Saturday 12 May 2012. Not just a disappointing result but the final humiliation in a season full of them. That was the date when Bayern Munich were provoked into becoming the behemoth that clutched the Bundesliga in their grip for more than a decade.
The result was one thing. That it was against Borussia Dortmund, their now-medium-term irritant, was something else. But a 5-2 defeat in the final of the DFB-Pokal, the German FA Cup? It was too much. It recalled the moment in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused when the freshmen Mitch and Carl peek around the door to laugh at the senior O’Bannion after Mitch’s mother backs him off the lawn with her shotgun, as he prepares to give them initiation licks with his bat. Their cheeky late send-off tips O’Bannion over the edge and he promises them revenge amid a tirade of expletives. Similarly, Dortmund’s Pokal final victory lap around a vanquished Bayern made them not just swear revenge but vow to make it long and painful.
