MUNICH (AP) – Bayern Munich players lined up Sunday wearing T-shirts depicting white parrots to celebrate winning the Bundesliga title.
bavarian Won against Stuttgart 4-2 and clinched the championship. They now have an absolute 15-point difference over second-place Borussia Dortmund with four matches remaining.
But few expected to see the parrot again, as it played a central role in the celebrations when Bayern won the Bundesliga title last season.
“We had to wait a long time to let him out of the cage again,” Bayern midfielder Leon Goretzka joked after celebrating with the parrot statue that made his first appearance last season.
Last year’s title was won when Bayern were not playing. Freiburg draw with 2nd place Bayer Leverkusen Bayern broke through the eight-point gap with two matches remaining.
Bayern players were watching the Freiburg-Leverkusen match on TV in a Munich restaurant when they noticed a statue of a parrot there. They unofficially adopted it as their new team mascot. One of the players (it’s not clear who) removed the parrot statue from the restaurant, and a week later it occupied a prominent place on stage when the team was presented with the Bundesliga trophy.
“I won’t say who it was,” Bayern coach Vincent Kompany said at the time. “That story will come out someday.”
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