Philipp Lahm appreciates Bayern Munich’s sustained greatness

In a recent interview with Bundesliga.com, former Bayern Munich great Philipp Lahm downplayed the notion that there are not enough good teams in the Bundesliga. In fact, Lahm thinks the competition is extremely good, but Bayern Munich has just been operating in their own stratosphere of late.

“It’s similar to how it is at Juventus, they have an unbelievable status in their own country, just like Bayern here in Germany,” said Lahm. “They’ve worked on that over the last few years, they’ve got the best players; they could always buy the best players so they’re in this exceptional position.”

While Lahm acknowledges that Bayern Munich has done well to push itself past its competition in Germany, he thinks the gap can be closed over the course of time.

“I’d say Bayern are extremely strong, they’re in an exceptional position in Germany. You saw last season they won everything there was to win, not only in Germany but in Europe as well,” said Lahm. “That means they’ve got themselves into an exceptional position. Leipzig, you saw last season they made it into the semifinal of the Champions League, so they were very successful. The gap, though, which has developed in the last few years cannot be closed in one or two years, it has to be done over a longer period of time. At the moment Bayern are by far the number one.”