Bayern eye targets
German giants Bayern Munich ended the season in the rare position of runners-up to champions Wolfburg, but hot-shot strikers Edin Dzeko and Mario Gomez have already been ear-marked as possible recruits.
Barely had the celebrations begun following Wolfsburg's 5-1 win over Werder Bremen, which gave them their maiden Bundesliga title, before Bayern's bosses were name-dropping potential targets after their 2-1 win over Stuttgart.
"Mario Gomez is a player who is very interesting to us," said Bayern team manager Uli Hoeness after Stuttgart striker Gomez scored his 24th goal of the season in his side's defeat at Munich's Allianz Arena.
And Wolfsburg striker Edin Dzeko has also attracted Bayern's attention, having set a new record for a Bundesliga partnership with 54 goals alongside Brazilian Grafite.
"We have already spoken to him," admitted Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer.
Bosnian Dzeko, 23, has another two years on his contract, while Germany star Gomez, also 23, has another three years still to run on his Stuttgart contract.
Bayern have already secured the services of Hamburg striker Ivica Olic, Zenit St Petersburg's holding midfielder Anatoliy Tymoschuk and Borussia Moenchengladbach midfielder Alexander Baumjohann for next season.
Both Olic and Baumjohann will arrive in Munich on free transfers, but now their Champions League status is secured for next season, Bayern may splash out again says Hoeness.
"We'll try and add a player or two to go with midfielder Franck Ribery," he said.
"We need to agree the sums available for transfers with the supervisory board and strengthen the team, so there's no repeat of this season, where we more or less couldn't win the league on the second-to-last day of the season."
Dutch disciplinarian Louis van Gaal will take over as head coach on July 1, but this has not been the season the defending champions were hoping for as coach Jurgen Klinsmann was sacked on April 27 after just ten months in charge.
"Our priority is always the Bundesliga, and we're way short of expectations there," said Hoeness.
"We've never looked as commanding as we did last term, when we dominated the Bundesliga with a team that was certainly no better than the current one.
"So there are areas for criticism, when we've failed to dominate, despite fielding the same or even arguably a slightly better team.
"But we've more or less hit our targets in Europe this year and we made the Champions League quarterfinals, which hasn't been the case for years."
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