Bayern have won four of the eight finals they have contested in the UEFA Champions League and its predecessor, the European Champions Cup. On Saturday, eleven years after the most recent victory, the current generation will attempt to emulate Stefan Effenberg and Oliver Kahn, who hauled the team back from a bitter defeat in 1999 to mastermind a dramatic triumph on penalties against Valencia in Milan two years later.
fcbayern.de details Bayern’s history of Champions Cup and Champions League finals over four decades. This list does not include the club’s one Cup Winners’ Cup and one UEFA Cup finals, both of which ended in victory. Saturday’s match is therefore the club’s 11th European final.
Bayern’s Champions Cup and Champions League final history:
15 and 17 May 1974 in Brussels: Just one minute before the end of extra time, Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck saved Bayern from defeat by Atletico Madrid with a thundering drive from 30 metres. “Even Pelé couldn’t have scored that one,” said the big centre-back jubilantly after his goal had given Bayern a 1-1 draw. In the replay two days later, 22-year-old Uli Hoeness, playing “the game of my life”, scored two terrific goals, as did Gerd Müller, and Bayern raced to a 4-0 victory over the tired Spaniards.
28 May 1975 in Paris: Franz Roth and “Der Bomber” Müller scored the goals that secured a 2-0 victory over Leeds United after a world-class display by Sepp Maier had kept Bayern’s goal intact. The French referee denied Leeds a goal through a debatable offside decision as well as what looked a justified penalty, and was permanently banned by UEFA from officiating at matches in European competition. Hoeness suffered a knee injury that subsequently would cut short his career.
12 May 1976 in Glasgow: His winning goal in Bayern’s 1-0 victory over French champions St. Etienne confirmed Roth as Bayern’s Mr Europe, with three goals in four continental finals. It also marked the end of an era, even if club president Wilhelm Neudecker insisted at the celebratory banquet that “Bayern will fight to the death to win”. The 20-year-old Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was so nervous he had to drink two brandies before kick-off.
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