David Alaba, Toni Kroos, Mario Götze and Sebastian Rode: ex-teammates reunited in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup
Toni Kroos, David Alaba, Mario Götze and Sebastian Rode: Four players that won a host of honours at Bayern Munich will compete against each other for more in the 2022 UEFA Super Cup between Eintracht Frankfurt and Real Madrid.
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The quartet all previously represented - and won major honours with - Bayern and, although they didn't all get on the pitch at the same time in Bavaria, their careers have intertwined at various junctures.
It was Kroos who first moved to Bayern's academy at the age of 16 in 2006, where he was joined by Alaba two years later. When Kroos made his Bayern debut in the 2007/08 campaign - he eventually featured 12 times in the league and claimed his first Bundesliga and DFB Cup titles - Alaba soon followed suit by getting his chance in 2009/10.
Watch: Toni Kroos: Made in the Bundesliga
Kroos was cutting his teeth on-loan at Bayer Leverkusen that season and when he returned to his parent club for the 2010/11 campaign, Alaba was doing the same at Hoffenheim.
They would finally partner up at the Allianz Arena for the 2011/12 campaign, helping Bayern clinch the Bundesliga title and reach the UEFA Champions League final.
Alaba would miss the penalty defeat to Chelsea due to suspension, but both he and Kroos got their hands on old Big Ears 12 months later by beating a Borussia Dortmund outfit without the services of Götze.
The sight of an injured Götze overseeing the action from the stands created great curiosity for the watching world who had found out just a month earlier that the Germany international would be plying his trade for Bayern the following season.
Götze and Kroos were well acquainted by then and not only due to their Der Klassiker rivalry, but also as international teammates.
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Kroos earned his Germany debut in March 2010 and was on the pitch later that same year when Götze was given a first senior cap against Sweden in November.
And, after the trio of Alaba, Götze and Kroos teamed up to help Bayern to a 2013/14 league and cup double, the German pair went on to lift the 2014 FIFA World Cup for their country, with Götze hitting the winner in the final.
Kroos and Rode, who played together for Germany's U17 team on three occasions as youngsters, passed like ships in the night that summer as the former headed to Madrid and the latter joined Bayern from Frankfurt.
Rode would go on to make 52 appearances across two seasons at Bayern and, alongside Alaba and Götze, backed up winning the Bundesliga title in 2014/15 by claiming a domestic double the following year.
Alaba would be the last to leave in 2021, and the 2015/16 campaign would prove to be the trio's final hurrah, as first Rode and then the returning Götze put pen to paper on Dortmund moves.
There, they would win the German cup at the first attempt, but Götze and Rode only lined up alongside each other once in the competition - a penalty shootout victory over Union Berlin in the second round, where the former struck the winning spot-kick.
A well-documented metabolic illness ended Götze's season early, while Rode was an unused substitute in the final as Dortmund prevailed over the duo's current employers.
Rode initially joined Frankfurt at the start of 2019, bringing to an end just a 22-game spell at the Signal Iduna Park, and captained the club to their historic UEFA Europa League win last season.
Götze, meanwhile, struggled to recapture form and fitness after his illness and headed to PSV Eindhoven in 2020.
Götze's arrival at Deutsche Bank Park in June brought the two together once more and, just two matches into their reunion, they now get the opportunity to get one over some familiar faces when Eintracht meet their Champions League-winning counterparts in Helsinki on 10 August.
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