Treble winners Bayern have swept the board in the annual German Player of the Season awards, with Bastian Schweinsteiger, Franck Ribéry and Thomas Müller taking the top three spots in the 54th edition of the long-running poll conducted by kicker magazine. In the vote for coach of the season, Jupp Heynckes was the undisputed and runaway winner.
It is the first time Schweinsteiger has been named German Player of the Season. The Bayern vice-captain received 92 of the 527 votes cast by accredited sports journalists. Schweinsteiger is the 19th FCB player to win the award: Franz Beckenbauer is the most successful winner in the accolade’s history with four triumphs.
Nine Bayern FCB men in the top 15
Behind Schweinsteiger, it was a close-run thing for second spot between Ribéry (87 votes) and Müller (85). Borussia Dortmund’s Robert Lewandowski was the first non-Munich man in fourth, with previous season’s winner Marco Reus in 11th. Of the top 15 players in the list, nine came from Bayern and five from BVB, with only sixth-placed Stefan Kießling of Leverkusen breaking the duopoly.
In an interview to be published by kicker on Monday, Schweinsteiger emphasised that the award was entirely a product of FCB’s stunning achievements as a club in 2012/13, “so it’s also a trophy for the team.”
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