Real Madrid, Bayern Munich, the story of 'La Bestia Negra' – and whether the nickname still works...

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Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr, and Jude Bellingham against Harry Kane, Manuel Neuer, and Joshua Kimmich for a place in the Champions League semi-final. This is continental football from the rarest of air, and it demands to be watched. La Real, Los Blancos, against FC Bayern, La Bestia Negra. That last Bayern nickname is the least used among all those in rotation. Madrid have their own, White Ballet, which comes from the 1960s. In Germany, Bayern are more often FC Bayern, Die Roten, or Die Bayern — the Reds, the Bavarians. But La Bestia Negra is one that still appears on fluttering banners at Allianz Arena during Bundesliga games, becoming more prominent whenever the club is drawn against Madrid. It’s rivalry-specific, which makes it a rarity. Bayern Munich are Real Madrid’s Bestia Negra — their black beast. Tuesday’s game takes place within days of the 50th anniversary of the first meeting between the two clubs. That was in March 1976, when Bayern beat Madrid 3-1 over two legs of a European Cup semi-final, on their way to winning the competition against Saint-Etienne at Hampden Park. Ahead of this game, Bayern published an article on their website celebrating “50 years of La Bestia Negra: How Bayern became Real Madrid’s European nemesis”. That must seem strange, given that the historic one-on-one record between the two clubs is actually in Madrid’s favour — 13 wins, four draws, and 11 losses — and Bayern have not won a two-legged tie against them since 2012. But it was the early encounters that created dynamics that have become permanent. The first leg of the 1976 game ended 1-1. Both goalkeepers, Sepp Maier and Miguel Angel Gonzalez, produced outstanding blocks in an even game, but the home ground were enraged by the performance of the referee. Complete footage of the match does not exist, making it impossible to know whether that outrage had merit, but brief German highlights do show a Madrid fan running onto the pitch, punching Gerd Muller in the face, then landing a straight right jab to the official’s jaw, before being wrestled to the ground by Maier and a young Uli Hoeness. Bayern were a hefty proposition in 1976. Back-to-back European champions in 1974 and 1975, they were the elite of European football, with a starting line-up containing Franz Beckenbauer and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, as well as Maier in goal and Muller up front. They must have seemed invulnerable, and that, in turn, made Bayern a natural villain. In the second leg, Bayern won 2-0, but Madrid had a goal ruled out for offside and Maier made another string of good saves. Madrid captain Amancio Armaro was sent off in stoppage time when, frustrated by Bayern’s quality, ruthlessness and dashes of good fortune, he toe-punted the ball off the pitch after the whistle had gone and received a second yellow card. In the aftermath, Madrid were furious about the Olympiastadion’s treatment of Gunter Netzer and Paul Breitner. Netzer, one of the great playmakers of his generation, had been a central figure in Bayern’s rivalry with Borussia Monchengladbach, before leaving for Madrid in 1973. Breitner, another of German football’s immortals, was a Bavarian born just south of Munich, but had been sold by Bayern in 1974. Both players were booed during the game. In Guillermo Rai’s history of the rivalry, written for The Athletic in 2024, he records a pre-season friendly in 1980 that Bayern won 9-1, and then an incident at the 1981 Santiago Bernabeu Trophy when Rummenigge was sent off for making obscene gestures at the crowd during a game against Dinamo Tbilisi in a friendly competition. By the end of 1981, Rummenigge had won two Ballons d’Or. He and West Germany were also reigning European Champions from 1980, in a competition from which Spain had exited, winless, in the group stage. It was around this time that the Spanish media supposedly made its first references to Bayern as La Bestia Negra. Whether it caught on is another matter. In Germany, its popularity peaked far later, during 1999 and 2012, when Bayern won nine of 14 games between the two. So, whether originally informed by grievance, admiration, sporting inferiority, or something broader is unclear. Most likely, it was a combination of all four. And today, Bayern are largely responsible for keeping it alive. In response to the article published on Bayern’s website, Spanish newspaper Marca took a few gentle jabs last week, reacting with mild incredulity. “It’s a term they use to boast about the supposed fear they instil in Real Madrid and which, as they themselves say, they ‘wear with as much pride as the five stars on their chests’. There are even banners and scarves with those three words when this match comes around,” read a recent opinion piece. “However, it’s worth reminding them that those days belong to better times. Nostalgia often leads to a distorted view of reality. And the reality is that the Black Beast, dear Bayern, is Real Madrid. Or ‘Die Schwarze Bestie’, to borrow the nickname. If anyone deserves that moniker today, they don’t wear red. They wear white.” Sky Deutschland agrees. On Monday, it published an article entitled “‘Bestia blanca’ stett ‘Schwarze Bestie'” (“White beast rather than Black Beast”), which looked back across Bayern’s many failures over the past 14 years. This reflects that, whatever the outcome of those first games, or the ferociously bad-tempered semi-final in 1987 and that run between 1999 and 2012, modern Madrid carry themselves without self-doubt or superstition. They have been European champions nine times since 1998 and, in the present day, have no such thing as a bogey team. Still, the old nickname remains and, as Marca suggests, it is a costume Bayern are happy to wear. Among the fans travelling from Bavaria this week will be 80 members from La Bestia Negra 2008, an official supporters group. “The club was founded in Bad Waldsee near Lake Constance in 2008 by a small group of Bayern supporters,” a spokesperson tells The Athletic. “The fans had originally followed the team individually for years and were then able to build a local group. Over time, we organised regular fan trips, local events, and community activities while keeping a strong connection to our home. Today, we have about 850 supporters who follow Bayern Munich around the world. “The Madrid games and also the rise of this nickname (La Bestia Negra) for Bayern brought a lot of attention to our fanclub and the Champions League games are always special for supporters. Therefore, it stands for floodlights, for goosebumps, for trips all over Europe, and for making and meeting friends everywhere. We wear the name with pride.” Madrid and Bayern have faced each other 28 times in competitive games. It makes the fixture the most-played in the history of all major European football and equips it with a past few Champions League quarter-finals can rival. So, one more dance between the White Ballet and the Black Beast. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms