Weekend Warm-up: A final appreciation of Hansi Flick; Some Bayern Munich Awards; The final prediction tallies; and MORE!

Well, this is it. Shut it down, let’s go home...the Bayern Munich season is over.

On the heels of a Champions League crown, Bayern Munich’s follow-up effort was not quite as successful as 2019/2020 season, but a rollicking thrill-ride nonetheless.

Once again injuries — and a tad bit of off-field turmoil — put a slight dent in the season for the Bavarians, but the group still clinched its 9th consecutive Meisterschale.

Before we get to the official Weekend Warm-up award winners for the season, let’s take a quick second to appreciate Hansi Flick before he officially takes his new post as manager of the German national team.

Flick — by all accounts — was exactly the person Bayern Munich needed when the club decided to part ways with Niko Kovac and he proved it repeatedly. Sure, he preferred a riskier style than many would have liked, but it was that style that won the club a sextuple.

Moreover, Flick was the master at building relationships (and subsequently trust) with his players, while always maintaining an open line of communication. The family atmosphere that Flick instilled created an environment where players could be open when they needed help and also provided an ample amount of support.

More than most teams, Bayern Munich operated as a collective under Flick and his impact on his players cannot be underestimated.

We’ve done a lot of appreciating Flick in this space, but he deserves it. The man is a tremendous football manager and an even better personnel manager.

Let’s hope he has the same impact with Germany.

Without further adieu...

These are not the official BFW Postseason Awards, but just some quick (and obvious) highlights:

• Best Forward — Robert Lewandowski: Lewandowski’s record-breaking performance made him a no-brainer here. It is shame to think one ill-fated — and unnecessary — international match against Andorra probably cost the Bavarians another serious run at a Champions League crown, but Lewandowski was terrific in every aspect of the game.
• Best Midfielder — Joshua Kimmich: As the world continues to learn what Bayern Munich fans already know, Kimmich just continues to grind away.
• Best Defender/Goalkeeper — Manuel Neuer: This was the hardest category, but in the end Boateng was the most consistent of Bayern Munich’s defenders and Neuer was the victim of rampant inconsistency...so we went with Neuer. Niklas Süle and Benjamin Pavard each started slow in coming back from injuries, but picked things up, while David Alaba seemed to have his contract situation in his head for the entirety of the first half of the season. Lucas Hernandez was mostly good when called up, but just didn’t get selected enough and Alphonso Davies was a roller coaster at times. For all of that, Boateng was the best of the field player lot, but we went with Neuer even though he let up more goals than ever before.

Weekend Warm-up: The Podcast

In case you missed it, we launched a new Weekend Warm-up podcast for the offseason. The weekly column will return for the DFL-Supercup, but if you want to keep up on all of the latest Bayern Munich news and events for the week during the next few months, you can check out everything on the podcast:

Song of the Week: “Feel Alright Tonight” by Steve Earl

If you are a big fan of The Wire then you will remember this from the traditional “season ending” montage from season two of the show. Season two — which is criminally underrated within the series — focused on how the drugs get into Baltimore, where they go, and who was affected/corrupted by the drug trade:

If you want a reminder of how the song was used in the show, here you go:

Anyway, if you are a Bayern Munich, you should “Feel Alright” about the season. Another Bundesliga title is nothing to scoff at.

Final Prediction Records

It was not pretty — and it certainly was not always good — but we made it out of the season with a winning record.

Final Bundesliga match day record: 4-5

Final record: 167-154*

Guest predictors’ record: 23-4*

Thanks for reading this season!

(*includes DFL-Supercup, DFB-Pokal, Club World Cup, and Champions League)