SURPRISINGLY, only eight teams have managed to win a comparable trio of competitions, although many have gone close. Some of this select group have been built around outstanding individuals, such as Lionel Messi and Ajax’s Johan Cruyff, while others – like Celtic in 1967 – were founded on the team ethic. Inevitable comparisons will be […]
Tag: Bayern Munich
Soccer City: Why Munich is Germany’s football capital
WHAT chance has any club got when you have Bayern Munich on your doorstep? TSV 1860 Munich, the Bavarian capital’s oldest club, has an unenviable task in trying to get air time when the behemoth that is FC Bayern pervades every side street, kiosk and newspaper. As a city, Munich has much to offer as […]
Forget Barca – Shakhtar Donetsk and Lincoln Red Imps are the more successful
IT’S well known that Real Madrid were the outstanding team of the UEFA Champions League in the period between 2010 and 2019, winning the trophy four times. In terms of overall European prizes, Chelsea, Sevilla and Atlético Madrid all won three, although only the Londoners lifted the “cup with the big ears” from that trio. […]
London belongs to Bayern Munich as Chelsea collapse
CHELSEA and Bayern Munich are supposed to be in transition, two teams in reconstruction mode. Of the two, on the evidence of their UEFA Champions League meeting at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea look a long way off moulding a team capable of living up to the heights of the Abramovich era, while Bayern look to be […]
Why Munich is Germany’s football capital
WHAT chance has any club got when you have Bayern Munich on your doorstep? TSV 1860 Munich, the Bavarian capital’s oldest club, has an unenviable task in trying to get air time when the behemoth that is FC Bayern pervades every side street, kiosk and newspaper. As a city, Munich has much to offer as […]
The Allianz Arena – an aesthetic vision from another planet
ASTOUNDING is one way to describe Bayern Munich’s Allianz Arena. The sheer size and audacity of the building is like something from another universe. You can quite easily compare it to a recently-landed space ship, one that is sitting on the outskirts of one of Europe’s most appealing and civilised cities, observing life forms found […]
Bayern and Leipzig square-up in early title eliminator
THIS coming weekend could be a decisive moment in the Bundesliga title race. Bayern Munich went top of the table after beating Mainz away 3-1 while RB Leipzig, the leaders, drew 2-2 with Mönchengladbach. Bayern, after an eight game run that saw them lose four times between October and December, have seemingly overcome their stuttering […]
Gladbach smiling, Bayern hiring
THE EUROPEAN landscape has barely changed this season: PSG, Juventus, Barcelona, Ajax, Benfica, Liverpool and City all at the top. The once exception among the top leagues is Germany, where Borussia Mönchengladbach lead the Bundesliga and Bayern Munich are struggling to hit their best form. Bayern’s recent 5-1 defeat in Frankfurt proved to be the […]
The Champions League and the preservation of elitism
SINCE THE European Cup was introduced in 1955, there have been 22 different winners of the competition. This list includes some of Europe’s biggest names as well as some unlikely champions. The last “new” winner was Chelsea in 2012, and equally telling, the last team from outside the accepted top 20 most powerful clubs was […]