February 2025
Paul Breitner with the Meisterschale after winning the league title in 1980 . He says : “ The championship is the number one goal for FCB every year .“
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Sometimes even a World Cup winner struggles with a lack of motivation . “ I ’ ve often had to overcome it and still do ,“ says Lothar Matthäus . He goes jogging five or six times a week . “ And it ‘ s always a struggle .“ Just like before , when there were long runs on the training schedule . “ I never liked doing that . And sometimes I just didn ‘ t feel like training at all – but when I was on the pitch , I gave it my all . You always had goals to aim for , titles . That was the driving force .“ At FC Bayern , this getting back up , this “ Keep going , keep going “, as Oliver Kahn once put it , became second nature to Matthäus . He learnt that you have to keep on winning . “ You learn that here when you sign , whether Michael Olise today , Lothar Matthäus in 1984 or me in 1970 ,” says Paul Breitner and then raps on the table with each word he says : “ Lad . Starting now . You have . To win . Every game . Every one !“ This club ambition is passed down from generation to generation . Later , in his second Bayern spell from 1978 to 1983 , when he was captain , Breitner himself made this clear to everyone when necessary . “ If you don ‘ t get it , you won ‘ t around for very long .“ Win every game ! This greed is reflected in the numbers : since the foundation of the Bundesliga in 1963 , FC Bayern have won more German championships ( 32 ) than all other teams combined ( 29 ); with a total of 33 titles , FCB are the German record champions , and with 20 DFB Cup victories , the German record cup winners . FC Bayern lead the all-time Bundesliga table by a huge margin . FCB have also won everything on the international stage : Intercontinental Cup , FIFA Club World Cup , European Cup , Champions League , UEFA Cup , European Cup Winners ‘ Cup , UEFA Super Cup – only Manchester United can boast such a large haul of international trophies . “ Bayern players are always hungry , today just as much as in the past . They always want more , always want to reaffirm their success ,“ Matthäus says . He won seven league titles and the UEFA Cup
in Munich in the 80s and 90s . For the 1991 FIFA World Player of the Year , the FCB jersey was like a second skin . “ Even as a young boy in Herzogenaurach , I could never lose . I hated that from an early age . That ‘ s why FC Bayern and I were such a good fit . We have the same DNA .“
Suddenly insatiable
FC Bayern are often said to possess special genes , or more precisely the so-called winner ’ s gene , but where does it come from ? A glance at the trophy cabinet quickly transports you back to the 60s and 70s . Because that ‘ s when the heady rush of success began . Up until they were promoted to the Bundesliga in 1965 , FCB only won two major titles : the German championship in 1932 and the DFB Cup in 1957 . But suddenly there was no stopping them . Two triumphs in the DFB Cup ( 1966 , 1967 ) were followed by the European Cup Winners ‘ Cup ( 1967 ), the first double ( 1969 ) and the “ golden 70s “, in which the men from Munich won the Bundesliga ( 1972 – 74 ) and the European Cup ( 1974 – 76 ) three times in a row . “ And we would have loved to have done it a fourth time ,“ says Franz “ Bulle ” (“ Bull “) Roth , who bagged the opener for Bayern in three European Cup finals back then . “ The moment we
8 TITLES
PAUL BREITNER
PAUL BREITNER
XX TITEL XX SPIELE 5 . SEPTEMBER . 1951
XX TITEL
XX TITEL
PAUL BREITNER
PAUL BREITNER
XX SPIELE
347 APPEARANCES
XX SPIELE
DATE OF BIRTH
DATE OF BIRTH
05 / 09 / 1951
26.09.1957
BAYERN LIFE
DATE OF BIRTH
21.03.1961
FC Bayern Magazine 83