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The first all-German Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund on Saturday assures the Bundesliga of Europe’s biggest prize in football in a remarkable return to dominance on the continent.
Bayern and Dortmund reached the Wembley decider against Spanish powerhouses Barcelona and Real Madrid, results that could also boost the national team for next year’s World Cup.
The Bundesliga will get its 17th European trophy, but still trails Italy (28), England and Spain (27 each). All four big leagues now have one Champions League final between two of their clubs, the others being Real Madrid v Valencia (2000), Milan v Juventus (2003) and Manchester United v Chelsea (2008).
Dortmund were the first Bundesliga team to lift a trophy with an improbable 2-1 victory in extra time against Liverpool in the 1966 Cup Winners’ Cup. They also defied the odds when they won the 1997 Champions League 3-1 against Juventus Turin.
Bayern have won all three European cups, a feat only Juventus Turin, Ajax Amsterdam and Chelsea have achieved as well.
Apart from the 1967 Cup Winners’ Cup and 1996 UEFA Cup titles, Bayern are in an elite group of three teams (Real Madrid and Ajax are the others) who have won the Champions’ event three times in a row, 1974-1976 with their golden generation of Franz Beckenbauer, Gerd Mueller, Uli Hoeness and company.
A fourth title in 2001 came on the heels of the trauma from 1999 when Munich lost 2-1 against Manchester United from two injury-time strikes.
They have lost four further Champions’ finals, including 2010 against Inter Milan and 2012 on penalties against Chelsea in their home stadium.
“It is about time to get this thing,” Munich midfielder Thomas Mueller, eyeing the trophy Saturday. “You have this loser image if you miss out three times.”
The Bayern and Dortmund camp agreed that the resurrection (which also included an unprecedented seven Bundesliga clubs into the knockout stages in the Champions and Europa League) shows the new-found strength of the German league.
A complete overhaul of the youth academies after the winless Euro 2000 disaster has led to an abundance of talent, and there are young and innovative coaches like Dortmund’s Juergen Klopp or Christian Streich of Freiburg.
“It is the product of very good youth work in the league. An abundance of talent makes the German league so attractive. There are many good coaches also in the lower tiers and a lot of intense work by the clubs and the (German football federation) DFB,” Munich coach Jupp Heynckes said.
Modern stadiums from the 2006 World Cup and moderate ticket prizes have helped the Bundesliga to be the best-attended in Europe, and the league is healthy overall, also thanks to the 50+1 ownership rule which prevents investors from taking over clubs.
“We have developed well at Bayern, the Bundesliga and the national team. This very positive for German football. The development is not over yet, we can look ahead at bright times,” Munich and Germany captain Philipp Lahm said.
However, a big title is now a must for Lahm, Mueller, Bastian Schweinsteiger (Munich), Munich-bound Mario Goetze, Ilkay Guendogan, Mats Hummels (Dortmund) and others as confirmation.
Munich’s recent lost Champions League finals as well as Germany’s near misses (third at 2006 and 2010 World Cups, finalist at Euro 2008 and semis at Euro 2012) on national team level only add to the pressure ahead of next year’s World Cup in Brazil where Joachim Loew’s team is expected to deliver at last.
“We are more than competitive against (world and European champions Spain),” Guendogan said, and Hummels agreed that “the quality of German players is big enough to win anything.”
Munich and Dortmund make up almost the entire national team just as Munich and Borussia Moenchengladbach did in the 1970s when then West Germany won Euro 1972 and the 1974 World Cup.
In that period Munich won three European Cups and Moenchengladbach two UEFA Cups. German clubs were almost frequently in continental finals at the time which also saw the only previous all-German final on the continent in 1980 when Eintracht Frankfurt beat Moenchengladbach for the UEFA Cup title.