“It was a threat and they took it as such in the locker room”. Yesterday, Real Madrid's landing in Munich brought back many memories on the expedition. Just 10 years ago, on April 29, 2014, the city where they were going to “burn up the trees”, as Rummenigge had warned, saw the white team achieve one of the great victories in its history in the European Cup , the first in the Bayern camp, the one that opened the portal to La Décima and the one that “changed everything”, they now admit in the club, on the path of a prodigious decade.
Only Carvajal, Nacho, Modric and Lucas Vázquez remain from that squad. Although he did not play in any official match that season, he did train with the first team, but the spirit of that night is still present in the coaching staff and in the Madrid management.. “Rummenigge says that the trees are going to burn, but right now I see that it is raining,” said Carlo Ancelotti ironically in the preview of that second leg.. Curiously, both have had a great friendship since the German's time at Inter in the eighties, and the manager ended up in tears when he had to fire Carletto from Bayern in 2017.
Today, ten years and five Champions Leagues after 0-4, the transalpine player once again guides the whites to the assault on the German city. Before hell for Madrid, now a “respected” rival, but without the philias and phobias of other times. All thanks to that win.
The emotional slab
The whites reached that tie after losing three years in a row in the semifinals. An emotional slab that ended Mourinho's era. The first was against Barça, but the last two, against Bayern and Dortmund, were the most painful. The reader will remember that penalty shootout at the Bernabéu, in 2012. The pitchers were Cristiano, Kaká, Xabi Alonso and Ramos. Only the Donostiarra scored. Things of destiny. Mourinho, kneeling on the grass, couldn't believe it.
In 2013, Madrid lost 4-1 in Dortmund and tried for an epic at home, but football denied them. The following year, with Ancelotti now in charge, chance crossed him again with Bayern, to which he was linked by an eternal condemnation of confrontations in Europe: defeat in the semifinals of 75-76 and 86-87, victory in the quarterfinals of 87-88, victory in the semifinals of 99-00, defeat in the semifinals of 00-01, victory in the quarterfinals of 01-02, victory in the round of 16 of 03-04, defeat in the second round of 06-07 and defeat in the semis of 11-12. That is, of the nine qualifying rounds, Madrid passed in four and was left out in five. It might not be a dramatic percentage, but the phobia came when analyzing the duels on German soil. The whites had not won any of the ten games in Munich.
“That phrase touched the soul”
Perhaps for that reason, because he knew that the statistics were in his favor, in 2014 Rummenigge said a phrase that stuck in the minds of that locker room.. «We must give them a hot bath. “In Munich even the trees are going to burn.”. Bathroom and fire. “That phrase, that threat, reached the soul of the squad,” they remember today in Valdebebas, where the pressure to achieve La Décima was enormous.
“Obsession”, as they define it, for that Champions League, Rummenigge's phrase, Guardiola's comments calling them “athletes” and the three semi-finals lost with Mourinho enraged a squad full of hunger that consummated its revenge, against Bayern and against Luck, April 29, 2014 at the Allianz Arena. Two goals from Ramos and two from Cristiano, two of those who had missed in that round in 2012.
«The Champions League owed me one after those penalties. I was worried because I was prepared, but it is a dream to play in the final,” he warned, without knowing what fate had in store for him.
Ancelotti's request to Bale
“It is better not to say anything,” Rummenigge replied in the stands.. “It has been a debacle”. The international media spoke of “humiliation” and “ridiculousness”. In Valdebebas, the coaching staff still remembers Ancelotti's request to Bale: “90 minutes of sacrifice for Lisbon”. The Italian changed the system with respect to the first leg and went to 4-4-2 with Bale and Di María on the wings and Cristiano and Benzema as nines. The Welshman's effort helping Carvajal was key.
A couple of years later, Guardiola admitted that that second leg was “my biggest mistake as a coach”. A match that led to Kroos signing for Madrid that summer and that became a turning point towards a glorious decade, with the three consecutive Champions Leagues as its culmination.
It was also a giant blow for Bayern, who during these years have not been able to beat Madrid. After four games and two ties, they have gone 12 years without winning against the whites, who have won their last three visits to Allianz (0-4, 1-2 in 16-17 and 1-2 in 17-18) .