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Bayern Munich have created a monopoly in the Bundesliga these days, but all their recent success has only been thanks to the incredible talent which has passed through their doors over the last 120 years.

They weren’t one of the founding members of the league in the early 1960s, but Bayern Munich were one of Germany’s biggest clubs well before then and they’ve only gone from strength to strength.

To achieve their level of dominance, Bayern Munich have had some of the best players on the planet in their squad throughout history, but it’s in defence where some of their all-time greats have really made a name for themselves.

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10. David Alaba

As Bayern Munich’s second most capped foreign player in history, Austria international David Alaba will always be deserving of a mention when it comes to the club’s all-time greats.

At the peak of his powers, Alaba was comfortably the best left back in world football and his standards haven’t really dropped, putting in world class performances in a variety of positions during Bayern Munich’s most successful period in their history.

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9. Jupp Kapellmann

Hans-Josef Kapellmann already had quite an impressive individual career as a midfielder behind him when he joined Bayern Munich in 1973, but it was in Bavaria, in one of the most talented teams there has ever been, where the club legend was best.

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8. Bixente Lizarazu

Bixente Lizarazu was one of the most popular players to ever step foot on the pitch for Bayern Munich.

The Frenchman had a serial talent when it came to winning trophies, and while his ability on the pitch is certainly something which can’t be understated, it was Lizarazu’s ever-thoughtful personality off it which made him one of the club’s most likeable players.

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7. Joshua Kimmich

Even though he’s been playing as a midfielder this season, Joshua Kimmich might still be the best right back on the planet.

The 25-year-old is as close as many will ever get to being the perfect Bayern Munich player, boasting an incredible technical ability along with a cockiness which has become synonymous with players at the Allianz Arena.

Kimmich is a fully-fledged, adopted Bavarian.

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6. Klaus Augenthaler

There’s one defender who stands out more than anyone else for dominating the 1970s. But the 1980s? That was Klaus Augenthaler’s decade.

Auge became the first player to ever win seven Bundesliga titles, commanding the heart of Bayern Munich’s defence both as a classic centre half and later as a Libero, or sweeper.

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5. Philipp Lahm

Bayern Munich have plenty of legends in the modern day, but Philipp Lahm is far and away of anyone else as the club’s most important, influential defender of this century.

With more than 500 appearances to his name, Lahm won everything that was on offer at club level, playing the role as Bayern Munich’s captain better than most who’ve come before him, and almost certainly better than anyone who’s come after.

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4. Hans-Georg Schwarzenbeck

Every team needs a Georg Schwarzenbeck.

He wasn’t the star of Bayern Munich’s defence, but he was their irreplaceable, unsung hero who helped to create the best defender in history and one of the beautiful game’s most talented players.

Unsurprisingly being dubbed ‘the Kaiser’s Bodyguard’, Schwarzenbeck helped to bring in Bayern Munich’s first era of dominance in the Bundesliga era.

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3. Paul Breitner

Bayern Munich have had an immeasurable list of world class, humble defenders who’ve helped to define a generation in one way or another.

Bayern Munich have also had Paul Breitner.

As a player, Der Afro was irreplaceable for Bayern Munich and Germany as a left back, while he even formed a partnership with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge – finishing second only to Kalle in the 1981 Ballon d’Or – further up the pitch later in his career.

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2. Konrad Heidkamp

Even as a Düsseldorf native, ‘Conny’ Heidkamp knew exactly what it mean to be Bayern Munich’s captain.

He was part of the team that won Bayern Munich’s first league title in 1932 and went on to do even more extraordinary things to preserve the club’s history.

When Bayern Munich’s trophy collection came under threat by allied bombers in Munich in 1942, Heidkamp and his wife stashed the club’s medals at a farm, even going on to bury the silverware underground at times before it was safe to return them.

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1. Franz Beckenbauer

Franz Beckenbauer isn’t just Bayern Munich’s greatest defender of all time, or even their best player, but Der Kaiser is well worth a place alongside Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo as the best footballer ever.

He’s one of the few defensive players to ever win the Ballon d’Or and certainly the only defensive player to win the award twice, but no amount of accolades or trophies will ever do Beckenbauer’s impact on Bayern Munich, and on football in general, justice.

Chelsea and Manchester City are among a number of clubs watching 18-year-old PSV attacking midfielder Mohamed Ihattaren.

The youngster broke into the PSV senior squad in January 2019, aged just 16.

Ihattaren has since gone on to become a regular feature in the first team this season, chipping in with nine goals and nine assists, and becoming PSV’s youngest scorer in Europe in the process.

According to Calciomercato, Chelsea, Manchester City, Ajax and Inter have sent scouts to watch the teenage star on numerous occasions this season.

The report compares Ihattaren to a combination between Brazil great Ronaldinho, and Chelsea’s latest recruit Hakim Ziyech.

Like Ziyech, the midfielder was born in Holland to Moroccan parents, and has a fabulous left foot.

Ihattaren is a versatile, creative midfielder, capable of playing in the number 10 role or wide on the right, meaning he has the raw potential to slot in well to either City or Chelsea’s fluid midfields.

His contract at PSV expires in 2022, but the star’s notorious ‘super-agent’ Mino Raiola appears to be prepared to play the long game when it comes to dealing with Ihattaren.

The Calciomercato report states that Raiola ‘knows it’s not the time to sell’. Ihattaren is yet to fully mature, and is being recommended to remain at PSV for the time being, as this will be the most beneficial place for his development.

PSV are his boyhood club, with Ihattaren joining the youth setup at the age of seven.

Although PSV will be keen to hold onto one of their brightest young talents for another season at least, the detrimental impact of the coronavirus outbreak on football finances could force the club to cash in on one of their prized assets.

Oooooooh, Kevin De Bruuuuyne, oooooooh Kevin De Bruuuuyne!

Could it be that Manchester City supporters have sung this ode to their superstar for the final time? Kevin De Bruyne has stepped up over the past couple of seasons to become arguably the best midfielder in the world, and his performances have been so influential that life without him must seem pretty stark for the Citizens.

But that nightmare may be morphing into reality for the Premier League champions, after the Belgium international admitted he may be forced to consider his immediate future should the club fail to overturn their two-year ban from European football.

Ok, time to panic.

It may seem selfish of the 28-year-old, or they could be construed as the actions of a typical football mercenary, but in the cold light of day, his reasoning is understandable. De Bruyne is currently playing at the peak of his powers and it would be a cruel waste for the football world to not witness him competing on the biggest stage for the next two years.

But with his current contract set to run until the end of June 2023, the Citizens are in no rush to accept any insufficient bids for their talisman. So if you’re planning on snatching the jewel from their crown, you’re gonna be paying the big bucks.

But which teams could realistically afford to sign De Bruyne, and who are the most likely to lure him away from the Etihad Stadium?

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Liverpool

Realistically, there aren’t many options for De Bruyne to choose from within the bubble of the Premier League. A move across Manchester to rivals Manchester United is unthinkable, and the rest of the division is so far behind the Citizens that it’d be a huge backwards step in his career.

That is, apart from Liverpool, of course. The Reds are 25 points better off than the current league champions, and they have a mountain of experience in winning European trophies – which is exactly what De Bruyne craves. The Belgian star would improve that Liverpool midfield, and with him supplying their deadly trio in attack the Merseyside club would take some serious stopping.

You can wake up from this nightmare now, City fans.

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Real Madrid

And straight into the next hellhole for you. De Bruyne was the star of the show as City dominated and dismantled Zinedine Zidane’s Real Madrid in the Champions League round of 16 this year, humbling the Spanish giants in their own back yard.

But what if that stellar display was nothing more than an audition, and he has landed himself the dream part of pulling on the famous white shirt of Los Blancos for the rest of his career? The Sky Blues’ incredible performance in Spain highlighted just what was missing from that Madrid side, and De Bruyne could easily be the man to restore Los Merengues to their former glories.

A dream move for any player.

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Juventus

Since abandoning their sensible approach in the transfer window by splashing €100m on Cristiano Ronaldo, Juventus have got a taste for marquee signings. Matthijs de Ligt followed Ronaldo to Turin the following summer and I Bianconeri are constantly linked with a return for Red Devil Paul Pogba to spice up their midfield.

But could their plans have shifted following De Bruyne’s worrying admission? The Old Lady is desperate for a dollop of creativity, drive and brilliance in the centre of the pitch, and obviously the City star would tick all of the above boxes and more. The maestro could be the missing piece in the jigsaw to end their long drought without a Champions League trophy.

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Paris Saint-Germain

If you’re desperate to win the Champions League, then pledging your future to Europe’s biggest bottlers probably isn’t the smartest move. Paris Saint-Germain have crashed out of the illustrious competition in humiliating fashion in recent years, but their victory over Borussia Dortmund this season could have marked a turning point in their history.

But we’ll never know. What we do know, however, is that adding De Bruyne to their ranks would make the Ligue 1 champions an outright favourite to lift the trophy, and he would offer the required balance and rhythm to make that midfield tick.

Kylian Mbappé. Angel Di Maria. Neymar. De Bruyne. It’s a terrifying thought.

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Bayern Munich

Bayern Munich have not reached their usual heights in recent years, but their flamboyant and devastating displays in the second half of this season suggest they could be on their way back to the top. The team is star-studded with brilliant footballers up and down the field, and the cohesion and style has returned to its fluid best.

So imagine the difference our super-human star would make to that midfield. De Bruyne has already shown he’d have no problems adapting to German football, having originally convinced City to lure him away from Wolfsburg with his incredible performances back in 2015.

The summer signing of De Bruyne would undoubtedly end the Bundesliga title race before it had even started.

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Barcelona

Barcelona are in need of a bit of a rebuild in their midfield. Arturo Vidal and Ivan Rakitic are destined to wave goodbye to Camp Nou this summer, while other central alternatives have failed to fill the giant shoes left behind by the irreplaceable Xavi and Andres Iniesta.

La Blaugrana may not be in the right financial position to splash endless amounts of cash on a brand new superstar, having already wasted over £100m on Philippe Coutinho and similar fees on the likes of Ousmane Dembele and Antoine Griezmann.

But De Bruyne is a guaranteed success and a safe horse to bet your future on. Having learned under Pep Guardiola for a number of years, could he be the man to extract the very best from Lionel Messi’s final years in Catalonia?

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Nobody likes asterisks. An asterisk means something isn’t quite what it seems, and in football, it only ever makes things less exciting.

Paris Saint-Germain’s Ligue 1 title victory will come with an asterisk as they didn’t actually win it. If Liverpool are awarded the Premier League, they’ll have their own asterisk. It’s no fun. But it’s not the first time we’ve seen that funky little star next to a statistic.

Here are seven football records which come with an asterisk.

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Most Consecutive Serie A Games With a Goal – 11*

Both Cristiano Ronaldo and Gabriel Batistuta sit in the record books for scoring in 11 consecutive Serie A games. The problem is only one of them actually managed that.

Batistuta found the back of the net in each of the first 11 games of the 1994/95 season, and he stood unopposed in the record books until the 2019/20 season, when Ronaldo matched his record. However, the Juventus man actually needed 12 games to do it.

Ronaldo scored in ten straight games before being rested for the 11th – a meeting with Brescia in February. He returned and scored straight after, but that was his 11th consecutive appearance, not the 11th consecutive game.

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Most Consecutive Victories by Team in Top 5 Leagues in All Competitions – 43*

Between May 2011 and May 2012, Juventus went unbeaten in 43 matches, breaking the record for the most consecutive wins by a team in one of Europe’s top five leagues in all competitions.

The only problem is that their record didn’t actually include Champions League games as I Bianconeri had failed to qualify the year before. They had finished seventh in Serie A and only had to focus on league and Coppa Italia fixtures.

They took credit away from the AC Milan side of 1992/93, whose 42-win run included Champions League games as well and is arguably more impressive as a result.

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Most Goals Conceded in a Premier League Season – 100*

The 1993/94 Premier League season was not kind to Swindon Town, who became the league’s whipping boys en route to conceding 100 goals across the entire campaign. The question is – would they have conceded that many if the season didn’t have 42 games?

In a 38-game season, the record is 89, set by the woeful Derby County side of 2007/08. Given how poor the Rams were that year, it seems entirely possible that they might have reached 100 goals of their own, but we’ll never know.

Because of the old 42-game system, a number of Premier League records are a little skewed. Most team draws in a season (18), most consecutive team draws (7) and most points for a relegated side (49) are all up for debate.

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Brighton’s Biggest Ever Defeat – 18-0*

The Brighton and Hove Albion record books show that their heaviest ever defeat came back in 1940 on Christmas Day, when they were thumped 18-0 by Norwich City. Or were they?

Only four Brighton players actually travelled for the game (three of whom were juniors), and the rest of the team was made up of Norwich reserves, spectators and Bolton’s Jimmy Ithell, who was invited to help out.

So, a team which was less than half Brighton lost 18-0, yet somehow that actually counts.

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Fastest Ever Goal – 2 Seconds*

There are plenty of claims to the record of the fastest ever goal, but one which was widely accepted was courtesy of Al-Hilal midfielder Nawaf Al Abid, who needed just two seconds to score against Al-Shoulla in an Under-21 game back in 2009.

Unfortunaly for Al Abid, his record didn’t stand for too long as the game was eventually wiped out and voided as Al-Hilal had actually fielded six ineligible players, so the midfielder’s goal was technically not scored in a competitive fixture.

Imagine being denied a record like that because your own team took an academy fixture too seriously. Fuming.

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Biggest Ever Scoreline – 149-0*

Over in Madagascar, AS Adema roared to an eye-catching 149-0 win over SO l’Emyrne in 2002, obliterating the record for the highest scoreline in a professional fixture ever.

The problem with this game was that it wasn’t actually played properly. SO l’Emyrne actually used the game as a protest against some suspect refereeing that season and just scored 149 unanswered own goals to show they didn’t care.

The coach and four players were suspended, and the Madagascan government were so ashamed that they actually temporarily dissolved the country’s FA.

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Most Career Goals – 1,283*

Pelé is no stranger to claiming crazy facts about his playing career. One such claim, which has been officially recognised, is that he netted a total of 1,283 goals during his career – a tally which nobody has ever come close to matching.

However, 526 of these goals came in unofficial friendlies and fixtures which are not actually recognised as legitimate games. In any other world, those games are wiped from the record books, but not with Pelé.

He used to score against teams with the same names as some professional teams, including a five-goal haul against an amateur side called Juventus and eight goals against some local side called Botafogo. All is not as it seems.

Bayern Munich have a defence which has become the envy of most other teams in Europe.

Lucas Hernandez and Benjamin Pavard have added some World Cup-winning flair to their back four, while David Alaba and Alphonso Davies have impressed even in spite of the fact they’re playing out of position.

Even Jérôme Boateng has had his moments, while Bayern Munich’s star studded defence has seen Joshua Kimmich move into midfield.

They say you can have too much of a good thing, but Bayern Munich’s pursuit of Dayot Upamecano would suggest chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge doesn’t agree.

And, he’d be right.

The France Under-21 international has become one of the most talked about defenders in Europe’s major leagues, with Upamecano finding himself being linked with the likes of Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur and even Barcelona, but it’s Bayern Munich who appear to be at the front of that queue.

In fact, there isn’t even a queue. Upamecano has seemingly already agreed to move to the Allianz Arena at the end of the season.

It’s a move which will certainly pave the way for Boateng to leave, as Upamecano won’t be joining the club just to warm a seat on the bench. But the 21-year-old might still find it difficult to reach the same levels of stardom that he’s seen in Saxony.

That’s not because of him as a player either. Upamecano has already proved he’s well worth the hype, and at less than €60m in today’s transfer market, the former Valenciennes youth star will end up being one of the bargains of the decade.

Upamecano’s value to Bayern Munich won’t just come from his ability on the pitch. Yes, he’s quite a decent upgrade on Boateng or anyone who’s coming through their academy, but the Frenchman will crucially let other players move back into their preferred positions.

Alaba will be able to return to left back, while Davies – who, thanks to his performances in the Champions League, is widely known as a full back – will retake his place as Serge Gnabry’s understudy further up the pitch.

But what will stop Upamecano from becoming the answer to Bayern Munich’s defensive problems is a player who’s already part of the first team, but who’s been absent throughout most of this season due to cruciate ligament injury.

The Bundesliga is hardly teeming with world class defenders, and the ones they do have don’t usually play through the middle. But the one centre back there who stands above anyone else, both physically and metaphorically, is Niklas Süle.

Even taking the likes of Virgil van Dijk or Raphaël Varane into account, there isn’t a player in Europe’s major leagues who comes close to matching Süle’s combination of pace and power.

The 24-year-old boasts the most incredible attributes in that sense, while as far as his defensive skills are concerned, perhaps only Van Dijk and Kalidou Koulibaly were clear upgrades on the former Hoffenheim star prior to Süle’s injury.

He truly is one of Europe’s elite defenders, even if most fans outside the Allianz Arena have forgotten.

Süle doesn’t have the Bavarian heritage Bayern Munich fans love to get behind, but in the same way fans in the Premier League place their ‘homegrown’ players on a pedestal, the Germany international will have an easier route to stardom than Upamecano.

The RB Leipzig star isn’t even known as the best centre back at his current club. Ibrahima Konaté has been the real standout defender at the Red Bull Arena, while even Willi Orban provides a level of consistency which his younger teammates just haven’t learned.

Upamecano will prove to be a fantastic addition for Bayern Munich as they add to their pool of French players who could help bridge the gap with Europe’s elite clubs, and while he’ll give the Bavarians a welcomed boost, it’s Süle’s return which will have the biggest impact on their wait for a sixth Champions League trophy.

Just like he did as a player when he joined LA Galaxy in 2007, David Beckham is looking to transform the face of the MLS as president of Inter Miami, as he eyes up a selection of ambitious transfer targets for his franchise.

After six years of plotting and planning, Inter Miami finally made their MLS bow in March 2020, although their honeymoon period has been put on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Beckham purchased the team in 2014 and is aiming to attract some of European football’s biggest names to the States.

According to Spanish news outlet Don Balon, David Silva’s rumoured move to Miami from Manchester City is on the verge of completion.

The diminutive Spaniard’s contract at the Etihad expires in the summer, bringing his glittering nine-year spell with City to a close.

But Beckham’s eye for the household name does not stop there.

The former Manchester United man is also targeting Ballon d’Or winner Luka Modric, whose Real Madrid contract also expires at the end of the current campaign.

The 34-year-old wants one last swan song before retiring, and according to the report, the prospect of a move to Miami to work with Beckham is very attractive to the veteran Croatian.

The article claims that Beckham is plotting to raid both Real Madrid and Barcelona to strengthen his franchise.

The out-of-favour James Rodriguez is also on Beckham’s radar, and Rodriguez is not ruling out the possibility of moving to the USA, as this would enable him to be closer to his daughter.

Barcelona’s Luis Suárez, Arturo Vidal and Ivan Rakitic are also said to be on the former England captain’s list of potential targets.

The latter two are considering their Barcelona futures due to feeling ‘undervalued’ at the club. A move for Rakitic seems more unlikely, as the Modric’s compatriot would prefer to remain in Spain.

Vidal, meanwhile, turns 33 in May, and although he wants to continue competing at the highest level, he is reportedly not averse to moving to the States.