Judging by Bayern's performance in the German Supercup, where they thrashed Eintracht Frankfurt 5-0, the Munich team will totally dominate the Bundesliga again.

Yes, it looks like a celebration like last Sunday's night will be back in nine months. The Bayern players will gather in the middle of the pitch, there will be a rain of golden confetti, stadium spokesman will praise the team for their success, and then they will receive the trophy to present it to fans. The only difference is that in nine months, it will not be a 53 centimeter trophy awarded to the winner of a competition called the Supercup, but a bowl 59 centimeters in diameter given to the German champions. The second difference: the celebration will be a bit more emotional.

That said, the second difference can not be guaranteed, because the title needs to be quite fresh for strong emotions - and it should not be claimed a few weeks before the finish.

Lewandowski embodies dominance

The 2018/19 Bundesliga season is exactly zero games old, but it is already seems impossible to imagine a different outcome than the seventh straight league title for Bayern. And on Sunday, the team now coached by Niko Kovac won 5-0 in Frankfurt and so did everything to reinforce this impression - even if it was just the Supercup and they were lucky that Mats Hummels did not get a red card following his foul late in the first half. 

In any case, it was striking how ambitious Bayern were, how quickly they combined going forward, and how little they allowed their rivals. Even the most unlucky moment turned out to be not terrible at all, as the injured substitute David Alaba suffered only a severe knee bruise. But nobody embodied Bayern's dominance as much as the attacker Robert Lewandowski.

Three of the five goals in Frankfurt were scored by the Pole, the first two being headers, the third scored with his left foot, and possibly he could add one more goal, but Kovac preferred to substitute him following Robert's clash with David Abraham. These are the stats for which they value Lewandowski in Munich after he joined their club in 2014 - and yet this was not an ordinary situation.

Because Bayern and their leading striker have experienced a few hectic months. In spring, Lewandowski was considered not only the man who consistently scores many goals in the Bundesliga (30, 30, 29 in the past three years), but also the man who often does not live up to expectations in big games such as the Champions League semi-final against Real Madrid. In early summer, Lewandowski's new agent Pini Zahavi claimed that his client would leave Munich for the new season - not least with the hope that Lewandowski would use the World Cup in Russia as a big stage.

Door for transfer requests closed

It all happened completely differently than Mr.Zahavi had thought. Lewandowski's performance at the World Cup was pretty poor, and he was not really close to a move. In England, the transfer window is now closed, and while Real Madrid have a vacancy after Cristiano Ronaldo's departure, the Spanish giants show no interest in Lewandowski. And besides, the Bayern bosses have closed the transfer door fast. While they may have noticed that Lewandowski did not play well against Real, and that his body language was sometimes a bit negligent, but very good center-forwards are now a rarity, and affordable very good center-forwards are even a bigger rarity. This summer, there have been rumours that Lewandowski's new agent did not even get an appointment with the club bosses.

So Lewandowski has stayed. The coach Kovac talked to him twice, once during the World Cup and once before the training camp at Tegernsee. And now they hope that the attacker sees himself as a full member of the Munich squad. Lewandowski himself was silent after the game in Frankfurt, but other club members praised him. 

"That was the perfect answer to all criticism and questions," said Thomas Müller. Niko Kovac called Lewandowski "a world-class striker", so you do not have much to say. And the sports director Hasan Salihamidzic earned the prize for the biggest compliment, saying, "I wanted Robert to explode, and he proved once again that he's one of the best, or perhaps the best striker in the world."

So the club is enjoying Lewandowski again. And it will be one of the key issues of the season - whether the feeling is still there when a serious phase of the Champions League against the big international clubs comes. 

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