Fußball-Club Bayern München e.V., commonly known as FC Bayern München (German pronunciation: [ʔɛf t͡seː ˈbaɪ̯ɐn ˈmʏnçn̩]), FCB, Bayern Munich, or FC Bayern, is a German sports club based in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is best known for its professional football team, which plays in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the German football league system, and is the most successful club in German football history, having won a record 25 national titles and 17 national cups.[3]
FC Bayern was founded in 1900 by eleven football players led by Franz John.[4] Although Bayern won its first national championship in 1932,[5] the club was not selected for the Bundesliga at its inception in 1963.[6] The club had its period of greatest success in the middle of the 1970s when, under the captaincy of Franz Beckenbauer, it won the European Cup three times in a row (1974–76). Overall, Bayern has reached ten European Cup/UEFA Champions League finals, most recently winning their fifth title in 2013 as part of a continental treble. Bayern has also won one UEFA Cup, one European Cup Winners' Cup, one UEFA Super Cup, one FIFA Club World Cup and two Intercontinental Cups, making it one of the most successful European clubs internationally. Since the formation of the Bundesliga, Bayern has been the dominant club in German football with 25 titles and has won 7 of the last 11 titles. They have traditional local rivalries with TSV 1860 München and 1. FC Nürnberg, as well as with Borussia Dortmund since the mid 1990s.