Amazon documentary about FC Bayern: The club looks as aloof as it does on the pitch

One thing is clear: you shouldn’t expect too much from documentaries about professional football clubs. For that, the business is trimmed far too much to just not allow too deep insights and in any case to keep appearances to the outside world – the documentary format that Amazon has already tried out with Borussia Dortmund and Manchester City, among others, has quite a few Times proven. But even by professional football standards, the Amazon series about FC Bayern has remained pale and superficial.

Director Simon Verhoeven and cameraman Nepomuk V. Fischer were allowed to accompany the team and those responsible in a historic time: The record champions celebrated the most successful season in their history with six titles, and everything that happened during the Corona period was under very special circumstances. The result is the six-part series “FC Bayern – Behind the Legend”, which is now available on Amazon Prime.

FC Bayern and its legends – everything expected so far

Legends – that’s the first thing that comes to mind when he thinks of FC Bayern, says Oliver Kahn right from the start. Kahn himself is one of these legends, now a club boss, he used to be a goalkeeper, as he explains to the camera – for all viewers: inside who have no idea about football or are younger than 14 years. There is nothing wrong with that, on the contrary: Calling FC Bayern and its great players legends is so undeniable that you don’t have to think about it for a moment. One of many, many phrases that are thrashed, especially in the first few episodes of the series.

Whether CEO Kahn, sports director Hasan Salihamidzic or leading player Joshua Kimmich: They all tell above all what has long been known about Bayern – and largely in the same tone as if third-rate actors were reading from a sheet of paper. Stay hungry, we always want to win, dreamed of FC Bayern even as a child, we have a great mentality, we are a family. That has no added value for either fans or opponents of Munich.

“FC Bayern – Behind The Legend” on Amazon Prime: Hansi Flick was skeptical at first

Unfortunately, the series also falls short of the possibilities at the visual level. “In this documentary, our fans will experience the club closer than ever before,” Oliver Kahn had promised. Nevertheless, the camera is often only there instead of in the middle. When there are victories to celebrate, the series makers are allowed to hold onto it. In the difficult moments – and there were some of them even with the successful Bavarians – questions remain unanswered. In these situations, FC Bayern presents itself in the documentary as it does to its opponents on the pitch: aloof, inviolable, superior.

Trainer Flick even categorically forbade him and his cameraman Nepomuk V. Fischer from entering the cabin, director Simon Verhoeven told Sport1: “But at some point he realized that we are not those investigative journalists or tabloid photographers who are annoying all the time and looking for headlines, but that we also come from football and are seriously interested in the people, the team and the work of his team. “

And then it gets personal

Nevertheless, there are some nice insights: Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is pestering the referee in the stands (“Look at the shit there”), Oliver Kahn rams the stick into his nose for the corona test, coach Hansi Flick desperately at the Ball shooting machine, the players joke in training, in the dressing room and at the pool, Alphonso Davies celebrates the goals of his colleagues alone in the catacombs after a red card. Salihamidzic raves about the opposing striker Erling Haaland during the game against BVB on the bench.

And as superficial as the series remains in many places, sometimes it gets really personal. Even with Oliver Kahn, who reports for the first time how his “always on” mentality as a player drove him into mental problems. Or when Hasan Salihamidzic talks about his childhood in the Bosnian war and stars like Niklas Süle, Leroy Sané and Leon Goretzka talk about the friendship they had as a youth player. Hansi Flick has to swallow hard more than once when he says goodbye. In the end, there is the club, which often functions like a machine on and next to the square, but is made up of people, I guess that’s what I want to tell us. And sometimes people become legends.