Title sort of gives away the full blog piece here but I couldn't help but not address the fact that Bayern Munich has seemingly made full use of their pre-season fixtures by thrashing, sorry I mean narrowly beating FC Rottach-Egern 27-0.
Now before anyone says this was just a one off, then you can think again, because four years ago Bayern played the same team and beat them 23-0, clearly they fancied setting a new record this time around.
I thought it would be fun then to dive into the history of this amateur side and this whole fixture, just mainly out of interest really.
So this match was the first of Bayern's training camp in the German town of Tegernsee, based in the Bavarian Alps, which has a population of just over 3,500 people.
Rottach-Egern itself is a small town located in the Tegernsee valley, and stretches towards the Austrian border, as of 2022 it was home to 5,800 people, which just to compare here for context, my hometown had a population of just over 7,000 back in 2021.
Founded in 1947 and celebrating their 75th anniversary at the end of last year, the team quite literally already had a mountain to climb then before it even played this match, mainly because they are surrounded by them, but on the club's website it says they are home to 695 members, which is 12% of the population of the town alone.
It also says that it has 185 active footballers across 16 teams, and they play all their home games at a stadium called Birkenmoos which has a capacity of 2,500, which if fully filled would hold 43% of Rottach-Egern.
In terms of playing football with a view, I don't think you can get a much better one. the ground surrounded by mountains, with a running track on the outside.
Into the squad then, and from the website ran by the club, which has been the whole reason why I've been able to find out so much about this team, the first team has 15 players, one goalkeeper, five defenders, six midfielders and three attackers.
You can see on each player some details about them, with most stating their proudest achievement in the game as getting promoted to the district class with the club, or promotion to the Kreisklasse.
The Kreisklasse is the ninth tier of the German football league pyramid, again just to compare to over here, that is the equivalent of the North West Counties, which Bury AFC are competing in this year back at Gigg Lane, while the district class is step eight for over here, which is the Northern Premier League, teams such as Clitheroe and Bootle play in this, and promotion from here can get you into the National League North or South.
One player on the website caught my eye in particular, not just because he was almost two metres tall but because it said on his greatest achievement that he had scored against Bayern, just obviously not for this club.
André Schmidt is his name, don't forget it, because he has managed to accomplish something that not many people can do, and if I had scored against Bayern Munich I think I would've retired on the spot because it isn't going to get any better than that is it?
That's as much digging as I could do on the side anyways, and it said that apparently over 2,000 people headed down to watch the German champions train on the Monday before playing against them on the Tuesday.
Regardless of the result it's great that this team have had the chance twice now to welcome such a massive team and it can only work out well for the area as more children will want to grow up playing football because of this.
It did get me thinking though with the score-line, is there such thing as a friendly anymore?
Thirteen different players got on the scoresheet for Bayern, Jamal Musiala, Mathys Tel and Marcel Sabitzer all scoring five apiece, while Serge Gnabry scored a hat-trick, I mean, it was 18-0 at half-time so, credit that they only allowed them to score nine in the second 45.
You have to ask what exactly Bayern get out of such a score, but like I said up above, the wider picture is that things like this will encourage people to turn up and watch and go away from the game wanting to play sport, and that's all everyone wants.
Growing up for me it was all about playing sport, whatever I could play and stay interested in for a long enough period I would do, and it teaches you so many good lessons which you can take into life itself, not the bit where slide tackling someone with your studs up solves problems though.
There's no such thing as a friendly though is there let's all be honest.
Training match is a much more appropriate term for it I feel, because friendly always gives off the impression that things aren't going to be full pelt, but I watched a pre-season game for Wolves get abandoned last year because players were fighting so, that definitely wasn't very friendly.
You can't take out that competitive spirit from people, it's just not possible, no one likes losing and that's why it's a natural instinct that when you play you do everything you possibly can to avoid it, mainly because you want to celebrate a good result.
From a coaching point of view you can try and learn new things in these matches without having that added pressure on needing to win for anything, and that's where it has the biggest benefit, but even then those players picked are going out to win, and the manager is hoping that those players can make a statement and put in good performances.
To answer the question then, no, there's no such thing as a friendly in my books anyways, but I do think through all of this I've discovered a new team that I want to follow and potentially even visit some day in FC Rottach-Egern, watch this space maybe...
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