Berlin/Munchen 19-05-2010
New ‘sort-of Dutch’ Bayern Munich attempt to surpass predecessors
Bayern Munchen is the most successful club in German football history with an amazing history of having won 22 German titles and 15 cups.
The giants from Bavaria have won many titles, but there are two things they have never done before – firstly to have won over the hearts of German football fans all across the country and not only those living in Bayern – and secondly for having achieved the ‘Treble’.
While the second of these is difficult enough to do, the first is even harder because of the built-up loathing, contempt and yes even hatred which Bayern have incurred over the last decades of playing football in Germany.
Perhaps it is because most Germans see Bayern as the most successful, ‘good-at-whatever-they- do’, rich, arrogant and as a result are simply envious and jealous and hate them!
The ‘Treble’ means to finish in first place in the domestic league the ‘Bundesliga’, to win the ‘DFB Pokal’ or German Champions Cup and thirdly to win the European ‘Champions League’ Trophy – meaning the Treble winner is the undisputed best team in Europe.
However this year it seems on both fronts they are making enormous progress.
The fact that they have a chance to do so this year is in great part due to the presence of their new Dutch coach Louis van Gaal - he has revamped their approach and instituted an attractive, passing, and attack oriented ‘Dutch’ form of football.
Van Gaal replaced Jürgen Klinsmann – a great player in his day, and by all accounts a very amenable personality – but without the ability or desire to apply the discipline and solidity necessary to lead the team.
For van Gaal there should be an almost absolute discipline and mutual understanding in the team – in his football philosophy discipline is the basis for creativity and flexibility.
During last autumn, Bayern started drifting towards the middle of the Bundesliga again and towards European obscurity – was in fact Van Gaal the right coach for Munchen many people were asking.
Elimination from the Champions’ League group stages was looking to become a fact , dissention in the dressing-room was rumored and the football guru’s of Bayern FC [of which there must be at least 2 million!] were surprised and confused when he ended up having to use 3-3-3-1 formation against Hamburg HSV.
His dismissal was being rumored when in November the struggling and under pressure van Gaal addressed Bayern’s important Annual General Meeting.
His uncompromising and stubborn refusal to succumb to chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge’s demands for ‘7-day updates’ and to always play with 2 strikers were audacious – but the audience appreciated his difficult position and his steadfast honest appraisal and his speech was duly met with strong and favorable applause.
Van Gaal the person has these two sides – he has been described in equally laudatory and loathsome terms.
He is, depending on whom you want to believe, both; formidably cold and at the same time welcoming and open; cynical and completely honest and open; an often contemptuous public persona and a humorous interlocutor – He certainly does not suffer fools lightly.
He is certainly someone of integrity and strong values and demands maximum concentration – he doesn’t let players fall asleep on the job.
His wife explains that he is in fact extremely warm-hearted, but that he cannot be nice to people he doesn’t think are nice – he is in fact very honest and very naive – a difficult combination.
Love him or hate him, van Gaal now seems to have Bayern playing his way and breaking with some of the team’s strong traditions – but van Gaal has stuck to his guns throughout. This same tenacious quality that saw the team stumble out of the blocks and almost cost his job early this season – are the qualities from which Bayern are now reaping such great benefits.
The teams’ and van Gaal’s success are equally due to the individual brilliance of one player .
The purchase of Arjen Robben, the most valuable player on the team looked a bit risky at the time, but he fit perfectly into van Gaal’s formation and was a major factor in turning Bayern into champions.
Robbens’ goals come from an array of nearly impossible positions – and always at critical times when Bayern needed most to get them.
He has tied defenders in knots and wrought havoc – Robben is a lightning quick left-footer who plays on the right side and thus confronts defenders with a very unusual challenge.
Robben has emerged after this Bundesliga season as one of the select players in Europe and indeed the world – Dutch fans will hope his form continues into the World Cup in a month’s time.
Louis van Gaal has proved that he has the knowledge, the strategy and the attitude to reshape Bayern into an attacking team filled with flair and has been the most talked about story this season in the Bundesliga.
Bayern have a good mix of youth and experience with Thomas Mueller and Holger Badstuber proving that the future is bright along with the other’ teensters’ Diego Contento and David Alaba – who while not yet ready for’ prime-time’ yet do show a lot of potential.
Meanwhile in Berlin the former Stuttgart football coach, 37 year-old Markus Babbel has been named as the new Hertha Berlin – the now 2nd Division Hertha Berlin who were recently relegated from the Bundesliga.
He will replace loser Friedhelm Funkel who ‘led’ Hertha to relegation from the Bundesliga this season.
The former German national, Bayern Munchen and Liverpool player will sign for 1 year, with automatic extension if Hertha gain promotion back to the Bundesliga in 2011.
Babbel has made 51 appearances for the national team and was part of the 1966 team which won the European Nations Cup. He also had shorter stints with SV Hamburg, Stuttgart and Blackburn Rovers.
As coach he was with FC Stuttgart in the Champions League qualification games for the 2008/2009 season – however he was let go in December after a horrible begin to the 2009/2010 season.