This summer sees the 17th edition of football’s European Championship, with 11 Bayern players taking part at Euro 2024. A look at the past shows that Munich-based players have often been involved in winning the title. No fewer than 17 players lifted the Henri Delaunay Cup during their time at Bayern. Bixente Lizarazu was the last such player back in 2000, so it's about time for a new addition to the history books! fcbayern.com takes a look back at the previous winners.
1972: Start of the Euro success story
The legendary German team that won the Euros in 1972 (l-r.): Beckenbauer, Maier, Schwarzenbeck, Heynckes, Netzer, Wimmer, Müller, Höttges, E. Kremers, Breitner, Hoeneß.
“The best team I've ever had,” Germany coach Helmut Schön once said about his victorious team at the 1972 European Championship in Belgium. And it was largely shaped by players from the two best German teams at the time, with six each from Borussia Mönchengladbach and Bayern involved at the four-day tournament. It consisted of only the two semi-finals, the match for third place and the final in Belgium. It was the birthplace of Germany's first European champions.
Looking back, the 3-1 win against England at Wembley in the quarter-final first leg is regarded as a key match for this magnificent team. Uli Hoeneß was one of the main figures in the game, which tipped the scales ahead of the 0-0 draw in the second leg. A goal and an assist from the then 20-year-old brought Schön’s side close to reaching the semi-finals, and Hoeneß was then a regular at the tournament in Belgium. He impressed with his talent and hard work - just like the equally up-and-coming attacking left-back Paul Breitner. However, the young duo left the goalscoring to someone else in Belgium.
Gerd Müller with the European Championship trophy after the 3-0 final win against the Soviet Union.
Gerd Müller scored twice in both the semi-final win against the hosts (2-1) and in the final against the Soviet Union, who had no chance from the start in a 3-0 victory. Herbert Wimmer of Gladbach got the other. Even back then, nobody could do anything against Der Bomber. Müller was not just the only player to score more than one goal at the finals, but they also added to his incredible overall tally in 1972 that saw him score 85 times for Bayern and the national team that year. It was a record that stood until 2012 when broken by Barcelona’s Lionel Messi. The man who scored 68 times in 62 Germany matches said of the tournament: “Everything just fell into place.” There is probably no better way to sum it up, also with regard to the other Bayern players in the squad.
The goalkeeper was Sepp Maier, who was an integral part of the core that defined an era, both at Bayern (709 games) and in the national team (95). The solid central defender was ‘Katsche’ Schwarzenbeck, who was simple and straightforward, serving as the ideal foil to the elegant technician Franz Beckenbauer. The duo - as different as they were - appreciated and needed each other, and it was not for nothing that Schwarzenbeck was described as the man who had Beckenbauer's back. This worked so well in 1972 that the captain went down in history as the driving force behind the Euro-winning team in his role as sweeper. Der Kaiser finished ahead of Müller and Günter Netzer to win the Ballon d’Or for the first time that year and was the measure of all things in football. He was also a driving force in Bayern colours and later led his boyhood club to a European Cup hat-trick.
1980: Rummenigge’s moment
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was unstoppable at the Euros in 1980.
The 1980 European Championship was the first in the much-expanded format – featuring eight teams instead of four, with 14 games over 11 days instead of four in four – and was shaped by a Bayern player in Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. He was just 24 years old at the time, not only playing a decisive role in Germany’s second continental success but also being voted the player of the tournament. The agreement on a new five-year contract with Rummenigge was announced in the June issue of Clubnachrichten. Bayern naturally wanted to keep a man like him.
Germany were not really the big favourites in Italy but had made their mark in the group stage. Rummenigge scored the decisive goal in the 1-0 win against Czechoslovakia before the Netherlands were defeated 3-2. The 0-0 draw against Greece was insignificant and they had already secured their place in the final on 22 June. After the 2-1 win against Belgium, they had “reached their dream destination”.
Rummenigge celebrated the European Championship victory together with teammate Bernard Dietz on the track of Rome’s Stadio Olimpico.
For the lively striker, who earned 95 international caps and made 423 competitive appearances for Bayern, Italia 1980 was the highlight of his career with the national team. The motto “just play freely” suited him perfectly. So well, in fact, that he not only set up the winning goal in the final, but even foretold it. “Focus your lenses, a goal is about to be scored,” Rummenigge shouted to a photographer in the 88th minute when the score was 1-1. Rummenigge’s corner, Horst Hrubesch’s header, goal, European champions - it can be that easy. The elation knew no bounds, both on the pitch and on the bench. That was the regular place of the second Bayern player in the squad of the European champions. Substitute goalkeeper Walter Junghans became a Euro winner without ever having played an international match. He deputised for Toni Schumacher, who himself was only in goal because Maier had been injured in a car accident before the tournament.
1992: Shock winners
Brian Laudrup with the Henri Delaunay Cup in 1992.
It took a sporting-political decision in 1992 to pave the way for Denmark's participation in the European Championship finals, resulting in one of football’s most sensational results. Since Yugoslavia had been excluded due to the civil war in the Balkans, the Danes stepped in and, with Bayern’s Brian Laudrup, became the feared team nicknamed Danish Dynamite.
Nobody had any great expectations. Laudrup, for example, had booked a flight to the USA for four days before the end of the tournament. He had to cancel it because he was going to play in the final against Germany. Until then, Denmark had only managed one win in regular time, but on that evening in Gothenburg they scored twice in 90 minutes. Laudrup - nicknamed the Prince of Denmark - was in the starting XI and celebrated while his Bayern colleagues in Berti Vogts' team were lying on the ground. “Laudrup triumphs in battle with his friend Stefan Effenberg”, was later written in Bayern's Clubnachrichten. It was one of the last notes about the man who played 62 competitive matches for Bayern between 1990 and 1992. He played none of them as a European champion, announcing his departure to Fiorentina during the Euros.
1996: The star was the team
Bayern's Babbel (14), Helmer (5), Ziege (17) and Klinsmann (18) were regulars in 1996.
The 1996 edition saw 16 teams compete for the first time, and Germany were short of players like never before. The German success at Wembley - thanks to a golden goal from Oliver Bierhoff - seems even more valuable when viewed under these circumstances. Due to the raft of absentees in Vogts' team, Bayern keeper Oliver Kahn, like Oliver Reck, was actually given an outfield player's shirt before the final against the Czech Republic. Vogts needed almost the entire squad for the country’s third European Championship triumph. The phrase ‘The star is the team’ has rarely been as apt as it was from 8 to 30 June 1996.
Seven Bayern players were involved – they all played their part in the victory, they were all important components on the rocky road to the title. Only Kahn, then still in the shadow of regular keeper Andreas Köpke, did not play a single minute. His Munich teammate Jürgen Klinsmann led the team as captain. The striker suffered the “only muscle injury of my career” in the semi-final against hosts England but was fit again for the final. He played 95 minutes and was the driving force, until Bierhoff scored.
Jürgen Klinsmann and Oliver Bierhoff had reason to celebrate in England, like here during the 3-0 win over Russia in the group stage.
The modern-day sweeper Matthias Sammer, penalty-killer Köpke or Klinsmann – there were defining figures in this team, but without workers such as Thomas Helmer, the title would never have been won. The central defender, who captained Munich for two years between 1992 and 1999, only missed 10 minutes of the tournament, while Markus Babbel was also a regular starter after Jürgen Kohler's injury. In the final at Wembley, he played alongside Thomas Strunz, who started on the left wing. The two knew each other well from Munich - that was also a recipe for success.
By the end, Christian Ziege had played 600 minutes. He shone as a left-back, worked hard and never gave up. The fact that you could rely on him was already evident back then. Ziege was in the squad for all Euro and World Cup finals between 1996 and 2004. In the final in England, he set up Bierhoff's first goal. He was therefore just as involved in the striker's brace as Mehmet Scholl was to a certain extent. Scholl had left the field in the 69th minute to make way for the man of the evening. The Bayern man was not yet a regular for Germany but was used in the starting XI from the quarter-finals onwards in England. His skills as a tricky midfielder were required, as they were at Bayern.
2000: Liza’s big year
Two years after winning the World Cup, Bixente Lizarazu also became European champion with France.
Bixente Lizarazu was no longer on the pitch when the two decisive goals were scored in the Euro 2000 final. However, this fact should not diminish the Bayern man’s contribution to France’s European Championship title. The left-back played four times on the way to Les Bleus’ next triumph, just two years after their World Cup victory, including in the final against Italy in Rotterdam. But he went off in the 86th minute, eight minutes before the equaliser to make it 1-1, and 17 minutes before David Trezeguet's golden goal. Although Germany finished bottom of their group at the tournament in Belgium and the Netherlands, Bayern had a champion to celebrate, and a man in the squad who knew how to win titles. A year later, Lizarazu also lifted the Champions League with the Bavarians.
Find out which Bayern players will feature at Euro 2024 in Germany:
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