Article 54 — Bayern Munich Champions of Germany (Again)
Due to my association and connection to the Italian Serie A and English Premier League, I have loyally followed both those leagues from the time I started watching football in the early 90s. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about other leagues in Europe.
Before the days of Google, I used to read a lot on the history of the World Cup, European Championships, European Cup/Champions League, UEFA Cup and the now-defunct Cup Winners Cup. I would notice the names of the winners and the runners-up. For the club sides, I would take notice of the country they are from. On the Teletext, I would look at the other leagues too and familiarise myself with teams outside of Serie A and the English First Division/English Premier League.
I was never a fan of the German Bundesliga. I didn’t watch any of their matches religiously except the odd Der Klassiker matches between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund ones if there is something important riding on it. I do check up on their results and league standings regularly though. What I do know is that in Bundesliga, Bayern Munich is the number 1 team, the dominant force.
Early this morning, Bayern sealed their 8th straight Bundesliga title and 30th overall. First of all, congratulations to Bayern who overcame a deficit thanks to a slow and shaky start to the season under Niko Kovac. Kovac was sacked in November and his replacement, Hans-Dieter Flick has done very well to steady the ship and guide the team back to first place by Week 20 of the season and end it as champions.
If you are a Bayern fan, you wouldn’t care one bit how many titles you have won overall and how many titles you have won in a row. You are going to celebrate it any which way it comes. With this league title, Bayern has equalled Juventus’ record of winning 8 league titles in a row. The next best team in the all-time list is actually FC Nurnberg with 9 league titles to their name, the last coming in 1967–68! How many of you reading this know who they are? Borussia Dortmund is next with 8 league titles.
As long as I have been a football fan, the only other teams that I have heard winning the league title in Germany have been Borussia Dortmund and VfL Wolfsburg. When I was looking at the list of Bundesliga champions, I was reminded of Werder Bremen and VfB Stuttgart. The one team that I don’t remember winning the league title in that time was FC Kaiserslautern. Through bad European experiences of my teams, Manchester United and Inter, Bayer Leverkusen and Schalke 04 grew into my awareness from the Bundesliga teams. The gap between Bayern with 30 league titles and Nurnberg with 9 is a huge chasm and Nurnberg are presently in the 2nd Division of German football. Oh, the disparity in German football!
This season there looked to be some excitement with at least 6 clubs vying for the league title, slowly the number withered down and at the re-start of the season, there was still more than 1 contender for the title but slowly the old order resumed. Bayern got ahead of Dortmund before the enforced Corona Virus pandemic break, beat them in the title decider to open up a 7 point lead and won the league with 6 games to spare.
To put it bluntly, Bayern’s dominance is boring. It doesn’t bode well in terms of its competitiveness. As a neutral or new fan watching on from the outside, it is not exciting to see one team win the league every season. There might be some exciting players in the league and the playing style is open and attacking but it’s almost a given every season that one team will win it. The lack of competitiveness in the league would affect the performance of German teams in Europe as well. The last time a German team won a European trophy was Bayern in 2012–13 in the all-German final against Dortmund.
This issue of total dominance by one team over a long period is shared with other big European leagues too. Juventus have won 8 Serie A titles in a row, Paris-Saint Germain has won 7 Ligue 1 titles in 8 seasons, Barcelona has won 5 La Liga titles in 7 seasons and Manchester City has won 4 of the last 8 Premier League titles.
As you can see from the above, the Premier League is an exception as there has been some variety in its winners and one team has not swept the championship for consecutive seasons as it has been in Germany, France and Italy. However, the reality of the last 3 league campaigns in England has been less exciting. This is, however, a topic for another day.
The dominance of Bayern and other clubs in their respective leagues fuel the discussion further on the formation of the elite European Super League consisting of the big clubs of each of the top European leagues. I would hate to see that happening as it goes against the spirit of sport and of meritocracy. This is also to be discussed in a different article on another day.
For now, since we are talking about Bundesliga, let’s just hope in the coming seasons there is greater competition and variety in its winners. Congratulations to Bayern Munich once again. The task on hand now is to win in Europe again.
