Bayern Munich

History of Bayern Munich: "Mia san mia", Six European Cups and the 122-Goal Season

Germany's most decorated club and one of the few to have won two trebles, Bayern Munich produced in 2025–26 the most prolific season in their history: a thirty-fourth Bundesliga, a twenty-first German Cup and a record 122 league goals.

1. Foundation and the Early Decades (1900–1964)

On 27 February 1900, eleven players dissatisfied with the gymnastics club MTV 1879 walked out of a general meeting and founded FC Bayern München, on the initiative of Franz John. The club won its first German championship in 1932, but the arrival of the Nazi regime hit it hard: its Jewish president Kurt Landauer and its coach were forced into exile, and Bayern, regarded as a "Jewish club", was marginalised for years. Notably, it was not among the sixteen founding clubs of the Bundesliga in 1963.

2. Beckenbauer, Müller and Three European Cups (1965–1979)

Promoted in 1965, Bayern went up with three players who would shape football history: Franz Beckenbauer, inventor of the modern sweeper role, Gerd Müller, whose 365 Bundesliga goals remain an absolute record, and goalkeeper Sepp Maier. After a Cup Winners' Cup in 1967, the club reached the summit of the continent by winning three consecutive European Cups in 1974, 1975 and 1976. Those years established the club's culture, summed up by the Bavarian motto "Mia san mia" — we are who we are.

3. Domestic Dominance and European Frustration (1980–2000)

Bayern ruled Germany unchallenged but stumbled in Europe: a final lost in 1982, then in 1987 to Porto, and above all on 26 May 1999 at the Camp Nou, where Manchester United turned the match around with two stoppage-time goals. That defeat remains among the cruellest in the club's history.

4. 2001 and 2013: Revenge and the Treble (2001–2019)

The answer came in 2001: Bayern won a fourth European Cup on penalties against Valencia, in Milan. In 2005 the club left the Olympiastadion for the Allianz Arena. Then came the perfect year: in 2013, under Jupp Heynckes, Bayern completed the first treble in German football history — Bundesliga, German Cup and Champions League, won 2–1 against Borussia Dortmund in an all-German final at Wembley. A record run of eleven consecutive league titles followed between 2013 and 2023.

5. The 2020 Sextuple and the End of a Streak (2020–2025)

In 2020, under Hansi Flick, Bayern produced a legendary season: having crushed FC Barcelona 8–2 in the quarter-finals, they beat Paris Saint-Germain 1–0 in the Champions League final and completed a sextuple, a feat previously achieved only by Barcelona in 2009. In 2024 Bayer Leverkusen ended the eleven-title run; Bayern took their crown back in 2025. Harry Kane, who arrived in 2023, established himself as the club's benchmark goalscorer.

6. The 2025–26 Season: A Double and a Historic Record

The 2025–26 season will be remembered as one of the most complete in the club's history. Bayern were crowned German champions as early as 19 April 2026, with four matches to spare, after a 4–2 win over VfB Stuttgart: their thirty-fourth Bundesliga and thirty-fifth German championship.

Above all, the club shattered its own single-season scoring record — 101 goals in 1971–72 — finishing on 122 league goals, an average of 3.59 per match. That total is the second highest in the history of Europe's five major leagues, behind only Torino's 125 in 1947–48, scored across six additional fixtures.

On 23 May 2026, at Berlin's Olympiastadion, Bayern completed the double by beating Stuttgart 3–0 in the DFB-Pokal final: a record twenty-first German Cup, and their first since 2020.

The Champions League run was spectacular: 10–2 against Atalanta in the round of 16, 6–4 against Real Madrid in the quarter-finals, then an extraordinary semi-final lost 5–6 on aggregate to Paris Saint-Germain, the eventual winners.

7. Looking to 2026–27: Chasing a Sixth European Star

Since the restart, Bayern have pursued two ambitions: extending their domestic dominance and claiming a sixth European Cup. With more than three hundred and eighty thousand members — the largest membership base in world football — a full Allianz Arena every match and one of the most modern training campuses in Europe, the club retains every asset of an institution built to last.