By Ian Palmer
According to Dutch international winger Arjen Robben of Bayern Munich, his club’s goal this season isn’t just to win the German Bundesliga for the third straight year, they aim to go the entire league campaign without losing a game. The team had a great jump on that goal as it went into the winter break as the league leaders with 14 wins and three draws after their first 17 matches. Their 45 points are 11 more than second-place Wolfsburg, and the top two teams meet each other when the second half of the Bundesliga season resumes next week.
Bayern Munich is currently favored to win the Bundesliga at 1/2000 and the team is also favored at 5/2 to win the 2014/15 European Champions League.
Bayern spent some of the winter break enjoying the warm weather of Qatar and also played an exhibition game there as they beat fellow German side Bochum on January 23rd. Robben told the media that Bayern intends to keep their foot on the gas for the rest of the season and they are going to attempt to win the rest of their games, starting with their clash against Wolfsburg. Robben said the players realize a win over their main rivals will give them a 14 point lead and that could knock Wolfsburg right out of the race.
However, Bayern Munich’s sporting director Matthias Sammer feels the players shouldn’t get ahead of themselves and need to take the rest of the season one game at a time. Sammer said there’s a long way to go in the league and it’s not going to be wrapped up until it’s mathematically impossible for anybody to catch them. Also, Sammer claimed that the club’s philosophy and its style of play is arguably the most important thing, even more important than the team’s results. Sammer believes the team shouldn’t plan on ending the season undefeated as they could lose their focus.
According to Sammer, the players shouldn’t concentrate on not trying to lose, but should be putting their minds to playing attractive soccer and trying to win. He told the Bundesliga’s official website, “No club in the world can plan to finish the campaign undefeated. We can be happy with a lot of things right now but we still have a long way to go. So far, the players have done a very good job in executing how manager Pep Guardiola and the club envisage playing football and we want to continue working on that. But don’t believe for a second that every Bundesliga game isn’t a new challenge.”
Sammer warned the players that the Bundesliga is one of the strongest soccer leagues and anything can happen during the course of a season, even to the team that sits in first place at the halfway mark. But while Sammer may feel the race for the league title is far from over, the bookmakers don’t really agree with him.
