Joshua Kimmich achieved something wonderful on Wednesday evening in Munich’s Allianz Arena: he scored two goals with his diving header in the 64th minute. Kimmich gave his team, FC Bayern, a 1-0 lead against Arsenal London, and at the same time he scored to make it 2-0 for Germany.
The two most recent successes of FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund in the quarter-finals of the Champions League can also be read this way: They are victories for the Bundesliga, the platform that was declared no longer internationally competitive just a few weeks ago. Namely by its own owner, the Frankfurt-based German Football League (DFL).
The complaints about the supposed competitive disadvantages of the German model will now fall silent. They have been impressively contradicted by the reality on the pitch. Borussia Dortmund fought its way through a difficult group with opponents such as Paris St. Germain, Newcastle United and AC Milan, all of whom are financially stronger than the Black and Yellows. In the knockout phase they first beat Eindhoven and then, on Tuesday evening, in a thrilling game, Atletico Madrid.
Bayern’s path was a little easier, but they also prevailed against clubs that were pumped up with investor money. Group opponents Manchester United are majority owned by the American Glazer family of entrepreneurs, who have registered their stock corporation in the Cayman Islands. Arsenal London, opponent in the round of 16, is controlled by the American Stan Kroenke, who is also the owner of the NBA club Denver Nuggets and the ice hockey team Colorado Avalanche and holds shares in the football team Los Angeles Rams.
The DFL has been looking at the English Premier League with envy for years. The biggest stars play there and most of the money is made from selling television rights. For example, the bottom team in the Premier League receives more TV money than the long-time German industry leader Bayern Munich. In the eyes of the DFL, this represents an imbalance, a market distortion, which they wanted to counteract by following the English path and opening up to investors.
That plan was abandoned at the end of February after weeks of fan protests and tennis balls raining on the lawn. The DFL withdrew, not without insulting the fact that German football was hurting itself the most. The subtext of their message was: If you demonize investor money so much, dear fans, then you shouldn’t be surprised if your teams no longer win anything in Europe and shrink into suppliers for the Premier League.
In fact, Bayern and Dortmund have not won anything yet, they have only reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. But above all, Dortmund’s stage victory shows that the market logic, according to which a lot of money is a necessary prerequisite for sporting success, can be broken through clever coaching and passionate fighting.
At the same time, the semi-final tableau with two German teams is nothing more than a snapshot. Nothing has changed in the fundamental balance of power in European football. The Premier League remains the number one place of desire for the best Bundesliga players – and Dortmund, Leipzig and Leverkusen will have to let their best talents go in the future.
And yet this Champions League season shows what role German clubs – with the exception of the comparatively well-off Bayern – could take on in Europe in the next few years. Namely those of the spoilsports, the anarchos, the obstructions. As of this week, the Champions League is no longer just the well-tempered pass from Real Madrid’s Toni Kroos or the speed dribbling of Paris St. Germain’s Kylian Mbappé. It’s also the diving tackle from Dortmund’s Nico Schlotterbeck and the powerful header from Niclas Füllkrug.
