The Road to the Triple, Part 1

For those with minimal background on the sport of soccer, let me give you just a brief "primer" of sorts on the incredible achievement I'm about to do a series of posts on. The best way to illustrate the greatness of the "Treble" (or "Triple", as it's called in Germany), is for you to imagine this: your hometown NFL team winning the Super Bowl, followed by your hometown NBA team winning the NBA Championship, which is then followed by your hometown team winning the MLB World Series...all in the same year...and with the same group of players! (yes, I know, impossible with the same group of players), but that's the closest I can get to describing what Bayern Munich have achieved this year in the world of soccer...they won their league, the Bundesliga (setting a gazillion records in the process); they won Champions League; and they won the domestic cup (German Cup/DFB Pokal). They are the first German team to accomplish this rare "Triple", and adrenaline has been pumping through my veins for weeks now!

I wanted to start this brief series (which for me is a great way to preserve some photos, along with my thoughts/feelings) with the game where we won the Bundesliga. It was an away game at Eintracht Frankfurt...a team who had just come out of relegation for the 2012/2013 season. They'd had a decent season, and weren't too far down the table, if my memory serves me correctly. We went in to their stadium and played a hard-fought 90 minutes. We knew that if we could pull out the win, we'd have secured the Bundesliga in record time (we still had 6 matches left to play!), and would be well on our way to wrapping up several more records. Leave it to my absolute, most favorite soccer player of all time, Bastian Schweinsteiger, to score the match-winning, and thus league-winning, goal on what many have called a "cheeky back heel". It was pure greatness! And who better to wrap all of this up than the heart, the soul, the conductor, of this incredible group of young men. It was Basti's day; it was Basti's season. This would start them on their run to bringing home the elusive "Triple".

Here's the back heel goal in a still shot:




Here are a few pics of Basti celebrating that incredible goal!



Here we have Basti & Neuer with a celebratory hug:



And a few team pictures go along with these others. Mia San Meister!

I'm Back!

Wow! I didn't realize how long it had been since I was last on "Blogger" here, and decided that it's time for a brand-new blog, especially since I'm no longer on my journey through "doctoral work", which was the main thrust of my last blog here several years ago. If you read the "About Me" section on here, you'll know that this is my place to post daily musings, as well as important insights, into the world of education, along with my adventures through cooking, scrapbooking, and travel. This is also a place to post about Bayern Munich soccer, SC football, and my political rants, thus leaving all of that to a minimum through Facebook posts. I'm going to do my best to post several times a week, which will be much easier over the course of summer vacation, of course. I hope you'll join me for the ride through Jen's Journeys! (sorry, folks, had to add the "s" to the URL to find one that was available; and then felt like I had to carry that through with the title).