"Who would have ever thought? A guy from Canada winning the Champions League?" Alphonso Davies said after Bayern Munich won the Champions League final against Paris Saint-Germain to ViaSat VSAT -2.7% . Davies winning the Champions League final as the first Canadian was just one piece of history made on Sunday night.
Bayern Munich became the first team to win every single game in the Champions League on their way to the title, they have won a treble for the second time in history, they have become just the third club in history to score 500 Champions League goals and only Barcelona have scored more goals in a single season (45) than Bayern's 42 this season. Keep in mind though, Bayern did not have return fixtures in the quarterfinals and semifinals to run up their goal tally.
For Bayern, it is a remarkable turnaround. In November, the Rekordmeister was beaten 5-1 by Eintracht Frankfurt at the Commerzbank Arena. The day after, the club went their separate ways with head coach Niko Kovac and appointed assistant Hansi Flick as the new bench boss.
Flick was supposed to be a stop-gap, a short-term solution until the club could find another high profile coach. But Flick steadied the ship ahead of the Christmas break and after Bayern Munich smashed Chelsea in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 tie in February was given the club's confidence to become the new full-time head coach.
It was a stroke of luck. After the coronavirus pandemic break, Bayern sailed through the league to secure a 30th Bundesliga title and a 20th DFB Pokal. Pundits and fans from around the world quickly took a swing at the Bundesliga and claimed a lack of competition in Germany. But let us take a closer look here, arguably it was the Champions League where Bayern were the most dominant.
The German Rekordmeister not only smashed Tottenham Hotspur (7-2), Chelsea (7-2 on aggregate), and Barcelona (8-2), but unlike the Bundesliga, they were never truly challenged by any of the top sides in Spain and England. One could even argue that their biggest challenge was in the semifinal against Olympique Lyon (3-0) and then in their final win over PSG, both teams hailing from Ligue 1.
"It has been a good season, it is all about how you finish not how you start," Davies said in the post-game interview. "The start of the season wasn't that good, winning the treble is amazing. Dreams do come true."
They usually do become true when you do play for Bayern. The Rekordmeister has now added a second treble season to the club's record books—they have become just the 14th team to accomplish this and only the third club in history to win it a second time.
An amazing accomplishment for a club, which just ten months ago was looking like it would have to rebuild to win another European crown. Instead, Bayern did it all on the fly and now look at a bright future, both in Germany but also internationally.
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