Ribery partners Robben, Lewy leads attack - Bayern's best XI of the decade

In celebration of the sporting decade that is coming to a close, writers from The Athletic have been picking their teams of the 2010s — here, Raphael Honigstein names his Bayern Munich XI…

Goalkeeper: Manuel Neuer

Manuel Neuer’s background as a Schalke 04 ultra was not well received at the Allianz Arena: four months before his move to Bavaria in 2011, the Bayern Munich supporters were holding up placards urging him to stay away. The German record champions apologised to him and Neuer, unperturbed by a late intervention from Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who tried to stop the transfer via his links with S04 sponsors Gazprom, swapped colours in 2011. He was an immediate success.

Neuer’s superb anticipation and kicking skills allowed the team to play a higher defensive line, which in turn enabled them to press the opposition more effectively. Bayern went to an altogether different level in the process, reaching the Champions League final in 2012 and winning it a year later. Under Pep Guardiola, Neuer perfected his game to become the most complete German keeper in history as well as key factor in the national team’s triumph in Brazil 2014.

Right-back: Philipp Lahm

Hermann Gerland, the Bayern Munich head of academy in the 1990s and early 2000s, knew that this kid from the Munich suburb of Gern was special: a superb technician, almost infallible in his decision-making and positioning. But others couldn’t look past Philipp Lahm’s slender, small 5ft 7in frame. The only Bundesliga coach willing to give the teenager a chance to show that size didn’t matter was VfB Stuttgart’s Felix Magath. 

After two years on loan in Swabia, the right-footed Lahm returned to become Bayern’s first-choice left-back and retired in 2017 as a football icon who had captained club and country in the successful pursuit of the game’s biggest prizes.

“He simply cannot play badly,” Gerland used to say. Whether he featured on the left or on the right side of defence or in the centre of midfield under Pep Guardiola, Lahm was rarely anything less than flawless. “In 75 per cent of all the games you played in, you were outstanding. And in the other 25 per cent, you were world-class,” Mehmet Scholl told him. 

After his late-career transformation into a deep-lying playmaker, Thomas Tuchel (then at Mainz 05) called him a “football robot” but his human qualities should not be overlooked. He was a quiet, very modern type of leader, and he broke the mould for a new generation of players.

Centre-back: Jerome Boateng

The two centre-back positions were Bayern’s problem spots throughout much of the 21st century. This all changed when 22-year-old Jerome Boateng arrived at the Allianz Arena following a less-than-happy spell at Manchester City. 

The Berlin-born Euro 2009 winner with Germany’s under-21 team was often accused of lacking focus in his first few months in Bavaria but soon improved to become a key member of the side that won the treble in 2013.

By the end of Pep Guardiola’s three years at Bayern, Boateng had evolved further into a superb diagonal passer and was voted Player of the Year 2016 in Germany, a rare individual award for a defender. His performances have since suffered due to a combination of injuries and fall-outs with coaches (Carlo Ancelotti, Niko Kovac) but Boateng’s longevity at the heart of the club’s defence unquestionably qualifies him as the most important centre-back of the decade.

Centre-back: Javi Martinez

Yes, it’s true, the former Athletic Bilbao player is, of course, a defensive midfielder by trade and has only played intermittently in defence for Bayern since signing up for a then club-record sum of €40 million in 2012. Pep Guardiola’s master plan of making him the central part of a back three never quite came to fruition due to a series of injuries. 

There are two good reasons why the 2010 World Cup winner with Spain must still be included in this team of the decade, however.

Firstly, no single central defender was able to hold down a place next to Boateng for more than three seasons, which makes him an altogether more important influence at the back. But more crucially, Bayern’s Champions League win in 2013 and subsequent strong showings in Europe would be unthinkable without him. It was Martinez’s no-nonsense tackling and superb reading of the game that lifted Bayern to the next level.

Left-back: David Alaba

David Alaba started jogging with his Nigerian-born dad George in Vienna aged five. He hasn’t stopped running since. Still only 27, the tireless, freakishly-reliable Austrian has won eight German championships, four DFB Cups and the Champions League. At this rate, the left-back is likely to go down as the most decorated Bayern player in history, ahead of former team-mate Franck Ribery, who won the league nine times.

Alaba has been described as “a gift from heaven” by Ottmar Hitzfeld. No-one in Munich would disagree. In his 12 years at the club, he’s perhaps had half a dozen poor games. Unassuming to the point of being almost shy, he’s not just one of the best Bayern players of this decade but also one of the nicest, too.

Defensive midfield: Bastian Schweinsteiger

Back when Bastian Schweinsteiger was still a rebellious teenager trying to make it in professional football, he was once caught showing the training facilities to a girlfriend late at night. That indiscretion couldn’t stop his ascent to the very top, however. 

Schweinsteiger, a gifted skier born at the feet of the Alps, debuted under Ottmar Hitzfeld in 2002, and didn’t take long to stake a permanent claim.

Initially, he was played in a variety of wide positions, as well as in attacking midfield. It took Louis van Gaal to understand his varied passing and ability to bring structure to the team was best utilised in the middle of the park. 

Under the Dutchman’s guidance, Schweinsteiger’s game made a giant leap: he became a captain without the armband and the “emotional leader” (in the words of Joachim Low) for both club and country. Winning the World Cup in Brazil and the Champions League with Bayern confirmed his status as Germany’s Fussballgott (football god).

Defensive midfielder: Xabi Alonso

Possibly a controversial choice, considering the Spaniard only spent three years in Munich. But in 2014-15 and 2015-16, in particular, the bearded Basque provided more cool authority, effortless elegance and pinpoint accuracy than most central midfielders will muster in a lifetime. 

“He’s an intelligent player. He pushes the team forward, metre by metre,” honorary club president Franz Beckenbauer, who knew a thing about deep, upright playmakers setting the tempo, said in recognition of Alonso’ metronomic effect.

The World Cup winner’s all-pervasive impact on his team’s passing game was most keenly felt after his departure in 2017: Bayern’s possession game more or less collapsed without him and led to the demise of Carlo Ancelotti. 

That might not be the end of the story, however. At Saebener Strasse, they hope that Alonso will one day return as a coach, to bring his cultured ways to the pitch once more.

Right-wing: Arjen Robben

For Bayern supporters, the Dutchman will forever be synonymous with scoring the winning goal in the Champions League final at Wembley. Before that glorious night in London, however, the former Chelsea winger’s position in the pantheon of Bayern greats was less assured. Robben had proved a superb addition in the wake of his move from Real Madrid in 2009, an often irresistible wide attacker who’d regularly drive defenders crazy by cutting inside onto his left foot and shoot at goal from an angle.

But he had also been ineffective in key games against Borussia Dortmund in the league as well as two Champions League finals. Sections of the Munich crowd booed him in a friendly game after he had missed an extra-time penalty against Chelsea in 2012. But then came Wembley, and redemption. Robben retired in 2019 after a decade of service for Bayern as an all-time star.

No 10: Thomas Muller

The self-styled Raumdeuter (space interpreter) broke into the first team under Louis van Gaal in 2009-10. That season would end with Bayern contesting the Champions League final for the first time in nine years and Muller setting the 2010 World Cup in South Africa alight by winning the competition’s golden boot.

A succession of coaches in Munich have sometimes struggled to carve out a role for a player who defies regular positions but home-grown hero Muller has always found a way back into the starting XI thanks to his highly-developed instinct and strong motivational effect on his team-mates. 

As a symbol of the club’s Bavarian values, he’s widely expected to finish his career as a one-club man and will probably take up a role in the running of the club before too long. “I can’t imagine Bayern without him,” Lahm has said.

Left-wing: Franck Ribery

Aged 20, the native of the grimy port city of Boulogne was still working as a construction worker alongside his father. Four years later, he was proclaimed “Bavaria’s new king” in a huge Nike billboard in Munich’s city centre. The crowd had taken to the €25 million signing from Marseille immediately. 

Ribery, dubbed “a football anarchist” by local broadsheet Suddeutsche Zeitung, was an unstoppable force of nature with the ball at his feet, a fearless, incessant dribbler whose wing-play seemed to belong a different, more golden age. 

His signing in 2007 has often been credited as the start of Bayern’s re-emergence as a team belonging to the European elite.

The Frenchman’s highly individualistic streak saw him clash with coaches at times but his defensive work-rate went up two notches to make him indispensable in the run up to the 2013 treble. 

“Ribery, Ribery,” the Bayern supporters used to shout, all the way until his tearful departure at the end of the 2018-19 season.

Striker: Robert Lewandowski

In an age when the big, strong No 9 was finding himself marginalised at the world’s best teams, Robert Lewandowski flipped the script. The Polish forward joined Bayern Munich from Borussia Dortmund on a free transfer in 2014 to establish himself as the most consistent scorer since the fabled Gerd Muller in the 1970s. The 31-year-old has scored an incredible 218 goals for Bayern since 2014.

His father Krzysztof, who passed away in 2005, insisted Robert should enjoy a multi-sports education that encompassed volleyball, judo, gymnastics as well as handball in his youth. The benefits of those early experiences are still visible today. “Lewy” moves around the box with extraordinary agility and poise. Strict dedication to his craft of the pitch ensures he rarely gets injured, either. All that’s missing is a big international trophy but even if that dream were to remain unfulfilled, his place in the history books is certain.