Bayern Munich can crown a remarkable season on Saturday with victory in the German Cup final in Jupp Heynckes’ last game in charge.
Only Stuttgart stand in the way of Bayern completing their first treble, one week after the team finally won the Champions league and eight after they wrapped up the Bundesliga with a record six games to spare.
“We’re all hungry, we want to make ourselves immortal,” Bayern attacking midfielder Thomas Mueller said. “The cup is even more important now because it’s not just a trophy you can win. Now we can write history.”
Bayern would become the first German team to win the treble of domestic league, cup and European Cup, and the seventh overall after Celtic in 1967, Ajax in 1972, PSV Eindhoven in 1988, Manchester United in 1999, Barcelona in 2009 and Inter Milan in 2010.
“Every player has said it 100 times already: The treble was never there (to be won) before, so this is a huge motivation,” Mueller said.
It would also provide the perfect send off for Heynckes, who is making way for Pep Guardiola and making it increasingly difficult for the former Barcelona coach to match this season’s achievements.
Bayern captured their fifth European Cup last Saturday with a 2-1 win over Borussia Dortmund in london - banishing painful memories of losing the final on penalties to Chelsea in Munich the year before - and broke a host of records in claiming the club’s 23rd German title after the best campaign in 50 years of the Bundesliga.
Now, attention has turned to what would be a record 16th German Cup. Bayern midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger is poised to match former Bayern and Germany goalkeeper Oliver Kahn’s record of six German Cup final victories.
“I didn’t know that,” the 28-year-old Schweinsteiger said with a grin.
Schweinsteiger insisted he was too focused on winning the games “to talk about the treble or whatever.”
Bayern defender Dante and midfielder luiz Gustavo will miss the game at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin.
The Brazilian Football Confederation was strongly criticized by Bayern for putting the two players under “inhuman” pressure, with chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge suggesting the players were given the impression that their international careers would be over if they did not show up on time.
Stuttgart coach Bruno labbadia didn’t think the absence of two Brazilians would make a difference. “They have two or three equally good players for each position,” said labbadia, who lost the final four years ago with Bayer leverkusen.
Stuttgart, which finished 12th in the Bundesliga, is playing their first final since 2007, when the then-Bundesliga champions lost 3-2 in extra time to Nuremberg.