Bayern Munich are champions of the German Bundesliga for the eighth consecutive time with two matches remaining for the prolonged 2019-2020 season to end. Their 0-1 win over their host, Werder Bremen, on Tuesday was enough to seal their victory.
On the road to winning their 8th league title, Bayern Munich had the worse start of the season. There was a point in the season they were sitting on the 7th spot in the Bundesliga table.
In fact, in November 2019, the champions were still struggling on the 4th spot while Borussia Monchengladbach that is currently occupying the 4th spot was number one on the table. It was during that same period Bayern experienced their worst defeat of the season in the hands of Eintracht Frankfurt. The match was played on 2 November and he ended 5-1 in favour of Frankfurt.
Things were so bad for the champions that they had to sack their coach Niko Kovac who helped them to win the 2018-2019 Bundesliga title and had spent 16 months at the club as the manager. He was replaced by Hansi Flick, a former player of the club who is also a former assistant coach of the German national team.
The arrival of the 55-year-old manager brought good fortunes to the club as they went on winning 17 out of their last 18 games to emerge the champions of the Bundesliga. Altogether, the club has gathered 58 points from a possible 66 points with two matches remaining.
🏆 2020
— FC Bayern English (@FCBayernEN) June 16, 2020
🏆 2019
🏆 2018
🏆 2017
🏆 2016
🏆 2015
🏆 2014
🏆 2013
𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑟𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 🎉#MEI8TER pic.twitter.com/boERc9HOia
Their 8 title win has made them the second club in the top 8 leagues in Europe to have won their league title 8 consecutive time. The feat was first achieved by Italian Serie A giants Juventus from 2012 to 2019. Juventus and Bayern Munich are closely followed by French Ligue 1 club Lyon which has won the French league 7 conservative time, from 2002 to 2008.
Bayern Munich win in 2019 and their win in 2020
Though winning the Bundesliga should be nothing new for Bayern Munich, their win on Tuesday came with a different feeling and a different atmosphere. For instance, when they won the title in the 2018-20019 season, they waited until the last game of the season to seal the victory. And on that last game of the season, they played it on their home ground, Allianz Arena, with 75,000 spectators in attendance. On that day, they beat Eintracht Frankfurt 5-1 to establish themselves as the undisputed champions of the league.
But this season which was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic for three months before it restarted in May, saw Bayern struggled to win Werder Bremen. It took the magical effort of Bayern’s goals machine Robert Lewandowski to seal 0-1 victory for the champions.
Besides the fact that they had to struggle to win the match, the match was played in Werder Bremen’s 42,000-capacity Weserstadion stadium with no fans in attendance because of the coronavirus pandemic. The echoes of the voices of the players were the only thing left to fill the empty stadium as they celebrated the victory wearing a red t-shirt with 8 customized on the front while 30 was customized at the back signifying 8 consecutive wins from 2013 to 2020 and 30 Bundesliga titles altogether.
At this point, Robert Lewandowski has 31 goals so far this season which make him the highest goal scorer of the league and has equalled the record of the highest goals scored by a foreign player in the league. Arsenal’s captain Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang set the record in the 2016-2017 season while still playing for Borussia Dortmund.
