After an exceptional 2009-10 featuring a domestic double and a place in the Champions League final, the Bayern stars reported back for the new campaign in late June, although the after-effects of the World Cup in South Africa and a plague of injuries made for a patchy first half of the new season. In part 2 of our review of the year 2010, fcbayern.de recalls the major events at the club both on and off the field.
21 June: Van Gaal opens the first phase of preparation for the new season. Andreas Ottl and José Sosa return from loan spells, but the list of absentees is long, comprising the 13 World Cup participants, and the players who have left the club: Christian Lell (transferred to Hertha Berlin), Andreas Görlitz (to Ingolstadt) and Michael Rensing. As the squad comprises just ten players for now, the reserves train with the first team, a sign of the problematic pre-season period to come.
30 June: Pre-season is well underway at the Säbener Strasse, but FCB men are making their mark at the World Cup in South Africa. Twelve FCB stars feature in the quarter-finals, with only Franck Ribéry making a premature exit from the tournament. His first post-World Cup appointment is a round of groin surgery.
4 July: The end of the first pre-season training phase, and Van Gaal declares himself “very satisfied” with the work put in over the first 14 days. At the World Cup, Germany and the Netherlands make the semi-finals, but this means 11 FCB stars will not start pre-season training until 2 August, two weeks before the new season. “It's a major problem,” says Van Gaal.
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