FC Bayern Women 2024/25 season review

The 2024/25 season had a bit of everything for FC Bayern Women, but the pinnacle was undoubtedly the club’s historic domestic double of Bundesliga and DFB Cup success. fcbayern.com rounds up the last campaign.

Seven new faces

After winning the Bundesliga again in 2023/24, Bayern strengthened further across the pitch. Lena Oberdorf was signed from domestic rivals Wolfsburg but missed the whole season due to injury. Julia Zigiotti provided further reinforcements in midfield from Brighton & Hove Albion in the summer, joined in January by Arianna Caruso on loan from Juventus and the returning Momoko Tanikawa back from Rosengard. The promising Ena Mahmutovic was brought in from Duisburg to provide competition in goal, while Magou Doucouré (Lille) and Michelle Ulbrich (on loan from Werder Bremen in January) bolstered the defence.

Supercup

The 2024/25 campaign started just as the previous had ended, with a title. Bayern got the better of DFB Cup holders Wolfsburg 1-0 in the inaugural Supercup on 25 August. Klara Bühl struck the decisive goal after nine minutes.

Champions League

Bayern’s European campaign brought special moments, some highs but also some lows. The Munich Frauen kicked off the group stage with a statement result, beating eventual winners Arsenal 5-2 at the Campus. The game had been finely poised at 1-1 at the break, before Bayern shifted up a gear and Pernille Harder hit a hat-trick. The good continental form continued with a 2-0 win away at Juventus and 3-0 triumph at home to Valerenga of Norway to ensure a full haul at the group’s halfway stage.

The return fixture in Oslo saw the first slip with a 1-1 draw, but a 4-0 win at home to Juventus ensured progress to the knockout stage with a game to spare. The final group match turned into a thriller in London that ended in a 3-2 defeat and ultimately second place in the section with 13 points.

Lyon, the most successful team in the Women’s Champions League, then awaited Bayern in the quarter-finals. Alexander Straus’s side were beaten 2-0 at home in the first leg after goals in either half from Tabitha Chawinga and Melchie Dumornay. The huge positive from a Munich perspective was the return of Mala Grohs following her cancer diagnosis. She even saved a penalty from Lindsey Heaps on the stroke of half-time.

Even then, Bayern had it all to do in the second leg in France but did make the ideal start when Bühl fired in the opening goal after 33 minutes. However, Lyon showed their clinical edge after the restart and hit four through Dumornay, Kadidiatou Diani, Chawinga and Ada Hegerberg to subject Bayern to a 4-1 loss and 6-1 elimination on aggregate as their Champions League journey ended in the last eight.

Bundesliga

Bayern were once again the best of the best in Germany in 2024/25, being crowned champions for the third year in a row and seventh time overall after 2024, 2023, 2021, 2016, 2015 and 1976.

Things got off to a good start, but the Munich Frauen had to settle with only second place at the season’s halfway point, with Eintracht Frankfurt at the summit. It wasn’t until Matchday 15 that Bayern retook top spot and would never relinquish it thanks to a brilliant run-in that saw Straus’s team win their last 13 league fixtures, scoring 32 goals and conceding just three. It also meant they completed a perfect second half of the season for the second year running.

Key to success once again was a solid defence, with Bayern boasting the Bundesliga’s best numbers for goals conceded (13), clean sheets (13) and opposition shots (168). At the other end, they only failed to score once, in the 2-0 loss at Wolfsburg on Matchday 6. Their 15 headed goals was also more than any other team. Harder got six of those and 14 goals in total to finish as the team’s top scorer, with only Lineth Beerensteyn of Wolfsburg and Hoffenheim’s Selina Cerci getting more across the division (both 16).

Nobody in the division was directly involved in as many goals as Bühl, who got 14 assists alongside the seven she netted. She set up a total of 62 shots over the campaign and got six assists from set pieces.

Mahmutovic and Grohs shared goalkeeping duties over the 22 games. The former played in 12 and saved 88 percent of shots, while the latter appeared 10 times and repelled 70 percent of attempts on her goal.

DFB Cup

Bayern had to get over some sizeable hurdles on their path to cup glory. After being given a bye in the first round, the campaign started away at second-tier Sand in September. Straus’s team made no mistake and hit six goals from six different players.

The round of 16 pitted Bayern against fellow Bundesliga side Freiburg just two weeks after the pair had played out a draw in the Bundesliga. But this time the Bavarians came out on top, with an own goal and Lea Schüller strike earning a 2-1 win and progress to the last eight.

Things didn’t get any easier in the quarter-finals as high-flying Eintracht Frankfurt came to the Campus. It turned into a true cup classic, as an own goal with 10 minutes to go looked set to knock Bayern out of the competition. That was until Jovana Damnjanović popped up in added time to take the tie to extra-time, where Glódís Viggósdóttir, Tanikawa and Damnjanović again struck to eventually earn a 4-1 win and a place in the semis.

Another top Bundesliga team and a dramatic encounter followed in the semi-finals as Hoffenheim came to Munich. Things got off to a poor start when the visitors took a 2-0 lead inside the first 24 minutes, but Harder took the game by the scruff of the neck and hit a hat-trick to turn things around and send Bayern into the final.

That was on 1 May at a sold-out RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, where Bayern prevailed 4-2 over Werder Bremen to lift the cup for only the second time in their history after 2012 and complete a maiden domestic double. Schüller hit three goals, while Carolin Simon got the second of the afternoon as the Bayern celebrations started.

World Sevens Football

After the completion of the season, Bayern took on a new challenge with the inaugural edition of the World Sevens Football tournament in Portugal, featuring eight top European teams competing in five-a-side matches. Their group consisted of Manchester City, Ajax and Rosengard, with Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United, Benfica and Roma in the other section.

Bayern got off to a perfect start on 21 May by beating Ajax 4-2 in their opening game. They followed that on the second day with a 4-0 victory over Rosengard and 3-1 triumph against City to top the group and advance to the semi-finals against PSG, who were brushed aside 5-0.

The final in Estoril on 23 May was against United, who’d beaten their Manchester rivals in the other semi. Bayern originally went behind but soon showed their class to win 2-1.

It wasn’t just the team that took honours at the first edition of the tournament, with Mahmutovic winning the Golden Glove and Tanikawa being awarded the Golden Ball and Golden Boot.

Get into the numbers behind Bayern’s 2024/25 campaign: