surrogate family for many people. A home.