In the void of pandemic, FC Bayern most recently received Chelsea FC in Munich.
Photo: Imago/Bernd Error
Of course, everyone is talking about the final again. About that Saturday in May 2012 when FC Bayern invited to the final of the Champions League into the Munich Arena. About Thomas Müller’s late leadership, Didier Drogbas even later equalization and Bastian Schweinsteiger’s false shot in the penalty shootout. Games against Chelsea FC will probably remind Bayern of the drama Dahoam forever. The former CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge once said that he watches the video of the lost final every summer-and it always ends horror with London Ecstasy and Munich.
This Wednesday, the new -rich delegation from the Stamford Bridge will be a guest appearance to the opening of the new season of the European Football Circus at Bayern. Why doesn’t anyone talk about August 2020? Five years ago, Chelsea played for the last time in the arena at the Munich-Nord motorway junction. The second leg in the round of 16 was a rather modest value because Bayern had won the first leg 3: 0 and could not prevent the next round. And yet this game was a very special one, namely the overture to an event that gave a look into a possible future that hardly anyone can remember today.
Circus Europe
Photo: private
In the past, the national champions are simply cup, today Champions League: a staged spectacle and money printing machine of football. Sven Goldmann looks at the coming matchday.
A virus with the bulky name Sars-Cov-2 at that time brought public life to a standstill worldwide, and the Champions League for a few months. When the best and most expensive competition in the world was kicked off in summer, this happened in ghostly silence. The fans, for whom this spectacle was invented, were assigned places at a cat table including a television. Volksport Football lost its soul to a digital staging in which likes and clicks counted more than cheers and applause. The Munich Arena was hardly recognizable: instead of fishing, the calls of the players and the clapping of the ball re -recognized. The emptiness gave the evening something surreal – with an atmosphere like in training, only that an audience of millions was watching.
The next day, Bayern flew to the final tournament in Lisbon, where the eight best teams in Europe determined their champion in a mini tournament. The rest of the story is known. The Munich delegation added a humiliation to the world club FC Barcelona cited by Lionel Messi, which was reminiscent of the World Cup semi-final of the German national team against Brazil a few years earlier. In the semifinals, a 3-0 over Olympique Lyon followed and a 1-0 against Paris Saint-Germain in the final. The Bavarians celebrated their ascent of throne in deserted Estadio da Luz – and in front of an audience of millions on Instagram. The “time” dressed her discomfort in the beautiful wording: “Perhaps the final tournament in Lisbon looked as strangely ortless as if it were a poker round in any hotel. It could also have taken place on Mars. “