50 Fun Facts About Bayern Munich

Which kind of club did Bayern's founders walk out of in 1900?

Gymnastics. MTV 1879 refused to let its footballers join a football association, so they left the meeting and founded FC Bayern in a Munich restaurant that same evening.

Which English club beat Bayern 1–0 in the 1982 European Cup final in Rotterdam?

Aston Villa. Their goalkeeper went off injured after nine minutes, and reserve Nigel Spink, who had played only one first-team game, kept Bayern out before Peter Withe scored the winner.

Bayern won their first national championship in 1932 by beating whom 2–0 in the final?

Eintracht Frankfurt had beaten Bayern 2–0 in the southern German final seven weeks earlier, so the national final in Nuremberg turned that score exactly on its head.

Which Jewish club president returned from exile in 1947 to lead Bayern again?

Kurt Landauer had been held in Dachau for 33 days in 1938 and fled to Switzerland the following year, yet he came home to Munich after the war and was voted president once more.

At which stadium did Bayern beat Borussia Dortmund in the 2013 Champions League final?

Wembley. A year after losing the final in their own stadium, Bayern won the first all-German final when Arjen Robben scored in the 89th minute.

Which coach, hired in 1963, took Bayern up to the Bundesliga in 1965?

Zlatko Čajkovski arrived a year after winning the German title with Köln. His young Bayern side missed promotion at the first attempt in 1964 before going up the following season.

Beckenbauer, Gerd Müller and Sepp Maier were collectively known as what?

The axis. Goalkeeper Maier and sweeper Beckenbauer came through Bayern's own youth teams and striker Müller arrived from Nördlingen; together they took a second-tier side to three straight European Cups.

Which Scottish club did Bayern beat in the 1967 Cup Winners' Cup final?

Rangers lost to a Franz Roth goal in extra time, six days after their city rivals Celtic had won the European Cup, so Glasgow missed out on holding both trophies at once.

Which Bayern coach delivered the first league and cup double in Bundesliga history in 1969?

Branko Zebec swapped the team's free-scoring style for strict discipline and used only 13 players all season, ending Bayern's 37-year wait for a second German title.

Bayern's first match at the Olympiastadion, the 1972 title decider, was a 5–1 win over whom?

Schalke 04 arrived one point behind, so the season's last match was a straight final for the title, and it was moved to the evening as the first Bundesliga game shown live on television.

Whom did Bayern beat 4–0 in a replay to win the 1974 European Cup final?

Atlético Madrid led the first match until defender Georg Schwarzenbeck equalised in the last minute of extra time. The replay two days later was no contest.

Which English club lost the 1975 European Cup final to Bayern in Paris?

Leeds United had a Peter Lorimer goal ruled out for offside at 0–0, then conceded twice late on. Their fans tore out seats and rioted, and UEFA banned the club from European competition.

Bayern's third straight European Cup in 1976 came against which French club in Glasgow?

Saint-Étienne hit Hampden Park's square-edged woodwork twice and lost 1–0. French fans still blame 'the square posts', and in 2013 the club bought the goalposts for its museum.

Which US club did Franz Beckenbauer leave Bayern for in 1977?

New York Cosmos. He lined up beside Pelé and won the league title in his first season there, while Bayern, without their captain, ended the 1970s with no further trophies.

What does the term Bayerndusel describe?

Narrow, last-minute wins. Dusel is German for undeserved luck, and the taunt outgrew its target: German sportswriters have pinned 'Bayern-Dusel' on other clubs' lucky wins too.

Which striker formed Bayern's title-winning early-1980s partnership with midfielder Paul Breitner?

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. He won the Ballon d'Or in both title years, 1980 and 1981, and the press fused his name with Breitner's to call the club 'FC Breitnigge'.

Why did the mid-1990s Bayern earn the nickname 'FC Hollywood'?

Players kept appearing in the gossip pages more than the sports pages. Results suffered too: star coaches Giovanni Trapattoni and Otto Rehhagel each left within a season without a trophy.

Which was the only English club to beat Bayern at the Olympiastadion?

Norwich City were playing their first European campaign when goals from Jeremy Goss and Mark Bowen won 2–1 in Munich in 1993, and a home draw then knocked Bayern out of the UEFA Cup.

Whom did Bayern beat in the 1996 UEFA Cup final?

Bordeaux. Bayern had sacked coach Otto Rehhagel four days before the first leg, so club president Franz Beckenbauer took the bench himself and won 5–1 on aggregate.

Which newly promoted club took the 1998 title from Bayern?

Kaiserslautern were coached by Otto Rehhagel, whom Bayern had sacked two years earlier. They won in Munich on the opening day and became the first promoted side to win the Bundesliga.

Who beat Bayern 2–1 with two injury-time goals in the 1999 Champions League final?

Manchester United trailed from the sixth minute, and Bayern hit the post and the bar late on before substitutes Teddy Sheringham and Ole Gunnar Solskjær both scored in stoppage time.

Whom did Bayern beat on penalties to win the 2001 Champions League after a 25-year gap?

Valencia were beaten when Oliver Kahn saved three penalties in the shootout, days after a stoppage-time free kick had won Bayern the league title.

Which club shared the Allianz Arena with Bayern until 2017?

TSV 1860 Munich built the stadium with Bayern as equal partners, then sold their half to their rivals for €11 million in 2006 and stayed on as tenants.

Which phrase did Bayern coach Louis van Gaal coin about a young forward he promoted in 2009?

With me, Müller always plays. Van Gaal promoted the little-known 19-year-old from the reserves in 2009, and within a year Müller was top scorer at the World Cup.

Which Bayern player finished third in the 2013 Ballon d'Or vote behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi?

Franck Ribéry had beaten both men to UEFA's Best Player in Europe award months earlier, after Bayern's treble. He and Arjen Robben were the wing pair the press called 'Robbery'.

Who beat Bayern in the 2010 Champions League final?

Inter Milan won 2–0 in Madrid. Both clubs had already won their league and cup that month, so the final decided which of them would complete a treble.

Who beat Bayern on penalties in the 2012 Champions League final at the Allianz Arena?

Chelsea levelled in the 88th minute through Didier Drogba, who then struck the winning kick of the shootout. Bayern finished the season as runners-up in the league, the cup and Europe.

Which coach led Bayern to their first treble in 2012–13?

Jupp Heynckes's side had finished runners-up in all three competitions a year earlier. In 2012–13 they took 91 league points and added the cup and the Champions League, the first treble by a German club.

Which Bavarian neighbours ended Bayern's 53-match unbeaten league run in April 2014?

Augsburg won 1–0 through Sascha Mölders after Pep Guardiola, with the title already won, rested seven regulars before a Champions League quarter-final.

For what crime was Bayern president Uli Hoeneß sentenced to three and a half years in prison in 2014?

Tax evasion. He resigned the day after the verdict and went to prison, yet in 2016 the club's members voted him back in as president with more than 97% of the vote.

A 3–0 loss to which club got Bayern coach Carlo Ancelotti sacked in 2017?

Paris Saint-Germain won 3–0 after Ancelotti left several senior players, Arjen Robben among them, on the bench. Bayern dismissed him the next day, weeks into his second season.

Bayern beat Barcelona by what score in the 2020 Champions League quarter-final?

8–2. The last two goals came from substitute Philippe Coutinho, who was only on loan at Bayern and was scoring against Barcelona, the club that still owned him.

Who scored the only goal of the 2020 Champions League final in Lisbon?

Kingsley Coman headed the winner against his hometown club, the one he had joined as an eight-year-old and left as a teenager when he saw no way into its first team.

Which Bayern player's 41 Bundesliga goals in 2020–21 broke a record standing since 1972?

Robert Lewandowski equalled the old mark of 40 with a game to spare, then scored his 41st in the final minute of the season's last match.

Which trophy, won against Mexico's Tigres in 2021, completed Bayern's sextuple?

FIFA Club World Cup. The pandemic had pushed the 2020 tournament back to February 2021, so Benjamin Pavard's winning goal there completed a sweep of six trophies that only Barcelona, in 2009, had managed before.

In 2023 Bayern paid a German-record fee to sign which striker from Tottenham Hotspur?

Harry Kane scored 36 league goals in his first season, yet Bayern finished it without a trophy. The first major trophy of his career came a year later, when Bayern won the title back.

Which club ended Bayern's run of eleven straight titles in 2023–24?

Bayer Leverkusen had long been taunted as 'Neverkusen' for their near misses. Their first league title came in a season in which they did not lose a single Bundesliga match.

Who was appointed Bayern head coach on a three-year deal in May 2024?

Vincent Kompany had just been relegated from the Premier League with Burnley, and got the job only after Xabi Alonso, Julian Nagelsmann and others said no. He won the league in his first season.

What were Bayern's original club colours, as named in the first constitution?

White and blue, the colours of Bavaria's flag. Today's colours came later, when Bayern joined a wealthier Munich sports club and, as the price of its pitch and money, took on that club's kit.

Which 1974 final did Bayern's Olympiastadion stage?

World Cup final. Six Bayern players started for West Germany on their own club pitch, and two of them, Paul Breitner and Gerd Müller, scored the goals in a 2–1 win over the Netherlands.

What is the Allianz Arena's glowing skin made of?

Inflated plastic cushions, nearly 2,800 of them, kept pumped full of air, with those on the facade lit from within. The look earned the stadium its local nickname, the 'Schlauchboot', or inflatable boat.

What is the name of Bayern's bear mascot?

Berni, a brown bear, replaced the club's previous mascot, Bazi, in 2004. His official squad profile lists his position as mascot and his contract as ending 'never'.

What does Bayern's Bavarian motto 'Mia San Mia' mean?

We are who we are. It is Bavarian dialect for 'Wir sind wir', and the club is said to have picked it up in the 1980s from the victory songs its players sang after matches.

In which sport other than football has Bayern won several German titles since 2014?

Basketball. Bayern's team was stuck in the second division until 2010, when the club's members backed a relaunch that president Uli Hoeneß championed; it won promotion within a year and the German title in 2014.

What is Bayern's rivalry with Borussia Dortmund called?

Der Klassiker means 'the classic', but the rivalry is younger than the name suggests: until Dortmund's rise in the 1990s, Bayern's great rivals were Mönchengladbach and Hamburg.

Which Bayern captain taunted Dortmund's Andreas Möller as a 'crybaby' in the 1996–97 season and was slapped for it?

Lothar Matthäus rubbed imaginary tears from his eyes to mock Möller, a Germany teammate, and got a slap in the face. Möller's side had the last laugh, winning that season's Champions League final in Bayern's own stadium.

What did Bayern's Oliver Kahn appear to do to Dortmund's Heiko Herrlich in 1999?

Bite his ear. In the same match Kahn also aimed a flying kung-fu kick at Stéphane Chapuisat, and Bayern came away with a 2–2 draw.

Which nickname did Real Madrid fans give Bayern?

Bestia negra, 'black beast', is Spanish for a feared opponent. Bayern earned it by knocking Real out of Europe again and again, beginning with the clubs' first meeting in the 1976 semi-finals.

Which carmaker holds a stake in FC Bayern München AG alongside Adidas and Allianz?

Audi, the carmaker from nearby Ingolstadt, bought in for about €90 million in 2009, and Bayern put most of the money towards paying off the loan on their stadium early.

Which company became Bayern's shirt sponsor in the 2002–03 season?

Deutsche Telekom took over from carmaker Opel, whose name had been on the shirt for 13 years. The same year the club turned itself into a company to help pay for a new stadium.