Lothar Matthäus believes Bayern Munich’s domestic dominance will start to wane

Bayern Munich became the first team ever in Europe’s top five leagues to win ten consecutive domestic titles last weekend with their 3-1 win over Borussia Dortmund. Their run of ten straight Bundesliga title stretches back to the 2012/13 season, when Bayern won the treble under Jupp Heynckes.

For Bayern fans, history has been made, adding slight solace for what’s been a collectively disappointing season having been knocked out of both the DFB-Pokal and UEFA Champions League by opponents they should’ve beaten. For those not so close to Bayern, or even the Bundesliga, it’s another reason to accelerate the over-recycled argument that the Bundesliga is a “farmer’s league.”

Philipp Lahm has recently said that the German top flight would be far more interesting with different champions besides Bayern, and Lothar Matthäus recently said that he doesn’t see that fate as being too far off from now. “In the next five years, Bayern will not be champions five times, but only three times,” the former Bayern and Germany midfielder boldly claimed (Tz).

At this current juncture, Matthäus feels that Bayern has left planning for the future too late. Of course, financial setbacks from the coronavirus pandemic and front office changes have not helped this issue, but he still feels things should’ve been done sooner. “[Bayern] made mistakes in the planning and didn’t work as farsightedly as in previous years. Far too often, the club is late in talks, just look at Robert Lewandowski. Everything used to be more stable, now some things are faltering,” he explained.

In the short-term, Matthäus believes the club should’ve shown some better faith with players that are already in the squad. He made reference to Chris Richards, Angelo Stiller, Josip Stanisic, and Christian Früchtl. “They identify with FC Bayern and would have cost nothing,” he said of the quartet of youngsters. Richards’ loan at TSG Hoffenheim ends at this season’s conclusion, while Stiller has rarely been used in the first team by Julian Nagelsmann. Stanisic deputized often more towards the beginning of the season in Benjamin Pavard’s absence and Früchtl was always going to be hard pressed to find any time behind both Manuel Neuer and Sven Ulreich.