Bayern Munich had a very strong squad in 1995-96.
The three players featured in the cover image of this article – Oliver Kahn, Lothar Matthäus and Jürgen Klinsmann – all captained West Germany/Germany in finals of major tournaments and they were joined by a host of other stars but head coach Otto Rehhagel struggled to mould the talented squad together.
Bayern finished second in the Bundesliga, six points behind Borussia Dortmund, and while they won the Uefa Cup, Franz Beckenbauer was in charge for the two-legged final win over Bordeaux following the dismissal of Rehhagel.
With Uefa allowing squad numbers from 1996-97, that victory would see Bayern become the last club to win a major European trophy without names on their shirts. While they fielded 1-11 in Europe, domestically it was the first season with squad numbers in the Bundesliga (La Liga and Serie A adopted them at the same time).
The 1995-96 official Bayern handbook featured questionnaires for each player and one of the questions asked why they were wearing their respective numbers. These are the answers, with the aid of a freely-available online translator:
Oliver Kahn
“Because I’m a goalkeeper.”
Markus Babbel
“Because the coach decided it that way.”
Dieter Frey
“Because it rhymes with my name.”
Oliver Kreuzer
“Because I’ve been wearing the 4 for four years.”
Thomas Helmer
“Because I’ve been wearing it since I was 7 years old.”
Christian Nerlinger
“I have been wearing it for two years, been spared from injuries and have been able to celebrate success.”
Mehmet Scholl
“Because it’s a likeable number.”
Thomas Strunz
“Because it looks good.”
Jean-Pierre Papin
“Because it’s my favourite number.
Lothar Matthäus
“Because the coach wanted it that way.”
Marcel Witeczek
“Because I had it almost always last season.”
Sven Scheuer
“Because it was assigned to me.”
Samuel Kuffour
“Because my “German mom” Karin Potthoff [secretary of general manager Uli Hoeneß] suggested it.”
Ciriaco Sforza
“Because I always wore it when I was young.”
Alain Sutter
“No idea.”
Dietmar Hamann
“Because I turned 16 five years ago.”
Christian Ziege
“Because I already wore this number at the US Cup.”
Jürgen Klinsmann
“Because I have had it at all major tournaments since the European Championships in 1988 and I became world champion in 1990 with the 18.”
Emil Kostadinov
“Because it’s my lucky number.”
Andreas Herzog
“Because 20 is my favourite number.”
Alexander Zickler
“Because it corresponds to my age.”
Two goalkeepers, Tomas Tomic and Michael Probst, were assigned numbers 22 and 23 respectively but neither featured in the yearbook.
Samuel Kuffour spent the season on loan at Nürnberg in the 2.Bundesliga. When he returned for 1996-97, 13 had been given to new signing Mario Basler and so the centre-back wore number 15 – he would go on to switch to 4 in 1997.
Alain Sutter, who had 15 in 1995-96 but didn’t know why, left the club for Freiburg during that campaign – he wore 25 at his new club but we don’t know his feelings about that.
When paired up front with Klinsmann in Europe, Jean-Pierre Pain had to cede his favoured number 9 to the Germany international and wear 11 instead.
The other player with a 1-11 squad number who wore a different digit in Europe was Thomas Strunz. He was most often used as a wing-back and, with 8 given to a midfielder (most usually Ciriaco Sforza) in the Uefa Cup, Strunz wore 4 as Markus Babbel wore 2 at centre-back.
What a team it was this Bayern, Scholl was a brilliant player. I did not remember Papin was Playing with them.
I remember we lost with them in the uefa cup, after a good 2-2 draw in Munich we lost at Camp Nou, in the away game we could have won easy even with the snow we had that day. That was still those Times when football was a 11 vs 11 game where the germans always won.