The German media reacted with incredulity and glee after Bayern Munich’s 7-2 win against Tottenham Hotspur.
Bild called it “a historic triumph in London” and added that it was reminiscent of when Germany beat Brazil 7-1 at the 2014 World Cup. The tabloid said that Bayern had been “merciless” and that the victory had “shocked Europe”.
Matthias Brügelmann noted that Bayern have, in Joshua Kimmich and Robert Lewandowski, leaders who want two win everything, similar to the desire shown by Liverpool when they won the Champions League last season. “They want to win ‘the big one’ and that is why they always give everything on the pitch,” he wrote before adding: “and that is why they don’t care if they annoy the top people at the club, the coach or their teammates.”
Bild also wrote about Karl-Heinz Rummenigge’s speech after the game and before the dinner, in which he described the performance and result as “memorable” and added that the team “had made history”.
He especially thanked the coach, Niko Kovac, who has had a difficult time at Bayern since joining at the start of last season, saying that they had seen something “unbelievable” at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Rummenigge also said that Bayern had proved that a Bundesliga team were capable of beating a top Premier League side and for that he was thankful.
Kicker, notoriously stingy when it comes to player ratings, handed out three “Einser”, the best possible mark, to Manuel Neuer, Serge Gnabry and Lewandowski, while Toby Alderweireld suffered the ignominy of being given the rarely seen “6.0”. Son Heung-min was the only Spurs player to escape with a decent mark.
The local Munich paper, Abend-Zeitung, said Bayern had won “with an impressive canter” and there was special praise for Gnabry, who was labelled “the Fourminator” after his four-goal haul.
But what was his reward, wondered Patrick Strasser in the same paper. “His reward seemed to be a sliding tackle from Niklas Süle that made Gnabry fly out of the pitch as the players celebrated, and then followed the next setback as Javi Martínez took the match ball and booted it high into the stands where the Bayern fans were standing. Both actions worthy of a yellow.”
Gnabry spoke of “one of the best games of his career” and “a wonderful feeling in what was for us a super night”. The former Arsenal player added: “I could never have dreamed of scoring four in a Champions League game. That is incredible. I haven’t won 7-2 that often and I haven’t scored four in a game since I was playing for the youth teams.”
Christopher Gerards, in Süddeutsche Zeitung, took a moment to reflect on those surreal moments in added-on time when it finally dawned on everyone what had happened. “The Bayern fans started to sing the song that was unavoidable on a night like this. ‘Dass einer noch reingehe, einer gehe noch reeeiin’ [another one goes] could be heard from the area with the Bayern fans. It is a song that is only sung when a game has lost any tension, when one team has already scored a large number of goals. No more goals came but by then Bayern had already scored enough.”
