“We’ll speak on the phone beforehand,” confirmed Philipp Lahm. The call will be from Andreas Ottl. The Munich-born duo, team-mates in 2002 when Bayern’s senior youth team won the German U-19 championship, face each other in earnest for the first time when FCB travel to Nürnberg this Saturday. The first skirmish will take place on the phone, “because wind-ups are part of the game,” grinned Lahm.
Andreas Ottl, who joined Bayern when he was 11, is one of two players loaned to Nürnberg by Munich in January. The other is Breno, who joined FCB from Sao Paulo two years ago. Instead of fighting for the league title, the pair are now in the thick of a relegation dogfight. “They’re our aces in the hole, and we desperately need them in the remaining 17 games if we’re to survive in the Bundesliga,” FCN coach Dieter Hecking said at the time of the transfer.
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