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Champions League on Saturday.
Outgoing manager Jupp Heynckes said Bayern Munich were ready to launch a “new era” of European success under his successor Pep Guardiola after victory over Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League final.
Arjen Robben’s 89th minute goal sealed a 2-1 win over Borussia Dortmund in the first all-German final in Europe’s top club competition and wiped away bitter Bayern memories of showpiece defeats in 2010 and 2012.
The Bundesliga champions can complete a German treble in the German Cup final against VfB Stuttgart next Saturday and such is the strength of their overall setup, further success is fully expected in the next few seasons.
Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes (68) is retiring at the end of the season having become only the fourth manager to have lifted the European Cup with two different clubs having also won with Real Madrid in 1998.
He gives way to ultra successful former Barcelona boss Guardiola and with Dortmund’s Germany midfielder Mario Goetze already signed up for next term and their striker Robert Lewandowski also eyed, Bayern’s confidence can only skyrocket.
“Bayern will have to prove that they can continue to achieve these things but it is quite possible a new era might have begun for Bayern Munich,” Heynckes told a news conference.
A year ago, the Bavarians were distraught after losing the final to Chelsea from a winning position on their home ground but after weathering an early Dortmund storm at Wembley, their experience shone though.
“We didn’t resign ourselves to our fate (after the Chelsea defeat),” Heynckes said. “We upped the ante and tried even harder. You have seen the result.”
Heynckes will step down at the end of the season, having become only the fourth coach to win the trophy with two different clubs.
The 68-year-old, who triumphed in the 1997-98 competition with Real Madrid, follows in the footsteps of Ernst Happel, Ottmar Hitzfeld — a winner with both Bayern and Dortmund — and Jose Mourinho.
With Heynckes having led Bayern to a nigh-on flawless campaign in this season’s Bundesliga, in which the Bavarians dropped only 11 points, Guardiola’s chances of improving the team seem almost impossible.
It has raised hopes among supporters that the club can establish a period of success to rival their three consecutive European Cup triumphs of the mid-1970s.
Bayern have already secured the services of Dortmund playmaker Goetze for next season and Heynckes strongly hinted that his team-mate, the Polish striker Lewandowski, was also close to agreeing a move.
“My successor will of course be able to take over a perfectly functioning team,” Heynckes said.
“We know Mario Goetze will be joining and I don’t think Lewandowski will be hanging about too much either, and then of course you’ve got two top attackers as well.
“(Chairman) Karl-Heinz Rummenigge has played a big part in this last summer in completing the team with the risky transfer of Javi Martinez – I mean risky in terms of the price tag, not the quality of the player – and Xherdan Shaqiri, and Dante.
“All the players have been bullseye successes. Of course FC Bayern will have to prove they can continue to achieve these things. But it’s quite possible that a new era in Europe may be beginning under FC Bayern.”
Bayern’s success ended their 12-year wait for Europe’s top prize and took their overall tally to five trophies, putting them joint-third with Liverpool on the all-time list.
Club president Uli Hoeness echoed Heynckes’s thoughts, commending him on “an exceptionally good job” and asserting his belief that “Bayern are set up well, both sportingly and economically, for the future”.
Heynckes lavished praise on the players who have broken new ground for Bayern this season, a year on from their agonising defeat on penalties by Chelsea in the final at their own Allianz Arena home.
“Two finals in succession, quite apart from the fact we won, it’s a huge success and incredibly difficult,” he said.
“And the way we did it this year, playing against Juventus, who’d won the (Italian) title twice in a row, against Arsenal, and against Barcelona, who up to that point were the best team in the world.
“This season has been an outstanding one for FC Bayern. In the whole history of the Bundesliga, there’s been no team that’s played such a consistent season at such a high level, with a 25-point winning margin, breaking almost all the records in the Bundesliga.
We have a team spirit, an ability to work together, which I’ve never experienced before. We have 22 to 23 top-class professionals, all of whom are perfectly capable of playing in the first team and all of whom pulled their weight. Not one of them fell by the wayside or was dissatisfied or didn’t accept what I’d decided, and when you’ve got such high-calibre players, it’s pretty incredible.”
After celebrations in London, Bayern’s thoughts will turn to Saturday’s German Cup final against Stuttgart, when victory would complete an unprecedented treble of trophies in German football.
“After the success we’ve had today, it will give us wings, inspire us. We worked incredibly hard for it, so the players should really let their hair down now. And then from Tuesday, we’ll prepare again for the cup final.”
Bayern may not be as youthful as Dortmund, leaving Guardiola and the board with work ahead of them to renew the squad, but a generation of top players including Robben, Franck Ribery, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Philipp Lahm have now finally won the ultimate club prize. – AFP-Soccernet.
Online Reporter