Intoxicating states, exuberant feelings of happiness. A city, a club in a state of emergency. What Bayer Leverkusen is currently experiencing is something only four other clubs have experienced in the past 20 years that broke into FC Bayern’s phalanx.
As soon as Munich’s supremacy appears to be threatened, the record champions switch to attack mode. CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen quickly announced that the industry leader “will not rest until the shell is back” on Säbener Strasse. The Rhinelanders are well advised to avoid the mistakes of their predecessors – the backing of a large caliber like Bayer AG is certainly useful.
Werder Bremen 2004: Ailton’s artistic shot
After the turn of the millennium, Werder Bremen quite surprisingly developed into Bayern’s worst rivals. Everything culminated on the 32nd matchday of the 2003/2004 season, when the Hanseatic League completed an incredible series with a furious 3-1 win in Munich. In those heady days, the cult anthem “Lebenslang Grünweiß” was created with the original comment from the Olympic Stadium on May 8, 2004: “Huge mistake by Olli Kahn!…Goal by Micoud!…Ailton tries the art shot! And scores! It works everything!”
In their parrot jerseys, Werder celebrated football that was just as exciting as the Werkself today. When everyone was sober again after the championship, the squad so cleverly composed by the master builders Klaus Allofs and Thomas Schaaf grabbed the double in the cup final against second division team Alemannia Aachen.
In the following years, the Green-Whites reversed the salary spiral in order to keep national players like Per Mertesacker, Torsten Frings and Miroslav Klose for as long as possible, but after a few years the location had become bigger in terms of sport than it could be economically. Everyday life has long since just meant a relegation battle. And yet no one would come up with the idea of cursing the wonderful time on the Weser with the many guest appearances in the Champions League.
VfB Stuttgart 2007: Thomas Hitzlsperger’s hit
What Allofs and Schaaf accomplished was done again just three years later by manager Horst Heldt and coach Armin Veh at VfB Stuttgart. The Swabians were the laughing third party at the time because Schalke made a mistake in Dortmund and Werder disrupted the Bavarian courtship of Klose. When Thomas Hitzlsperger scored with energy from long distance on the last matchday against Cottbus on May 19, 2007, it wasn’t just the Gottlieb Daimler Stadium that was transformed into a madhouse.
Bayern struggled badly in that phase and didn’t even qualify for the Champions League in fourth place. The laurels were not good for Stuttgart, and Veh lost his job in the fall of 2008. Because the salary structure grew into unhealthy levels, VfB striker Mario Gomez went to Bayern in 2009 for 30 million euros.
VfL Wolfsburg 2009: The hoe from Grafite
That year, VfL Wolfsburg took advantage of the next phase of weakness for the Munich team, who had been confused by Jürgen Klinsmann. The way the Brazilian Grafite artfully put the ball over the line with his heel in slow motion on April 4, 2009 looked audacious. Felix Magath substituted his substitute goalkeeper André Lenz for the 5-1 gala.
After the motorcade, the master coach called out that you should go when it’s best. He was inherited by none other than Veh, who, however, did not have access to the VfL stars. The former tourism manager Jürgen Marbach, with the approval of the then VW boss Martin Winterkorn, doubled and tripled the salaries of Edin Dzeko, Zvjezdan Misimovic or Grafite, but the “Wolves'” hunger for success was gone. The Autostadt was simply not suitable for the series production of championships in men’s football – and Magath’s work was not designed for sustainable success.
Borussia Dortmund 2011 and 2012: A serious threat to the leader
Things are different in the Rhineland under the far-sighted sports director Simon Rolfes – and the Bayern bosses sense this danger. When President Herbert Hainer now postulates that “the bowl must go back to Munich,” he is behaving in the style of his predecessor Uli Hoeneß. The patron also didn’t let it go as Borussia Dortmund transformed itself into a feared opponent after its near-bankruptcy.
The way Hans-Joachim Watzke designed the consolidation and Jürgen Klopp established switching football gave BVB two championships in a row. Bayern didn’t want to put up with confirming the 2011 coup in 2012, embarrassing their closest rivals in the cup final and having to face them again in the Champions League final at Wembley in 2013.
After Mario Götze, they brought BVB striker Robert Lewandowski to the Isar on a free transfer in 2014. The crucial transfer to dominate national league operations for the following years. In the near future, Bayern will certainly use all means possible to entice an exceptional talent like Florian Wirtz – if the bait has not already been laid out for 2025.
