Klara Bühl didn’t want to waste any time. So she pulled away from 18 meters with all her strength. The ball hit the underside of the slat and then jumped into the net to make it 1-0. Six minutes had just been played. Next, after just under half an hour, Michaela Brandenburg from SC Sand headed a corner kick so clumsily – or skillfully, depending on your point of view – backwards that it flew over the line to the own goal. Sydney Lohmann then hit with the head (41st minute), later she steered the ball with a minimal foot movement in the desired direction, just before it would have rolled past the post (86th). Marina Hegering (53rd), Lea Schüller (58th), Linda Dallmann (65th) and Simone Laudehr (84th) were also successful. And so this sporting year for the soccer players of FC Bayern Munich ended on Sunday, as this season started: with an exclamation point.
After the 8-0 (3-0) against SC Sand – at the start of the league, Bayern had won 6-0 against the same opponent – the team stood arm in arm on the pitch in a circle. Sports director Bianca Rech and manager Karin Danner had also traveled to Baden-Württemberg. And after the first great joy after Carina Wenninger was thrown into the air by Hanna Glas and Amanda Ilestedt because she has now played 200 games for this club as the longest-serving footballer, Danner spoke to the team. Some players nodded, others smiled and it can be assumed that they did not do this just out of politeness. Everyone is just very satisfied.
The dominance of the Munich women does not seem like it is easy to break
The Munich team finished the first half of the Bundesliga as the undefeated leader of the table five points ahead of their long-term rivals and double winners VfL Wolfsburg. After the start of the second half of the season in Sand, nothing has changed in this constellation. Then there are the games in the DFB Cup and the Champions League, which makes 15 games without a loss. The charisma, discipline and dynamism that they showed result in a dominance that does not seem easy to break through – not even from the upcoming winter break. But before one player alone shows signs of taking off, Jens Scheuer prefers to take precautions. “For me this is really just a snapshot,” emphasized the coach. “We can be proud. But we also know that we need good preparation now and that there shouldn’t be any more injuries so that we can build on our performance.”
In order to spread the burden, Julia Pollak, Gia Corley and Cinzia Zehnder from the second team were also given working time. Even in the Champions League, some inexperienced talent was allowed to play at this level. “We have a lot of young players,” says Scheuer. “But I have the impression that everyone is very grown up, very mature as footballers.” In any case, he can move relatively easily among the established ones. With the variability of the squad, it is almost forgotten that important players have been missing for some time: On the offensive Giulia Gwinn and Jovana Damnjanovic, who both train individually after torn cruciate ligaments, and Viviane Asseyi (ankle surgery). On the defensive, Kristin Demann, who underwent knee surgery, has to be dispensed with.
The exploitation of chances is sometimes expandable – even if the balance of 40: 1 goals does not suggest that
Because the next half of the football year will ideally be an intense one for FC Bayern, Scheuer wants to start preparing on January 11, above all, to work on the physique, consolidate the game processes and improve the final strength. The exploitation of opportunities is sometimes expandable, even if the balance of 40: 1 goals does not suggest that. With all the football refinements – the 42-year-old doesn’t have to worry about the team’s cohesion: “Our team is a real unit, we feel that we have grown together. And every further success naturally carries us on.”
The breeding ground for this growing together and thus for the extremely successful half-year was probably a team measure in the summer in Tyrol. When everyone dealt intensively with one another and worked out a kind of code of conduct for orientation on and off the field, which made openness and honesty the decisive principles of behavior. Obviously, it was possible to form a conspiratorial community out of a cleverly assembled cadre.
“Everyone knows they can rely on the other. That is also carried over to the pitch,” says captain Lina Magull. “It’s all really about team success. Any selfishness is pushed back and it doesn’t scratch the ego when someone sits on the bench. That is not a matter of course.” And Scheuer recounts: “Before the season I said: success sometimes hurts individually because you have to cut back for a team to work. But we try to see that as an opportunity and everyone can prove themselves again and again.”
How strong the team spirit of the FC Bayern soccer players is when things don’t go so well, of course, has to be seen first. The big challenge usually lies in successfully overcoming a crisis – but maybe it won’t come that quickly.
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