Hypothetical: Is Bayern Munich better than the German National Team?
By: Jan | October 11th, 2007It’s happy days for Bayern Munich’s management, whose expensively upgraded squad is currently dominating the Bundesliga at will. They are actually so happy, that they feel confident enough to claim that Bayern Munich has the edge over Germany’s flagship according to Goal.com.
I believe it would be very difficult for the national side to beat Bayern in their current form - Uli Hoeneß
FC Bayern is strong enough to beat the national team - Franz Beckenbauer
It’s a purely hypothetical argument, unless you manage to clone all the German national team players in Bayern Munich’s squad, but for the fun of it, here are the squad listings:
Germany
Goalkeeper
Timo Hildebrand, Jens Lehmann, (Robert Enke - Manuel Neuer - Rene Adler)
Defence
Marcell Jansen, Per Mertesacker, Christoph Metzelder, Philipp Lahm, Christian Pander, Arne Friedrich, Manuel Friedrich, Clemens Fritz
Midfield
Torsten Frings, Michael Ballack, Bernd Schneider, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Tim Borowski, Roberto Hilbert, Thomas Hitzlsperger, David Odonkor
Attack
Miroslav Klose, Mario Gomez, Patrick Helmes, Kevin Kuranyi, Lukas Podolski
Bayern Munich
Goalkeeper
Oliver Kahn, Michael Rensing, Bernd Dreher
Defence
Willy Sagnol, Lúcio, Daniel van Buyten, Martin Demichelis, Philipp Lahm, Marcell Jansen, Valérien Ismaël, Christian Lell
Midfield
Franck Ribéry, Zé Roberto, Mark van Bommel, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Toni Kroos, Hamit Altintop, Andreas Ottl, José Ernesto Sosa
Attack
Luca Toni, Lukas Podolski, Miroslav Klose, Jan Schlaudraff, Sandro Wagner
I hope those are representative squad listings for both teams. I’ll add my verdict to the comments section, and so should you.
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Comments
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Both teams currently have tired old men in goal. Though if I had a word with Jogi Löw someone like Timo Hildebrand would be promoted to first choice goalkeeper. In any case, outside of Jens Lehmann I consider all of Germany’s backup keepers to be better than Bayern Munich’s setup. But Michael Rensing definitely has great talent.
Defence: There’s the Lahm/Jansen pairing as fullbacks for both teams. Then there’s Lucio/Demichelis vs Mertesacker/Metzelder. Difficult to decide, but I think that the German national team has one future world class defender in Mertesacker so a slight advantage there. Though Bayern has better depth with van Buyten and Ismael vs the two Friedrichs and Willy Sagnol is just as good of not better than Jansen. But Clemens Fritz and Christian Pander add some proper depth to the fullback position as well. With their best defensive lineup I give Germany a slim advantage here.
Midfield: van Bommel/Ze Roberto vs Frings/Ballack. It probably doesn’t help that I’m not a Bayern Munich supporter but I give Frings/Ballack the nod here. Schweinsteiger is in both lineups. But there’s no equal to Franck Ribery in the German national team, no matter how much I fancy Bernd Schneider’s skills.
Attack: Klose/Toni vs Klose/Gomez. Bayern wins this one but the German national team has more depth with Kuranyi, Podolski, Helmes on the bench.
I’d say it’s a close call so any team could win a one-off match. But if both teams were to play a whole season of head-to-heads Germany would come out on top IMHO due to it’s superior depth of talent, which I think plays a role when it comes to compensating the usual injury troubles.
Posted from
Germany
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That’s a tough one! Both teams are playing very well right now. Germany looks unstoppable in Euro qualifiers (granted they’re in a pretty weak group) and Bayern is clearly the class of the Bundesliga. Unfortunately Bayern isn’t playing in the Champions League, so we may never know how good they are.
For now, I have them 3rd in my (also hypothetical) ranking of the top 25 clubs worldwide:
http://soccer-source.blogspot.com/2007/10/worlds-top-25-clubs-oct-8-2007-edition.html
Posted from
United States -
Interesting ranking and I’d definitely agree with the two first ranked teams. Bayern obviously has the problem, that they can’t compete against the top teams at the moment. Their UEFA Cup group looks weak on paper as well. Though, as the UEFA Cup moves on and some Champions League rejects enter the stage, it should produce some matches were Bayern can demonstrate their strength or weakness.
The prospect of seeing this team play in the Champions League next season, also makes it easier to put up with their current dominance in the league
Posted from
Germany -
Hey Jan, I finally got back and did a breakdown of Karlsruhe and Schalke. Hope you like: http://bundesliga-talk.blogspot.com/2007/10/no-smoke-and-mirros-here.html
Posted from
United States -
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Improved version of my post (NOW with link!):
Not hypothetical: Reds triumph crowns first-night spectacular
Posted from
United States -
Oh, those were the days.
The media was bashing Klinsmann day in and out, and the national team didn’t look like they knew how to play the modern football that Klinsmann/Löw wanted them to play. And Klinsmann/Löw didn’t look like they knew how to teach modern football either. Plus:“With Germany’s entire Bayern contingent appearing for the club,…”
And with players like Huth and Owomoyela in Germany’s starting XI… That’s not a fair comparison.
Posted from
Germany -
My feeling is that FC Bayern’s midfield would be significantly better than the German nats. Even Schweinsteiger is better with Ribery than without. Otherwise, I personally would rather have Adler over Kahn and Kuranyi over Toni, but all is rather equal in that regard as it is preference. And while Lucio and Demichelis are great, Per and Metz are pretty darn strong.
Posted from
United States
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