bavarian foot works 
26-04-2024 02:56
26-04-2024 02:56
Is a consistent philosophy the key to Bayern Munich’s success in the modern era?
Bayern Munich is adorned in history, some of it glorious and celebratory, some of it rather painful and absolutely shattering. The 1970s was the decade which brought this club to the forefront of the game as a team built around Franz Beckenbauer won the European Cup three times in a row and successfully competed with the glorious Borussia Mönchengladbach sides consisting of the likes of Günter Netzer and Jupp Heynckes.
The journey we are about to embark begins in the 1980/81 season. Let us delve into Bayern Munich’s performances on the European front throughout that decade.
Year Competition Position Details Year Competition Position Details 1981 European Cup Semifinals 1982 European Cup Runner Up Aston Villa 1-0 Bayern 1983 Cup Winners' Cup Quarterfinals 1984 UEFA Cup Third Round 1985 Cup Winners' Cup Semifinals 1986 European Cup Quarterfinals 1987 European Cup Runner Up Porto 2-1 Bayern 1988 European Cup Quarterfinal 1989 UEFA Cup Semifinals 1990 European Cup Semifinals
In the 1980s, Bayern reached the semifinals of the European competition they were involved in six times, finishing runners up twice in the European Cup rather unexpectedly, losing to Aston Villa and Porto respectively. The win over Bayern remains Villa’s only European Cup triumph while, for Porto, the win over Bayern was their first European Cup triumph. Let us move on to the 90s.
Year Competition Position Details Year Competition Position Details 1991 European Cup Semifinal 1992 UEFA Cup Second Round 1993 Did not participate 1994 UEFA Cup Second Round 1995 Champions League Semifinal 1996 UEFA Cup Winners Bayern 5 - 1 Bordeaux (Aggregate) 1997 UEFA Cup First Round 1998 Champions League Quarterfinal 1999 Champions League Runner Up Man United 2-1 Bayern 2000 Champions League Semifinal
Bayern reached five semifinals in the various European Competitions they were involved in, winning the UEFA Cup in 1996 and finishing runners-up to Manchester United in 1999 in dramatic fashion. Let’s move on to the 2000s:
Year Competition Position Details Year Competition Position Details 2001 Champions League Winners Bayern 5-4 Valencia (penalties) 2002 Champions League Quarterfinal 2003 Champions League Group Stage 1 2004 Champions League Round of 16 2005 Champions League Quarterfinal 2006 Champions League Round of 16 2007 Champions League Quarterfinal 2008 UEFA Cup Semifinal 2009 Champions League Quarterfinal 2010 Champions League Runner Up Inter Milan 2-1 Bayern
Bayern won their first European Cup in 25, yes 25 years, in 2001 against Valencia on penalties. After that, Bayern made exactly zero semifinal appearances in the Champions League (one in the UEFA Cup in which Zenit St. Petersburg tore them apart) until 2010. The aura around Bayern in that decade leading up to 2009-10 was that of a fallen giant. This club had after all won two European trophies and only one European Cup since 1976. As the global fan base of clubs like FC Barcelona and Manchester United expanded, Bayern seemed to be stuck in time, playing a rather archaic 4-4-2 formation. Players looked at Bayern as a stepping stone to bigger moves, perhaps to the Premier League. Nothing symbolized this more than the departure of Michael Ballack in 2006 to Chelsea FC. Soon after, even Franck Ribéry would prove hard to hold on to although he only moved to the club in 2007.
Jürgen Klinsmann was supposed to propel Bayern forward but that experiment failed miserably in 2008/09. His Bayern side were torn apart by a brilliant Barcelona side, 4-0 in the first half (yes, in 45 minutes) of a Champions League quarterfinal. Ribéry exchanged a few smiles with French colleagues on the Barca side at half time. It seemed a matter of time before he would leave for greener pastures. To this day, it seems that the Catalan giants took pity on Bayern in the second half.
Roughly a year later, in 2009, Philipp Lahm, a product of the youth academy of the club gave what is now an infamous press conference. The Guardian quoted him as follows:
The coach at the time of Bayern was a Dutchman, a visionary whose stylish Ajax side had lifted the Champions League in 1995 with a 1-0 win over AC Milan in Louis Van Gaal. He had also led Barcelona previously and promoted Xavi Hernandez to the senior team, playing him regularly. Pep Guardiola would eventually benefit from this; his philosophy would make Barcelona virtually unplayable in the mid to late 2000s with Xavi manning the midfield.
Raphael Honigstein wrote about Lahm and Van Gaal in the Guardian at the time:
“Lahm was careful to avoid personal attacks and broadly supported [Louis] Van Gaal, praising his tactical expertise and thoroughness. ‘We analyse our mistakes after every game, unlike last season’,” said the 25-year-old, waving an imaginary hand at Jürgen Klinsmann.”
Honigstein also added his own commentary:
Too many managers took the blame for crashing out against better, more cleverly engineered teams in Europe while the board kept spending big on players who had scored the odd goal against Bayern in the past or looked as if they might fit the antiquated ideal of a Führungsspieler (leadership figure) in the Effenberg mould. You might call that “a philosophy” of sorts, but international football has moved on.
In that very same season, Bayern Munich with a group of players who were not necessarily world class would find themselves in contention for the treble. Aside from Lahm, perhaps Arjen Robben and Ribéry could be considered world class. Schweinsteiger was becoming world class as a number 6 while the likes of Thomas Müller, Holger Badstuber and David Alaba were experiencing their first full season as members of a senior side. Yet, the philosophy of Van Gaal led them there even when most of the team consisted of youngsters or good players such as Ivica Olić and Hans-Jörg Butt who performed wonderfully during the course of that season.
And so, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, under Van Gaal Bayern changed their system. However, really, Bayern Munich overall changed. Van Gaal employed a 4-5-1 formation meaning that there was only room for one striker in the system. That meant either Miroslav Klose, Mario Gomez or Ivica Olić had to hit the bench. Olić won out in that contest. Bastian Schweinsteiger moved in next to Mark Van Bommel in defensive midfield. And unfancied (it seems strange to use that word now) Bayern Munich suddenly found themselves in a Champions League final in 2010.
While they lost that final, Bayern Munich stood tall. It seemed that they had clawed their way back into the conversation for European trophies in Arjen Robben-esque style. While the approach changed to a more pragmatic one here and there, for the next decade, Bayern Munich would stick to the foundational principles of the 4-5-1 of Van Gaal and the results would follow:
Year Competition Position Details Year Competition Position Details 2011 Champions League Round of 16 2012 Champions League Runners Up Chelsea 4 -3 Bayern (on penalties) 2013 Champions League Winners Bayern 2-1 Borussia Dortmund 2014 Champions League Semifinals 2015 Champions League Semifinals 2016 Champions League Semifinals 2017 Champions League Quarterfinals 2018 Champions League Semifinals 2019 Champions League Round of 16 2020 Champions League Winners Bayern 1-0 PSG
In this decade, Bayern would go on to make 7, yes 7 semifinals. In those 7 semifinal attempts, Bayern would find themselves in the final of the Champions League three times, winning the competition twice. What a glorious decade it has been!
Also, Ribéry never left. When it came time for him to leave, he cried endless tears and became a symbol of the greatness of Bayern Munich. He, after all, became European player of the year as part of this team.
During this decade, Bayern also played beautiful soccer on the front foot in somewhat adjusted styles under different managers, sticking largely to the underlying 4-5-1 of Van Gaal. Jupp Heynckes’ Bayern moved forward with pace, pressing high but not dangerously high. They could counter-attack menacingly as well. Pep Guardiola’s Bayern scored lots of goals and controlled possession, somewhat like Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen. And Hansi Flick’s Bayern pressed extremely high and played with a dangerously high line which produced some magical moments (and hilariously disastrous ones too). This decade also coincided with Bayern winning the Bundesliga a record number of times, by far surpassing Gladbach’s and their own jointly held record of winning the Bundesliga three times in a row.
A common theme throughout this decade was that Bayern adjusted but rarely changed their regular style of play. Flick’s Bayern was especially stubborn, sticking to a high-line in the Champions League final even when trying to defend the likes of Neymar and Kylian Mbappé.
Shirt sales skyrocketed during this decade too as did club members, Tifo explains this wonderfully. The number of fan clubs grew as did membership in such clubs, eventually leading to Bayern having the highest number of official fan clubs around the world. Of course, part of this has to do with Bayern’s marketing department. However, success is necessary to bring in such revenue. (If you watch the video, count the number of times Berni appears!):
Arguably, since the 70s, Bayern’s most successful era has been the 2010s on all fronts. In this time period, the club has had a stable base of long serving players (Bastian Schweinsteiger, Philipp Lahm, Thomas Müller, David Alaba, Manuel Neuer, Franck Ribéry, Arjen Robben, Javier Martinez, Joshua Kimmich, Kingsley Coman, Leon Goretzka and more).
This brings us to the argument that is currently ongoing about whether a philosophy really matters. The naysayers argue that Bayern never really operated with a philosophy (“Bayern existed before Van Gaal”) and had success. As the most obvious data (success on the European level) suggests, that is not really the case since the 70s.
A solitary European Cup and a solitary UEFA Cup is less than what a club of Bayern’s stature should have achieved. If we take 2010 out of the equation, Bayern reached the final of a major European tournament five times and won two trophies between 1980 and 2009. If the UEFA Cup is discounted, the numbers fall to four and one respectively. In the modern era, starting from 2009-10, Bayern reached the same number of finals and won the Champions League twice. Leaders were needed but a philosophy seems to have helped the club triumph.
After Hansi Flick, Bayern saw the first true deviations away from that underlying 4-5-1 under Julian Nagelsmann. And once Thomas Tuchel was hired, he decided to implement his own brand of defensive soccer, far from the high scoring approach that Bayern had under previous managers since Van Gaal. Yet, Bayern continued to score plenty of goals for the most part. Bayern no longer seems to have a consistent philosophy under Tuchel although the players, left on their own, seem to automatically play on the front foot. This was evident in the last few minutes against Arsenal when, instead of holding the ball, Bayern players tried to score another goal. That has been the Bayern way in the 2010s after all.
If Thomas Tuchel succeeds in winning the Champions League, his team’s triumph might resemble that of the 2001 side which was resolute and determined to win the competition. However, as teams such as Pep’s Barcelona and Jürgen Klopp’s Dortmund (and later Liverpool) started to emerge, operating without a philosophy no longer seemed to be effective. An argument can really only be made for Real Madrid who often have the best players in the world in their side (and have the ability to play scintillating soccer).
A triumph for Tuchel and this team would help change the narrative around a season in which some Bayern games have been unwatchable for the fans and the neutrals. This is not a recipe for winning as Bayern, for the first time in more than a decade has failed to win the Bundesliga. They should not have won the title last season either; it just happens that their nearest competitor was a team riddled with problems of its own.
Recently, Bayern failed to re-acquire Julian Nagelsmann due to doubts within the club. Yet, it is quite telling that the club tried to undo the error of sacking Nagelsmann. While Nagelsmann did try to change things, he also reverted to the 4-5-1 foundations. He changed things to a hybrid 3-4-2-1 at times but, he was trying to develop the side, not necessarily make them champions no matter how. Bayern might just have understood that short term coaches without a vision for forward thinking soccer such as Tuchel might be the right manager for another team or to win a trophy in a short period of time but is not right for current Bayern Munich regardless of the results in the Champions League this season. He might turn out to be the least successful Bayern coach since Klinsmann as well.
The club finds itself at a crossroads now as they look to hire the next manager. Everyone on Bayern’s list however is a manager who inspires beautiful soccer be that Roberto de Zerbi at Brighton & Hove Albion, Xabi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen, Sebastian Hoeneß at VfB Stuttgart, Ralf Rangnick (the overlord of gegenpressing) or Nagelsmann. There are rumors linking Bayern and Zinedine Zidane and yet, Bayern is ignoring a manager with a proven record in the Champions League because Zidane was never known to have a set philosophy.
In the modern day game, philosophy matters at Bayern Munich if results are to be believed. The days of Stefan Effenberg and Oliver Kahn are in the past as glorious as they were. Bayern Munich was a “win at all costs” club once upon a time. Winning is still the culture at the club. However, it seems that “win at all costs” now involves a “winning philosophy.”
This is why, even if Tuchel wins the Champions League and leaves Bayern with a wonderful legacy, he will leave the club at the end of the season. Looking for more thoughts and analysis on Bayern Munich’s upcoming Bundesliga match vs. Eintracht Frankfurt? Well, we have you covered with the Bavarian Podcast Works — Preview Show, which is available on Spotify or below:
The journey we are about to embark begins in the 1980/81 season. Let us delve into Bayern Munich’s performances on the European front throughout that decade.
Year Competition Position Details Year Competition Position Details 1981 European Cup Semifinals 1982 European Cup Runner Up Aston Villa 1-0 Bayern 1983 Cup Winners' Cup Quarterfinals 1984 UEFA Cup Third Round 1985 Cup Winners' Cup Semifinals 1986 European Cup Quarterfinals 1987 European Cup Runner Up Porto 2-1 Bayern 1988 European Cup Quarterfinal 1989 UEFA Cup Semifinals 1990 European Cup Semifinals
In the 1980s, Bayern reached the semifinals of the European competition they were involved in six times, finishing runners up twice in the European Cup rather unexpectedly, losing to Aston Villa and Porto respectively. The win over Bayern remains Villa’s only European Cup triumph while, for Porto, the win over Bayern was their first European Cup triumph. Let us move on to the 90s.
Year Competition Position Details Year Competition Position Details 1991 European Cup Semifinal 1992 UEFA Cup Second Round 1993 Did not participate 1994 UEFA Cup Second Round 1995 Champions League Semifinal 1996 UEFA Cup Winners Bayern 5 - 1 Bordeaux (Aggregate) 1997 UEFA Cup First Round 1998 Champions League Quarterfinal 1999 Champions League Runner Up Man United 2-1 Bayern 2000 Champions League Semifinal
Bayern reached five semifinals in the various European Competitions they were involved in, winning the UEFA Cup in 1996 and finishing runners-up to Manchester United in 1999 in dramatic fashion. Let’s move on to the 2000s:
Year Competition Position Details Year Competition Position Details 2001 Champions League Winners Bayern 5-4 Valencia (penalties) 2002 Champions League Quarterfinal 2003 Champions League Group Stage 1 2004 Champions League Round of 16 2005 Champions League Quarterfinal 2006 Champions League Round of 16 2007 Champions League Quarterfinal 2008 UEFA Cup Semifinal 2009 Champions League Quarterfinal 2010 Champions League Runner Up Inter Milan 2-1 Bayern
Bayern won their first European Cup in 25, yes 25 years, in 2001 against Valencia on penalties. After that, Bayern made exactly zero semifinal appearances in the Champions League (one in the UEFA Cup in which Zenit St. Petersburg tore them apart) until 2010. The aura around Bayern in that decade leading up to 2009-10 was that of a fallen giant. This club had after all won two European trophies and only one European Cup since 1976. As the global fan base of clubs like FC Barcelona and Manchester United expanded, Bayern seemed to be stuck in time, playing a rather archaic 4-4-2 formation. Players looked at Bayern as a stepping stone to bigger moves, perhaps to the Premier League. Nothing symbolized this more than the departure of Michael Ballack in 2006 to Chelsea FC. Soon after, even Franck Ribéry would prove hard to hold on to although he only moved to the club in 2007.
Jürgen Klinsmann was supposed to propel Bayern forward but that experiment failed miserably in 2008/09. His Bayern side were torn apart by a brilliant Barcelona side, 4-0 in the first half (yes, in 45 minutes) of a Champions League quarterfinal. Ribéry exchanged a few smiles with French colleagues on the Barca side at half time. It seemed a matter of time before he would leave for greener pastures. To this day, it seems that the Catalan giants took pity on Bayern in the second half.
Roughly a year later, in 2009, Philipp Lahm, a product of the youth academy of the club gave what is now an infamous press conference. The Guardian quoted him as follows:
The coach at the time of Bayern was a Dutchman, a visionary whose stylish Ajax side had lifted the Champions League in 1995 with a 1-0 win over AC Milan in Louis Van Gaal. He had also led Barcelona previously and promoted Xavi Hernandez to the senior team, playing him regularly. Pep Guardiola would eventually benefit from this; his philosophy would make Barcelona virtually unplayable in the mid to late 2000s with Xavi manning the midfield.
Raphael Honigstein wrote about Lahm and Van Gaal in the Guardian at the time:
“Lahm was careful to avoid personal attacks and broadly supported [Louis] Van Gaal, praising his tactical expertise and thoroughness. ‘We analyse our mistakes after every game, unlike last season’,” said the 25-year-old, waving an imaginary hand at Jürgen Klinsmann.”
Honigstein also added his own commentary:
Too many managers took the blame for crashing out against better, more cleverly engineered teams in Europe while the board kept spending big on players who had scored the odd goal against Bayern in the past or looked as if they might fit the antiquated ideal of a Führungsspieler (leadership figure) in the Effenberg mould. You might call that “a philosophy” of sorts, but international football has moved on.
In that very same season, Bayern Munich with a group of players who were not necessarily world class would find themselves in contention for the treble. Aside from Lahm, perhaps Arjen Robben and Ribéry could be considered world class. Schweinsteiger was becoming world class as a number 6 while the likes of Thomas Müller, Holger Badstuber and David Alaba were experiencing their first full season as members of a senior side. Yet, the philosophy of Van Gaal led them there even when most of the team consisted of youngsters or good players such as Ivica Olić and Hans-Jörg Butt who performed wonderfully during the course of that season.
And so, for the first time in what seemed like an eternity, under Van Gaal Bayern changed their system. However, really, Bayern Munich overall changed. Van Gaal employed a 4-5-1 formation meaning that there was only room for one striker in the system. That meant either Miroslav Klose, Mario Gomez or Ivica Olić had to hit the bench. Olić won out in that contest. Bastian Schweinsteiger moved in next to Mark Van Bommel in defensive midfield. And unfancied (it seems strange to use that word now) Bayern Munich suddenly found themselves in a Champions League final in 2010.
While they lost that final, Bayern Munich stood tall. It seemed that they had clawed their way back into the conversation for European trophies in Arjen Robben-esque style. While the approach changed to a more pragmatic one here and there, for the next decade, Bayern Munich would stick to the foundational principles of the 4-5-1 of Van Gaal and the results would follow:
Year Competition Position Details Year Competition Position Details 2011 Champions League Round of 16 2012 Champions League Runners Up Chelsea 4 -3 Bayern (on penalties) 2013 Champions League Winners Bayern 2-1 Borussia Dortmund 2014 Champions League Semifinals 2015 Champions League Semifinals 2016 Champions League Semifinals 2017 Champions League Quarterfinals 2018 Champions League Semifinals 2019 Champions League Round of 16 2020 Champions League Winners Bayern 1-0 PSG
In this decade, Bayern would go on to make 7, yes 7 semifinals. In those 7 semifinal attempts, Bayern would find themselves in the final of the Champions League three times, winning the competition twice. What a glorious decade it has been!
Also, Ribéry never left. When it came time for him to leave, he cried endless tears and became a symbol of the greatness of Bayern Munich. He, after all, became European player of the year as part of this team.
During this decade, Bayern also played beautiful soccer on the front foot in somewhat adjusted styles under different managers, sticking largely to the underlying 4-5-1 of Van Gaal. Jupp Heynckes’ Bayern moved forward with pace, pressing high but not dangerously high. They could counter-attack menacingly as well. Pep Guardiola’s Bayern scored lots of goals and controlled possession, somewhat like Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen. And Hansi Flick’s Bayern pressed extremely high and played with a dangerously high line which produced some magical moments (and hilariously disastrous ones too). This decade also coincided with Bayern winning the Bundesliga a record number of times, by far surpassing Gladbach’s and their own jointly held record of winning the Bundesliga three times in a row.
A common theme throughout this decade was that Bayern adjusted but rarely changed their regular style of play. Flick’s Bayern was especially stubborn, sticking to a high-line in the Champions League final even when trying to defend the likes of Neymar and Kylian Mbappé.
Shirt sales skyrocketed during this decade too as did club members, Tifo explains this wonderfully. The number of fan clubs grew as did membership in such clubs, eventually leading to Bayern having the highest number of official fan clubs around the world. Of course, part of this has to do with Bayern’s marketing department. However, success is necessary to bring in such revenue. (If you watch the video, count the number of times Berni appears!):
Arguably, since the 70s, Bayern’s most successful era has been the 2010s on all fronts. In this time period, the club has had a stable base of long serving players (Bastian Schweinsteiger, Philipp Lahm, Thomas Müller, David Alaba, Manuel Neuer, Franck Ribéry, Arjen Robben, Javier Martinez, Joshua Kimmich, Kingsley Coman, Leon Goretzka and more).
This brings us to the argument that is currently ongoing about whether a philosophy really matters. The naysayers argue that Bayern never really operated with a philosophy (“Bayern existed before Van Gaal”) and had success. As the most obvious data (success on the European level) suggests, that is not really the case since the 70s.
A solitary European Cup and a solitary UEFA Cup is less than what a club of Bayern’s stature should have achieved. If we take 2010 out of the equation, Bayern reached the final of a major European tournament five times and won two trophies between 1980 and 2009. If the UEFA Cup is discounted, the numbers fall to four and one respectively. In the modern era, starting from 2009-10, Bayern reached the same number of finals and won the Champions League twice. Leaders were needed but a philosophy seems to have helped the club triumph.
After Hansi Flick, Bayern saw the first true deviations away from that underlying 4-5-1 under Julian Nagelsmann. And once Thomas Tuchel was hired, he decided to implement his own brand of defensive soccer, far from the high scoring approach that Bayern had under previous managers since Van Gaal. Yet, Bayern continued to score plenty of goals for the most part. Bayern no longer seems to have a consistent philosophy under Tuchel although the players, left on their own, seem to automatically play on the front foot. This was evident in the last few minutes against Arsenal when, instead of holding the ball, Bayern players tried to score another goal. That has been the Bayern way in the 2010s after all.
If Thomas Tuchel succeeds in winning the Champions League, his team’s triumph might resemble that of the 2001 side which was resolute and determined to win the competition. However, as teams such as Pep’s Barcelona and Jürgen Klopp’s Dortmund (and later Liverpool) started to emerge, operating without a philosophy no longer seemed to be effective. An argument can really only be made for Real Madrid who often have the best players in the world in their side (and have the ability to play scintillating soccer).
A triumph for Tuchel and this team would help change the narrative around a season in which some Bayern games have been unwatchable for the fans and the neutrals. This is not a recipe for winning as Bayern, for the first time in more than a decade has failed to win the Bundesliga. They should not have won the title last season either; it just happens that their nearest competitor was a team riddled with problems of its own.
Recently, Bayern failed to re-acquire Julian Nagelsmann due to doubts within the club. Yet, it is quite telling that the club tried to undo the error of sacking Nagelsmann. While Nagelsmann did try to change things, he also reverted to the 4-5-1 foundations. He changed things to a hybrid 3-4-2-1 at times but, he was trying to develop the side, not necessarily make them champions no matter how. Bayern might just have understood that short term coaches without a vision for forward thinking soccer such as Tuchel might be the right manager for another team or to win a trophy in a short period of time but is not right for current Bayern Munich regardless of the results in the Champions League this season. He might turn out to be the least successful Bayern coach since Klinsmann as well.
The club finds itself at a crossroads now as they look to hire the next manager. Everyone on Bayern’s list however is a manager who inspires beautiful soccer be that Roberto de Zerbi at Brighton & Hove Albion, Xabi Alonso at Bayer Leverkusen, Sebastian Hoeneß at VfB Stuttgart, Ralf Rangnick (the overlord of gegenpressing) or Nagelsmann. There are rumors linking Bayern and Zinedine Zidane and yet, Bayern is ignoring a manager with a proven record in the Champions League because Zidane was never known to have a set philosophy.
In the modern day game, philosophy matters at Bayern Munich if results are to be believed. The days of Stefan Effenberg and Oliver Kahn are in the past as glorious as they were. Bayern Munich was a “win at all costs” club once upon a time. Winning is still the culture at the club. However, it seems that “win at all costs” now involves a “winning philosophy.”
This is why, even if Tuchel wins the Champions League and leaves Bayern with a wonderful legacy, he will leave the club at the end of the season. Looking for more thoughts and analysis on Bayern Munich’s upcoming Bundesliga match vs. Eintracht Frankfurt? Well, we have you covered with the Bavarian Podcast Works — Preview Show, which is available on Spotify or below: