Round-Up: Werner Ipta
March 18, 2016 After a great evening in the Champions League, where Bayern came back in an impressive manner and advanced to the quarterfinals, the next game will be a difficult away game against 1. FC Köln at the weekend. After that the majority of the squad will fly to their national teams, the rest should be happy about a little more free time.
Werner Ipta is today’s birthday child. Born 1942 in Wattenscheid, the Westphalian began to play football at FC Schalke 04 at the age of ten. In 1960, as an 18 years old, he had his debut in the first team, in which he played as a central midfielder. In the following games he was a regular starter and e.g. reached the DFB Cup semi-final. After three years at Schalke, Ipta moved to FC Bayern – the reason was probably mainly a change in his working situation, like many of his contemporaries, Ipta was no professional footballer. In the 1963/64 season he played in 28 games for FC Bayern, but already moved on to Grasshoppers Zurich in the following season. In 1966 Ipta came back to Germany and gave it another go in the Regionalliga for Hertha BSC Berlin, for which he played in a total of 83 matches. In 1970 the midfielder ended his career, which was plagued by several serious injuries.
In the early 2000s Ipta had to deal with a personal drama: Due to a diabetes disease his left leg had to be amputated. Today Ipta lives near the Olympic stadium in Berlin. Since 2008 he is a member of Hertha BSC, where he received the membership number 83 – the number of his appearances for Berlin.
Happy birthday Werner Ipta!
Press review
Match recaps
The second leg against Juventus Turin was the acid test for our newest miasanrot-member Justin. After his debut with the loss against Mainz 05, he already feared to be a bad omen for Bayern. In his analysis he managed to take a balanced look at the things that eventually pushed Bayern to the quarterfinal, but also at the aspects that almost prevented it.
Raphael Honigstein and James Horncastle exchange football love letters about the Bayern vs Juventus round-of-16 tie for the ages.
In a pre-match article Uli Hesse dived into the history books of European football and searched for the shared history between Juventus and Bayern, to find out – amongst other things – that both first played each other as late as 1992.
Pep and the press
“If Bayern exits the Champions League against Juventus Turin, Pep Guardiola has failed at Bayern” was a common view on the work of the current coach by the German press. In his last edition of the Pep Episodes, Alex Truica describes the picture German media has widely painted about the Catalan coach.
Thankfully Bayern won against Juventus and didn’t exit the Champions League, thus the “Pep is a failure” articles are still in the drawers or as Raphael Honigstein said:
Hold the obituaries
— Raphael Honigstein (@honigstein) March 16, 2016
English journalists seem to show a little more respect for the job Guardiola, or coaches in general, are performing. Gabriele Marcoti e.g. claims that Pep Guardiola, Max Allegri, Bayern Munich and Juventus all deserve credit for their performances in this Champions League knock-out round.
Nevertheless, Bayern will have to improve to get through the next Champions League round, because Juventus has shown the way to topple Bayern Munich and it’s up to Pep to counter, says Jonathan Wilson.
Two-legged xG map for Juventus-Bayern. Juve played an incredible 210 minutes, but they're out of Europe now. pic.twitter.com/rJR2yVMTVa
— Michael Caley (@MC_of_A) March 16, 2016
Pep’s magic
On BayernCentral Zahra Hasan analyzed the evolution of Bayern Munich’s attack under Guardiola and on centralattackingdefender @Kilonater3000 took a look at Pep Guardiola’s army.
Mike Goodmann analyzed Guardiola’s system and says stopping Bayern isn’t impossible, but under Pep Guardiola it’s pretty close. He claims the current system is heavily based on the versatility of key players like Lahm or Alaba. In an interview this week Alaba said that: ‘I didn’t know I could play as a central defender’.
Reschke regulates
The Guardian collected a list containing the best bargain’s of the transfer window from last summer. In the Bundesliga Bayern is posing a pretty nice track record, thanks to technical director Michael Reschke.
Why the following youngster is not on the list is a little mystery, but maybe the Guardian wants to save his name for the next edition.
A week in the life of Kingsley Coman
Last weekend KINGsley found his rhythm for the game against Juventus by setting a record in the Bundesliga win against Bremen:
3 – Kingsley #Coman (@FCBayernEN) is the youngest player with 3 assists in one BL game and our player of MD26. King pic.twitter.com/HOvQVs2b2d
— OptaFranz (@OptaFranz) March 14, 2016
Even though he didn’t start against Juventus, he is “the teenager who tore Juventus apart and saved Pep Guardiola’s Champions League dream… and he’s on loan from the Italian giants!”
Coman's fantastic run and goal! pic.twitter.com/mnwt3AsC5Z
— World Soccer Shop (@worldsoccershop) March 16, 2016
Ribery’s plans for the future
In the winter break Frank Ribery had an offer to go to China and earn big money, but the 32 year old – who is already in his 9th season at Bayern – is focused on winning further silverware with the team and plans to play for three more years, preferably in Munich.
“Fußballfans sind keine Verbrecher” – Football fans are no criminals
Football fans and especially ultras are often viewed in a very critical light, but on the last weekend Bundesliga fans in Munich, Dortmund and Darmstadt demonstrated how their planned and even improvised actions can have a positive impact well beyond the actual game.
Lewandowski at Bavarian Football Works
Gina Lewandowski of the FCB women’s team gave an exclusive interview to Bavarian Football Works. The American defender on the one hand talks about the current issues at Bayern and on the other hand speaks about the more distant future.
Champions League reforms
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, also the chairman of the European Clubs Association (ECA), was happy that Bayern progressed to the quarterfinals, but was unhappy with the fact that a European heavy weight like Juventus Turin is out of the Champions League even before the quarterfinals. This week it came to be known, that currently discussions are ongoing about the potential set-up of a third European club tournament, above the Champions League and with a stronger focus on the big five leagues.
