Five reasons Bayern can win the treble

bundesliga.com presents five reasons why the record champions can emulate the class of 2012/13 and make it a treble...

1) Title-winning form

Bayern's 4-2 victory over Bundesliga rivals Bayer Leverkusen in the DFB Cup final meant they ended the domestic season on a 26-game unbeaten run in all competitions – including a German record of 17 wins in a row. Those totals went up by two more as the German champions returned to action with a convincing 4-1 victory over Chelsea in the second leg of their Champions League round of 16 tie, before becoming the first team in Champions League history to register eight goals in a single knockout match with their 8-2 quarter-final demolition of Barcelona.

Bayern now go into their semi-final tie - against Manchester City or Lyon - on a 28-match unbeaten run in all competitions. They've won 27 of them - including a German record 19 in a row - whilst scoring 94 of their total 155 goals across the campaign. No team in Europe's top five leagues has found the net more often in 2019/20, let alone in the Champions League, where Bayern have hit an eye-watering 39 goals in nine matches.

2) Flick the conductor

Bayern's unbowed run owes much to Hansi Flick. Appointed as Niko Kovac's successor on 3 November 2019 - initially in an interim capacity - the 2014 FIFA World Cup-winning assistant coach with Germany has taken a team that thrashed Spurs 7-2 in London under his predecessor to altogether new heights. He has overseen 31 wins from a possible 34, 112 goals for and 26 against. Statistically, the 55-year-old is a better coach then treble winner Jupp Heynckes and Pep Guardiola. "Hansi has brought togetherness to the team, and has us playing the Bayern way again," commented CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge after the cup triumph in Berlin. "Now we want a third trophy."

3) LewanGOALski

Lewandowski is integral to those lofty continental ambitions. The 31-year-old stuck away his 54th goal of the season against Barca - from just 45 matches - putting him way out in front as the most free-scoring player for a team in one of Europe's top five leagues. He leads the year's Champions League standings with 14 goals, taking him to 50 in 60 tournament games for Bayern. Only one player has a superior ratio for a single club: Cristiano Ronaldo (50 goals in the first 50 UCL outings for Real Madrid).

Yet it isn't just scoring where Lewandowski has excelled this term. With 14 goals AND five assists, he has been directly involved in 17 goals in just eight European appearances this season - more than any other player. If it weren't for France Football's decision to cancel this year's Ballon d'Or, it would've been a mere formality that LewanGOALski would break the Ronaldo-Messi duopoly on the award.

Watch: How Robert Lewandowski has become the world's best No.9

4) Neuer & Co.

Manuel Neuer finished third behind Ronaldo and Messi in the 2014 Ballon d'Or. Twelve months earlier, he had provided the super-human foundation for Bayern's unprecedented Bundesliga, DFB Cup and Champions League treble. Even at 34, Bayern's captain continues to show why he is the finest gloved crusader the world has ever seen, aided and abetted by one of the most dynamic four-man defences in the game. World Cup winner Benjamin Pavard and incendiary Canadian teenager Alphonso Davies have been ever-presents in the full-back positions under Flick, with Jerome Boateng brought in from the cold and Alaba from the left-hand side of defence. Paris Saint-Germain are the only team left in the Champions League with a better defensive record (five goals conceded) than the Bundesliga's most water-tight back line (eight against), but they don't have reinforcements of the calibre of fit-again duo Niklas Süle and Lucas Hernandez to call on at the business end of the competition, as well as the world-class versatility of Joshua Kimmich.

Watch: Bayern's much-improved defence under Hansi Flick

5) The Kimmich-Goretzka pivot

No team boasts a midfield pivot quite like Kimmich and Leon Goretzka, either. The former completed 92 per cent of his attempted passes in the Bundesliga this season, whilst enjoying 2,716 touches and covering 7.4 miles - both league highs. That he has reconverted from budding midfielder to oust Thiago in the No.6 role via a spell as arguably the world's best right-back is testament to his footballing IQ. Having Goretzka as his right-hand man in the latter part of 2019/20 eased the process. The 25-year-old is a throwback to a bygone era of box-to-box midfielders, as evinced by his three goals and four assists in nine league games after the coronavirus-enforced hiatus. He's put on some serious muscle, too, making for one testosterone-heavy engine room. On top of that, the fact one of the world's best string-pullers in Thiago is not necessarily first choice points to the excellence of the Kimmich-Goretzka partnership.

And they said the Bastian Schweinsteiger-Javi Martinez tandem of 2012/13 couldn't be bettered...