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Germany: Bayern's staying power proves crucial as Schalke falter [Wed Dec 31st, 1969]
The Bundesliga season began with a power failure and ended in triumph for Bayern Munich when their rivals ran out of gas.
Bayern were clinging on to the league leadership on goal difference at the start of April, with Schalke 04 threatening to take the title race to the wire.
Schalke's strength proved to be illusory, however, with the last mile proving to be by far the hardest for Ralf Rangnick's squad.
Bayern's bigger, fitter and more experienced squad helped them dig out six victories in a row on the way to sealing the title on Saturday.
They included victories over Borussia Moenchengladbach, Hannover 96 and VfL Bochum in a decisive three-week period, just as Schalke were losing to VfB Stuttgart, Hamburg SV and Hertha Berlin.
That handed the Bavarians a nine-point lead with four to play and Saturday's 4-0 victory over Kaiserslautern, coupled with Schalke's 3-3 draw with Bayer Leverkusen, earned Bayern their 19th domestic championship with three games to spare.
It took time for newly-appointed coach Felix Magath to get the best out of Bayern, though.
By the eighth round of matches, they were six points behind Magath's former club VfB Stuttgart. It was only the inability of their main rivals to put together a convincing run that kept them in the title race.
Werder Bremen, who had lost Brazilian striker Ailton to Schalke at the end of their double-winning season, struggled throughout to meet the demands of the UEFA Champions League and a domestic title defence.
They had an embarrassing start to the season, when their opening match at home to Schalke was delayed by over an hour because of a power failure, and never came close to matching the achievements of the previous year.
Borussia Dortmund, in dire financial straits, threatened to self-destruct entirely, while Stuttgart were too inconsistent and Schalke took time to recover from a bad start to the season that saw Jupp Heynckes replaced by Rangnick in September.
WOLF FROM THE PACK
VfL Wolfsburg, coached by the Belgian Erik Gerets and featuring the outstanding Argentine playmaker Andres d'Alessandro, roared out of the pack of smaller clubs.
They showed their potential with a 2-1 win away to Bremen in August. By the end of October, they had won eight of their 11 games to move four points clear.
A 2-0 defeat by Bayern had already exposed weaknesses, however, and a 4-0 defeat by Nuremberg on November 6 left them hanging on to the leadership only on goal difference.
The turning point for Bayern came when Magath promoted 20-year-old Peruvian striker Paolo Guerrero from the club's amateur side.
It was an inspired decision as Guerrero's raw skill, his speed and aggression brought him four goals in three brief substitute appearances to help clinch victories over Hannover, Bochum and Kaiserslautern.
The last of those, on November 20, took Bayern back to the top of the Bundesliga for the first time since their title triumph at the end of the 2002-03 season.
Bayern and Schalke stayed neck-and-neck at the front until they faced each other in a match that was prematurely billed as a title decider on March 13.
SCHALKE DOUBLE
Schalke won it 1-0 with a Lincoln free kick to do the double over Bayern and move three points clear but the more experienced Bayern players looked on unperturbed as Schalke celebrated.
"Anyone who thinks this result wraps up the title is in for a nasty surprise," goalkeeper Oliver Kahn warned. "There's a long, long way to go yet."
It took just six days for Bayern to return to the top, as Schalke slipped to a dismal 2-1 defeat at relegation candidates Mainz in their next game.
Schalke managed to stick with Bayern for one more week, before starting a three-match losing streak with a 3-0 defeat by Stuttgart.
Bayern were not playing much better, but their greater resources helped them keep on winning, even while they were fighting a losing battle to stay in the Champions League against Chelsea.
Magath was able to bring on players of the calibre of Mehmet Scholl and Owen Hargreaves to inspire victories in tricky games against 'Gladbach and Hannover, just as Schalke were discovering they had no second wind.
Reuters
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