In Pep Guardiola's first season with Bayern, they won the UEFA SuperCup, the Club World Cup, the DFB Pokal, and of course the Bundesliga. They clinched the Bundesliga with 7 weeks left in the season, the fastest it's ever been done, then proceeded to take their foot off the pedal and get it caught under the floor mat. Unfortunately, there were Champions League matches still left to play. Losing a CL semifinal isn't the end of the world, but 0-4 at home? A big fat turd on what was otherwise a pretty captivating season.
Bayern have lost some players since the end of the season: Daniel Van Buyten was not offered a contract extension. Mario Mandzukic has been sold to Atletico Madrid after becoming unhappy with his place in Pep's system. Toni Kroos is almost certainly going to be sold to Real Madrid soon, after contract extension talks broke down. Lukas Raeder is also leaving, though nobody particularly cares. Of these four, Kroos is the only one that really matters, but he is a huge loss. Xherdan Shaqiri was rumored to be going to Liverpool, but Matthias Sammer recently put the kibosh on that, at least verbally.
The newcomers so far are Robert Lewandowski, Sebastian Rode, and Juan Bernat. Lewandowski is an obvious upgrade from Mandzukic. Bernat will probably be a Diego Contento upgrade as a backup for David Alaba at LB, and Rode may deploy at RB. Also, Holger Badstuber has risen from the dead, but I'm not sure where he fits in, if at all.
Seven Bayern players were on the World Cup-winning German squad, and Dante and Arjen Robben were involved in (or at least had to attend, in Dante's case) the third place match, so it's likely to be a pretty ragtag bunch featuring through much of the preseason while everybody's on vacation. Bayern are visiting New York and Portland the first week of August.
Bayern have lost some players since the end of the season: Daniel Van Buyten was not offered a contract extension. Mario Mandzukic has been sold to Atletico Madrid after becoming unhappy with his place in Pep's system. Toni Kroos is almost certainly going to be sold to Real Madrid soon, after contract extension talks broke down. Lukas Raeder is also leaving, though nobody particularly cares. Of these four, Kroos is the only one that really matters, but he is a huge loss. Xherdan Shaqiri was rumored to be going to Liverpool, but Matthias Sammer recently put the kibosh on that, at least verbally.
The newcomers so far are Robert Lewandowski, Sebastian Rode, and Juan Bernat. Lewandowski is an obvious upgrade from Mandzukic. Bernat will probably be a Diego Contento upgrade as a backup for David Alaba at LB, and Rode may deploy at RB. Also, Holger Badstuber has risen from the dead, but I'm not sure where he fits in, if at all.
Seven Bayern players were on the World Cup-winning German squad, and Dante and Arjen Robben were involved in (or at least had to attend, in Dante's case) the third place match, so it's likely to be a pretty ragtag bunch featuring through much of the preseason while everybody's on vacation. Bayern are visiting New York and Portland the first week of August.
, and Lahm is not faultless. He may have minimized his mistakes through the years, but in midfield vs. Ghana for example, he had some lost balls that could have resulted in goals. And when you say you can´t remember a stinker...well, you may remember some spanish babyface sucking his thumb after shooting Spain to their first title in years in 08, but how he got to that ball was below Kreisliga (the 9th out of 10 league levels) on the defensive part...and was forgotten(??).
