How do you measure Bayern's season?

Bayern's 26th Bundesliga title, which was confirmed on Saturday with a 6-0 thumping of Wolfsburg, is also their fifth straight and their 14th in the past 21 years. In that context, it's obvious that the bar is high and that a season won't be judged merely on domestic success.

The fact of the matter is that in the past 20 years, every single Bayern manager not named Jurgen Klinsmann has led the club to a German title. So in assessing the club's season, you need to come up with something else.

Anyone can spin it any way they like: They're just treading water; if you don't improve, you sink, and so if they didn't win it, it would be abject failure. (Everybody in last year's Bundesliga top six, other than Bayern, will finish lower than they did last season.)

They lost to Borussia Dortmund in the German Cup semifinal. (They also dominated that game and were unlucky not to win.)

They lost to Real Madrid, 6-3 on aggregate, in the Champions League quarterfinal. (Real Madrid are arguably the best team in the world, and if you buy into expected goals, Bayern were ahead by almost a full goal at the 90th minute at the Bernabeu. Plus, there was some rather controversial officiating in that game.)

They're less attacking and fun to watch than they were under Pep Guardiola. (This is a matter of taste but numbers say they are scoring more per game in the real world and their xG is identical to last year.)

Ancelotti is too soft and his training sessions aren't intense enough. (Maybe so. And maybe that's also the reason why they had a ton fewer injuries than last year.)

They went five games without a win in all competitions for the first time in 17 years. (Actually, that stat only works if you consider extra time. At full-time, they had beaten Real Madrid at the Bernabeu, the first team to do so in the Champions League since 2015. Oh, and that was in April, a month in which they played nine games, something Jose Mourinho says is "inhuman.")

There was too much reliance on veterans like Phillip Lahm, Xabi Alonso and Arjen Robben; youngsters like Kingsley Coman, Joshua Kimmich and Renato Sanches didn't develop. (A lot of that is down to the fact that there were few injuries. And besides, Kimmich will likely end up playing more minutes than last year. Sanches, lest we forget, is 19 and had all of 22 top-flight starts to his name when he moved to a new country and a far better team.)

The simple fact is that managing the very top clubs -- particularly in your debut season, when you haven't yet accumulated credit with your fans and still have the excuse of being new -- involves some very basic criteria. Don't finish lower than the year before and don't let smaller, worse-resourced clubs finish ahead of you. (This means different things in different countries: in the Bundesliga, it means finishing first, in La Liga ending the season first or second, in the Premier League it can mean finishing as low as sixth.)

Win cup competitions, and if you must exit, do so late in the tournament and after looking like potential champions. Don't fall out with senior club figures or the club's stars.

Do that, and you get to come back next season.


ESPN