Bayern Munich have broken with club tradition by spending big on the transfer market after a disappointing season which saw the record German champions finish fourth in the league. It seems almost a paradox that the Bavarians have decided to splash out on star players just when they are missing out on the millions of the lucrative Champions League.
Some 53 million euros (70 million dollars) have been spent to secure new players including Italy striker Luca Toni and the France international midfielder Franck Ribery. Another 12 million euros has been earmarked for Germany’s top striker Miroslav Klose.
The signings have sent a big signal to the rest of Europe that Bayern are prepared to compete to some extent with freer-spending clubs in Italy, Spain and England.
Yet Bayern have taken a risk by opening the club coffers as never before. Coach Ottmar Hitzfeld will be under pressure to form almost immediately a winning team from his new motley crew of players.
Apart from the two “world stars” Toni and Ribery, they include the Germany defender Marcell Jansen, Germany striker Jan Schlaudraff, Argentinian midfielder Jose Ernesto Sosa, the Turkish midfielder Hamit Altintop and probably Brazilian midfielder Ze Roberto.
The last time Bayern were so ambitious on the transfer market was in 1995 when then new coach Otto Rehhagel found himself with a team including Juergen Klinsmann, Andreas Herzog, Lothar Matthaeus, Ciriaco Sforza, Mehmet Scholl, Thomas Helmer and Thomas Strunz.
That “dream team” soon became known as FC Hollywood - big on glitz and gossip, but short on success.
This time Bayern had little choice but to ring in some drastic changes after a season which saw the dismissal of coach Felix Magath and several players who failed to deliver on the pitch.
“With the team of last season we would have achieved nothing in the future,” said supervisory board chief Franz Beckenbauer.
For years Bayern general manager Uli Hoeness has proudly pointed out that the club is financially sound whereas other big European clubs were up to their necks in debt and in danger of going bust.
The problem for the prudent Germans has been that the big-name players have gone elsewhere, the rich clubs have been getting richer or have a wealthy investor behind them, and Bayern have lost ground.
The fact that players like Toni or Ribery have now chosen to move to Munich is therefore a coup for Hoeness, who points out that the club has not had to borrow a cent to finance the deals.
“We have broken the rules that we have set ourselves for the past 20 years,” he said. “But we have made a big profit this season. We have merely tapped our resources not plundered them.”
The directors had “recognised the need for a major rebuilding exercise, in order to deliver successful and attractive football next season,” executive board chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said.
The club, he insisted, was “not playing a dangerous game” and “we continue to have our finances fully under control.”
Bayern did manage to recoup 25 million euros with the sale of midfielder Owen Hargreaves to Manchester United, a good deal for a player who wanted to leave.
Yet questions remain on how the newcomers will fit into a team which last season lacked a leader or any sort of player hierarchy.
Former coach Udo Lattek, who led Bayern to six league titles and the European Cup in the 1970s and 1980s, warns that the new “dream team” could easily become a nightmare for Hitzfeld.
“Ottmar shouldn’t now pussyfoot around or else he’ll go under,” he told Bild am Sonntag newspaper.
Hitzfeld, in his second spell at the club he led to four league titles between 1999 and 2003 as well as the 2001 Champions League trophy, has to show no weaknesses and not be afraid to banish top players to the substitutes’ bench, he said.
“Now Ottmar has to prove that he is a great coach. This is a team he has to mould. That’s something he has never had to do at Bayern before,” he added.
Former Bayern captain Stefan Effenberg, now a TV pundit, says if anyone can integrate the new players quickly it is his former coach.
“Ottmar is a master of player rotation, and he has the sensitivity to deal with star players,” he said.
Meanwhile Rehhagel, now Greece national team coach, has recalled the jealousies which poisoned team spirit in his 1995 Bayern squad, but believes Hitzfeld knows exactly what to expect.
“Any expert will tell you that he cannot perform magic and that it will need the highest level of concentration until the team is at its best. But I am pretty certain that Hitzfeld will have success,” he said.
Bayern enter new era among the big spenders « Bayern Lounge
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