Thursday, January 1, 2009

Bayern München 2008 Review (Part 1)

In 2008, Bayern München had lots of things to worth to review, such as winning the Bundesliga in 21st time, the greatest comeback against Getafe, the retirement of Oliver Kahn, and so on. Later last year Bayern had a big change since Jürgen Klinsmann had taken control of the team. In Part One I will review what happen in first half of 2008:

Easy league title victory

Bayern and Werder Bremen had a head to head title race in 2007 and Bayern only won the winter champion by goal difference. However, since the restart of the 2007-2008 Season, Bayern had shown their class again to stand firm in the top of the table and never look back. Luca Toni, Franck Ribery, and Ze Roberto were the main factor to assist Bayern to win back the title after the disappointment in 2006-2007 Season. At the same time, the solid defense was the key that Bayern could win the title so easily, they only conceded 21 goals, which broke the Bundesliga record. That was the easiest victory in around 5 seasons, as there was no real competition in the title race in 2008. Meanwhile, Bayern also won the DFB Porkal easily, and the domestic double were the easiest victory.

Superb Getafe comeback

The real competition in first half of 2008 was the UEFA Cup match. Evey fan supposed this was another easy title victory as the players were all outclassed to the other teams on paper. However, football match is not on paper. They had a very difficult time throughout the competition and Bayern always had a bumpy ride. The most memorable match should be the second leg of UEFA Cup Quarter Final against Getafe. Even Getafe lost a man during a match, they managed to score first. However, Bayern's spirit was high and their never give up attitude provided them to equalize the match in 90th minute and the match went extra time. Getafe, however, they scored 2 more goals to lead Bayern 3-1 with less than 10 minutes in the extra time. Everyone seemed Getafe would have a victory against Bayern at the moment as they had a solid lead, but except Bayern players. Their never give up attitude once again led them to go through. Luca Toni scored twice in the last 2 minutes of the match to equalized the game in 3-3 and Bayern went through in the away goal rule. This was definitely one of the most memorable matches ever in the Bayern history, and this was the greatest moment in first half of 2008.

Danke, Olli!! Danke Ottmar!!

The other memorable moment was the retirememt of Oliver Kahn and the departure of coach Ottmar Hitzfeld. Oliver Kahn had announced his retirement at the beginning of the 2007-2008 Season, so he desperately wanted to have some great achievement in his last season. It was very easy for him to win the domestic double as his great performance assisted the team a lot. He felt so emotional that the team equalized Getafe mentioned above, as he really wanted to win the European competition once again. However, Bayern had no match against the sole winner, Zenit St. Petersburg in the Semi Final of the competition. At the same time, coach Ottmar Hitzfeld had decided not to renew his contract in the beginning of 2008 in order to find some less pressure coaching job, and finally he coached Swiss national team. Hitzfeld was definitely the best coach in last 10 years of Bayern as he brought so many honors to the team and led them to reach to the top of Europe in 2001. So every fan felt thankful to these duo, as they were the best.

So here's the first part of the review. I will go on to review the second half of the season soon.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

man... u r awesome... i'm a big fan of FC Bayern.... please can we be in touch... here is my email on yahoo
keeta6


Peace