BAYERN’S WINNING MACHINE ROLLS ON
European champions have relentless team spirit that drives them to glory
ANY club in the world would like to be successful. That’s the point of playing football. But very few, if any, are as utterly obsessed about winning as Bayern Munich.
It runs deep in their DNA — through the structures of the club and through the great players who return to staff powerful positions once their careers are finished. Everything is determined by this shared obsession.
I learned that first-hand when I joined Bayern as a 21-year-old. The lessons weren’t easy but I never forgot them.
Many things have changed in football over the 30 years since, but not the mentality in Munich. It’s why they are deservedly wearing the crown of the greatest team in Europe. And why they will still be very much the team to beat when the Champions League starts again in October.
You could see them grow stronger in the second half of Sunday’s final against Paris Saint-Germain. They play with just about the highest back-line in European football, but have utter faith in Manuel Neuer.
The goalkeeper, it must be said, was incredible. Neuer and Thomas Muller are two great examples of the Bayern spirit. Perhaps they will one day take up the off-field roles that define so much of what the club is about.
Surely no other team in the world uses their lineage of former players in the same way. Back in my time, Uli Hoeness was the sporting director and Jupp Heynckes was the coach. Then you had Franz Beckenbauer as an executive, closely watching what went on. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge came in later on, too.
Now you have Oliver Kahn on the board and due to become chairman. That makes Bayern a very particular environment.
People talk about them being arrogant, particularly within Germany, but I have never seen it like that. It is just that obsession of winning. They prioritise it completely.
This season they have the treble of Bundesliga, German Cup and
Champions League after changing coach from Niko Kovac to Hansi Flick, so no one can dispute the success of their thinking.
In 1990, becoming part of Bayern felt a bit like walking into a different world. Everything was bigger.
The Sabener Strasse, where the training facilities are, was absolutely first class. And they have continually kept improving it throughout the years.
I came from Bayer Uerdingen, where there were one or two pitches to train on. Nothing special. All of a sudden you arrive at this place that is like a mansion. You immediately knew you were at one of the finest addresses in football history.
Sometimes the attitude of the club could be found in the smaller details. One thing was the team coach — the Bayern bus — always being there.
You could play away from home in Germany or further afield in Europe. It didn’t matter.
When we landed at the airport, our own Bayern bus would be waiting for us.
Listen, it’s a tiny element but it sends a message. This a huge club and we do things with a certain style.
I had two years there. The second one was ruined by a serious injury. The first was a case of so near but so far.
We finished three points behind Kaiserslautern in the Bundesliga. I remember we had easily beaten them on my debut, 4-0 in the German Super Cup. The team was absolutely top class that day.
But come the end of the season we were second. And we went out of the European Cup in the semi-finals against Red Star Belgrade — thanks to an own goal in the last minute of the second leg.
For most clubs, it would have been a pretty great year: ‘Thanks everyone, we’ll try again.’
At Bayern, it was a disaster. You could just sense it was nowhere near good enough. The focus was purely on winning, winning, winning.
That kind of pressure is incredible but you take so much from it. There was no such thing as a normal training session. You always had to be pushing to 100 per cent because you knew there were so many players who would do anything to get into the starting XI.
I had another thing — a price tag to live up to. When I went there, I was the most expensive player in German football history. That, I must say, was not ideal.
If I played well, it was: ‘Okay, that’s what we expect because he cost six million Deutsche Marks’. That was a huge sum back then. If I played badly, it was: ‘He’s not worth the money’.
It was very tough at times. Being 21, it was certainly a learning curve. And the same could be said for dealing with the presence of the former players.
These guys were huge names. And they worked for television as well. Beckenbauer is the man in German football. If he says something, it’s a rule, really.
At times, he criticised the team. He criticised players, including me.
I found that tough to handle at some points. As you get older, you get to realise that you cannot let too much criticism into yourself. You keep it at a distance and accept it as part of the game. It’s different when you are young but it matured me. You look back now and realise it was one of the stations you had to go through to achieve later in your career. I wouldn’t have missed it. I played most of the games in that first season. Bruno Labbadia and Mazinho then came in as two new strikers. They liked my style but moved me from striker to No 10. Then, in the third game of the second season, I got a terrible knee injury and was out for five or six months.
That was very tough, both as a player and person. I watched as Heynckes was sacked. Soren Lerby came in, then Erich Ribbeck. We had three coaches in one season.
That whole experience gave me a lot of inner strength and the knowledge that football is about ups and downs. I know it’s a bit of a cliché but it did give me a greater appreciation of the good times that followed.
While Bayern maintain these incredibly strong connections to their past, they never stand still. They reinvent themselves when needed.
It’s funny, when I joined they had a reputation as being not exactly boring to watch, but very efficient. Like a Swiss watch. An incredibly strong unit — with some great individuals — but maybe not full of flair.
Now you see the very best of modern football. High pressing, dynamic individuals all over the pitch, great flair and creativity. Still, though, they have the same warrior gene.
I chose to move from Denmark to the Bundesliga because I thought it was the toughest and best football school at the time. Now I think it’s fantastic that Bayern are looking towards Scottish players as they keep building for the future.
The young centre-back Liam Morrison is already there and learning from Martin Demichelis in the Under-19 squad. And I have followed the story of the interest in signing Aaron Hickey from Hearts.
They will see the right attitude — a never-say-die spirit — as a base. I’ve seen Hickey a few times and he is also good on the ball, brave in the way he plays. He’s only 18 so it would be hugely interesting to see how he could develop if he did move to Munich.
Producing players of interest to Bayern is something that Scottish football should feel proud about. After all, everyone could learn something from their obsession to be the best.