It became official on Saturday: FC Bayern are the 2017/18 German champions. After 29 matchdays, FCB are top of the Bundesliga with a lead of 20 points. To date, the championship has been wrapped up earlier on just two occasions (on Matchday 28 in 2012/13 under Jupp Heynckes and, a year later, on Matchday 27 under Pep Guardiola). The Munich players quickly agreed on the reasons for such an impressive performance.
“We have a great group of players,” said Franck Ribery, for instance. And Sandro Wagner added: “There are such high levels of motivation, spirit and camaraderie in the team. In addition, we have players with good individual quality. When that all fits together, you can achieve great things and win titles.” Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was also impressed by another of the team’s qualities.
The correct attitude
“As reigning champions, it’s normally unbelievably difficult to motivate yourself anew. The character the team displays is unbelievable, just first-class. They’re not arrogant, they just keep going,” the CEO enthused. However, it’s not just down to this attitude that the record champions made up a five-point deficit from October and secured the championship so early. Jupp Heynckes and his coaching staff also played a major part in this success.
“Jupp arrived. He did a great job and put his faith in us,” said Ribery. Rummenigge agreed: “We were on a roll right from the first game, a 5-0 win over Freiburg. Our rivals then went through a weak phase, and we took advantage of that.”
Bayern were up for it at just the right time – and they made the right decisions. Sandro Wagner jokingly added another factor for winning the title: “In winter, the club made a very good transfer decision in taking me on. It was pivotal for winning the championship.” With that kind of atmosphere and a great will to win in the team, the new German champions intend to achieve much more this season - and the potential is certainly there.
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