BM won the European Cup three times ('74, '75 and '76) that is bang-on in the middle of the decade. It sounds inaccurate to label those years as either "early" or "late" seventies. But that is not the point.
My point is that the feeling I get from many of the Bayern fans, is that losing to the semis against Real and Barca is somehow really strange. I totally disagree with that. I also totally disagree with your view about the quality of many Bayern players, as well as your views on previous Bayern seasons in the CL. Let me explain myself. I 've heard many Bayern fans go on and on about making the CL finals in 3 out of 4 years, and how that somehow proves that Bayern have been superior to Barca/Madrid during those seasons. IMO, your run to the 2010 final was beyond fluky. I don't have to explain anything there, but if challenged I will do so. Your run to the 2012 final was also relatively easy. Two token opponents in the Last 16 and the QFs. Your semi-final opponents was coming off an exhausting title race, and even more crucially had a title-deciding Clasico right in the middle of the two semis. The importance of fatigue in the latter stages of the CL is something I have always maintained as perhaps the most crucial factor. Even so, you only went through on penalties kicks. Still, this is held as some kind of proof over Bayern's superiority over Real Madrid, something with which I disagree with. In my mind, Real Madrid was probably better than BM during that season. BM have the advantage of not really caring about their own league too much. Be careful, I am not saying that they are not playing to win it, but that it means far less to them than it means to Barca/RM. For the Clasico pair, the thought of the other guy winning the league is vomit-inducing, hence we keep playing near-full strength (or simply fully strength) throughout the season, and crucially, even in between CL ties. That counts for a lot in my mind.
Last season, Munich did not look that impressive either. Surely one of the very best in Europe, but definitely not the hegemonic power you seem to believe you were. The possibility of defeat at the hands of Real Madrid was always at least around 50%. Once Ramos scored the first header, you were doomed. The rest was down to your extreme eagerness to get back at them asap. Something which is suicidal against a Big 3 European side. Something similar happened a few days ago as well. Bayern were lucky to be at 0-0 by the final minutes of the game, but once Messi did what Messi does (and in contradistinction to your earlier claims that he could do nothing versus Bayern/German NT) Bayern felt compelled to throw caution to the wind (being cautious was all BM did until 77') and the rest is history.
I hope you can see what I am trying to say here. While Bayern are a top 3 side (continent-wide) there is zero evidence that they have been better (or even equal) than the Clasico pair in all recent seasons outside of 12/13. Yet, Bayern fans and the German press take defeat at the hands of Barca/Real as some kind of inexcusable failure.
, and even against such lowly opposition it almost came back to haunt us)
