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Following their win over Tigres in the final of the Club World Cup, Bayern Munich became only the second team ever to achieve the coveted “sextuple” — a haul of six trophies within a single year. Pep Guardiola, the coach who won the first sextuple with Barcelona back in 2009, went to twitter to congratulate his former team on their success. He did, after all, coach Bayern from 2013 to 2016, and maintains a fond view of the club to this day.
But that’s not all he did.
Perhaps in jest, the Spaniard issued a challenge to Hansi Flick and the boys to see which team is the best sextuple winner. Pep offered to give Messi and co. a call, so they could settle the question once and for all. Now, speaking to Bild, Bayern sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic confirmed that he’s ready to take Pep up on his offer:
TRUE✅ I asked @Brazzo: Do you accept the challenge of Pep? His anwer: „I'd be ready. With this team we can compete against everyone. These guys have such a great quality and an outstanding mentality that is second to none" @ManCity @FCBarcelona @TeamMessi pic.twitter.com/leYQ5vSuha
— Christian Falk (@cfbayern) February 13, 2021
Honestly, given that a lot of the legends from the 2009 Barca team are either retired or close to the end of their careers, it wouldn’t be much of a contest. But these guys know that. As much fun as it would be to pit Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Muller, Joshua Kimmich and co. against that legendary Barca team with Xavi and Iniesta, you can’t pull it off for obvious reasons. At best, Leo Messi could try and get revenge for his team’s debacle in the Champions League last year, IF Bayern and Barca happened to meet in the competition this time round.
Still, it’s always good to have a little bit of fun about these things. If the teams can organize some kind of friendly legends game in the future, that would be pretty great.