Bundesliga giants FC Bayern Munich return to daily business after the 13-day winter break as the FIFA Club World Cup champions took off for their winter training camp in Qatar on Sunday morning.
Coach Pep Guardiola welcomed 20 players at the Munich airport to board the Lufthansa flight to Doha. Seven players including Arjen Robben have already arrived in Doha directly from their vacation, saving an unnecessary round-trip via Munich.
Guardiola will conduct the first training session of the new year at the Aspire Academy on Sunday evening. The Spaniard will have the best facilities to prepare his team for the second half of the season which could see Bayern breaking more records.
Bayern’s winter training camp named “Volkswagen Camp Qatar” will be followed by a total of 40 German media representatives and around 20 local journalists, who will report from Doha every day.
“Thanks to Volkswagen’s support we’ve been coming to the Middle East for a few years now. When we get there, we have everything we need to prepare for the forthcoming challenges,” commented Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (Chairman, FC Bayern Munich) on the club website. “Fantastic training conditions, helpful hosts, wonderful weather and passionate opponents drawn from the region, desperately keen to test themselves against our players.”
The reigning UEFA Champions League winner’s are scheduled to play two preparation matches as part of the winter training camp. Bayern will take on Sudanese champions Al-Merrikh SC in Doha on January 9 (at 20.00 local time / 18.00 CET) and Kuwait SC in Kuwait City on their way back to Munich on January 13 (18.00 local time / 16.00 CET).
Bayern will return to Bundesliga action as Pep Guardiola’s team travel to Mönchengladbach on January 24.