Bayern Munich go into the 2024/25 UEFA Champions League season looking for redemption. The team went trophyless for the first time in 12 years last term. The Champions League was the one competition that they actually came relatively close to winning, as the Bavarians were denied a place in the final towards the end of an epic tie against Real Madrid. In this piece, Last Word on Football looks ahead to Bayern Munich’s league phase matches in the remade Champions League format.
Bayern Munich’s Champions League: League Phase Matches
The Home Games
Instead of a group-stage, the first stage of the Champions League is now a league phase. The first of Bayern Munich’s matches will be against Croatian champions Dinamo Zagreb. On paper, there is a large gap in pedigree between the two sides.
However, Vincent Kompany’s team may underestimate this opponent at their own peril, as Dinamo have defeated teams like Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea in recent European campaigns, costing former Bayern boss Thomas Tuchel his job with the Blues at the time.
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The next of Bayern Munich’s league matches at home is their fourth match against Portuguese giants Benfica. They are Champions League regulars, who from time to time do quite well in Europe’s largest club competition. The Bavarians barely overcame them in the 2016 UCL quarterfinals for example. Another interesting fact about Benfica is that their coach Roger Schmidt is German, although he spent much of his coaching career abroad.
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Matchday Five will welcome Paris St Germain to the Allianz Arena for another rematch of the 2020 Champions League final, which saw Bayern lift their sixth and most recent UCL trophy. The following year, PSG got their revenge, advancing to the quarterfinals on away goals. It will be interesting to watch the next chapter of this rivalry.
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Matchday Eight then brings us to the last of Bayern Munich’s league phase matches at home. Slovan Bratislava of Slovakia are the opponents. They are complete Champions League newcomers, though they have recently made strides in European football by reaching the 2023 Conference League Round of 16. But this is of course a whole other level.
The Away Games
Along with the four home matches, there will be four away fixtures for Kompany to manage in the league phase. That begins on Matchday Two against Aston Villa. Unai Emery had been successful against Bayern with his former club Villareal, by applying very defensive tactics. We can probably expect more of the same here.
The next fixture is one of the most anticipated matchups in this part of the competition. Barcelona welcome Bayern to the Spanish metropolis, with the German club having become a bogey team for Barca since they demolished them 8-2 in the 2020 single-leg quarterfinal.
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The situation for both clubs has drastically changed since then. For one thing, the then-Bayern coach Hansi Flick and their best goalscorer in recent history Robert Lewandowski have since joined the Catalan giants.
Matchday Six sees Bayern make their shortest European journey of the UCL league phase. They take on Ukrainian champions Shakhtar Donetsk, who play their European home games in the Arena auf Schalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. Meanwhile, on Matchday Seven, they have the last of their league phase matches away from home this season against Feyenoord Rotterdam. Neither of these are spectacular on paper, but they are both potential banana skins nonetheless.
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The League Phase uses a single table for all 36 participating teams. The top eight qualify directly for the Round of 16, while teams ranked nine through 24, complete in a two-legged playoff to reach that round. From then on, the competition continues as we know it, with the final taking place in Munich. It is the Bavarians’ dream to reach that this season, as unrealistic as it may be.
