Alongside The Independent, Kit Holden observes German Football for various online portals, including The Bundesliga Fanatic, Deutsche Welle and Total Football Magazine. In 2012, he spent a short time at the Berlin newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, and he is also a regular guest on World Football Daily.
Bayern have been crowned champions with six games still to play in the season – a record in the Bundesliga. The 1-0 win over Frankfurt on Saturday was their eleventh victory in a row – a record in the Bundesliga.
For the German press, Bierhoff’s statement was an unexpected, even unwelcome attack of realism. The second most powerful man in the national team setup had effectively written the Germans off more than a year before the tournament’s opening.
Whichever side of the fence you fall on, it is thoroughly entertaining. And yet, under the cloud of mind games and exchanged insults lies a more pertinent truth.
The Munich street on which the Bayern headquarters are to be found, has begun to take its place alongside Coronation Street and Albert Square as the location for one of the world’s most famous soap operas.
If Arsenal are to keep one thing in mind when they line up against FC Bayern tomorrow evening, it should be that this is not Bayern as we have known them in recent years.
If the scope of Europol’s match fixing discoveries have taught us one thing, it is that this a disease which transcends all boundaries, and seeps into any and every football nation it possibly can.