Bayern Munich disappointed, despite winning Bundesliga title
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“There are big regrets about the last 15-20 days. I think we could do better. We could have been luckier,” Carlo Ancelotti stated earlier this week. “In some situations, it was our fault and we can learn from this to be better next season.”
Those are hardly the words that you would expect to hear from a manager that had just won the seventh league title of his career, which made him the only manager in history to have won titles in four of Europe’s top five leagues.
Although, that certainly was the case. Bayern had just produced a 6-0 demolition that took their points tally to 73 points, putting them 10 points ahead of second-placed RB Leipzig and out of reach. Their latest victory means that the club have now won the Bundesliga title in five consecutive seasons.
However, after a number of years unchallenged in the competition, many fans were left disappointed at the fact that the Bundesliga title was the only silverware that the club would be lifting this season, after the club crashed out of the Champions League and DFB-Pokal over the past two weeks.
Yet, perhaps it’s time for Bayern Munich to get used to this added competitiveness. While they have won the title by a considerable margin once again, the explosive form of RB Leipzig at the start of the season cannot be ignored. Had the side had more options, they undoubtedly would have avoided the burnout that they have suffered in the second half of the campaign and given Bayern more of a fight.
The club have always succeeded due to their sheer financial might. However, with television rights deals and Champions League payments becoming bigger and bigger, more clubs now have the funds to compete with Europe’s ‘giants’. With money to invest, the Bavarian club should expect their rivals to push them even further next season.
We are already seeing the same thing happen in the Champions League. There was once a time when Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern Munich were almost guaranteed to occupy three of the four places in the semi-finals. However, we are now starting to see the likes of Dortmund, Atletico Madrid and Monaco progressing to the later stages of the tournament.
You only have to look at their final points tally to see that the club haven’t quite been so dominant as in previous years. Should both Bayern and RB Leipzig will all of their remaining games, Bayern will finish +10 points clear. There was the same distance between them and Borussia Dortmund last season and them and Wolfsburg in 2014/15. Yet, in 2013/14 they finished 19 points ahead of Dortmund and in 2012/13 they were a massive 25 points ahead.
The gap is closing and, while disappointing, it is something that the German giants will have to get used to. Given their strength, we can expect to see Bayern Munich challenging on all fronts for years to come, yet trophies are no longer a certainty.
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