Champions League recap: Bayern bandwagon rolls on

UEFA Champions League holders Bayern continue to mine a rich seam of form and results and so will take some beating this time around.

Campaign so far

Group A winners: W5 D1 L0 F18 A5
Top scorer: Kingsley Coman, Robert Lewandowski (3)

21/10: Bayern 4-0 Atlético (Coman 28 72, Goretzka 41, Tolisso 66)
27/10: Lokomotiv 1-2 Bayern (Miranchuk 70; Goretzka 13, Kimmich 79)
03/11: Salzburg 2-6 Bayern (Berisha 4, Okugawa 66; Lewandowski 21pen 88, Kristensen 44og, Boateng 79, Sané 83, Hernández 90'+2)
25/11: Bayern 3-1 Salzburg (Lewandowski 43, Coman 52, Sané 68; Berisha 73)
01/12: Atlético 1-1 Bayern (João Félix 26; Müller 86pen)
09/12: Bayern 2-0 Lokomotiv (Süle 63, Choupo-Moting 80)

Their campaign in ten words: No sign of slowing down; the Bayern juggernaut powers on.

UEFA.com reporter’s view

Bayern’s title defence has continued in the same vein as the last campaign, dismantling anything in their way. Without quite reaching the same relentless intensity witnessed last summer, Hansi Flick’s men overcame several hurdles en route to winning Group A with two games to spare. Be it the fearlessness of Salzburg’s press, the stubborn fight of Lokomotiv or Diego Simeone’s well-drilled Atlético, no team found the formula to stop this Bayern side.
Jordan Maciel, Bayern reporter

What we’ve learned

Loath to become predictable after their extraordinary 2019/20, Bayern have not been perfect either; they have rarely looked in full control defensively since the season began. Even so, their relentless attacking strength made them too much for Atlético, Salzburg or Lokomotiv to handle, despite significant injury concerns at one stage.

Douglas Costa and Leroy Sané have lent Bayern extra quality on the wings, while Jamal Musiala is the next teenager eager to make his presence felt.

Squad changes

In: Tanguy Nianzou
Out: Bright Arrey-Mbi, Christopher Richards, Joshua Zirkzee

Key stats

• Bayern established a new UEFA Champions League record winning streak of 15 games, and thus matched Atlético's landmark of 15 straight wins in a single European competition (in Atleti's case, the UEFA Europa League). The Spaniards denied Bayern the outright record on Matchday 5.

• For a second straight season, Bayern were group stage top scorers, this time with 18 goals. While Robert Lewandowski fell short of his personal group stage haul of ten from 2019/20, Bayern's goals were shared between 11 different players.

• Bayern are now unbeaten in 20 European games away from Munich (including the 2020 UEFA Super Cup and the final rounds of the 2019/20 UEFA Champions League, played in Lisbon). Their last UEFA away defeat was at Paris in September 2017.

Who’s in charge?

Ex-Germany assistant coach Flick was put in interim charge last season and oversaw a remarkable transformation that saw Bayern sweep away all before them, rewriting the record books as they went.