Bayern Munich brings back Jupp Heynckes as interim boss

Bayern Munich announced Friday the club has hired former manager Jupp Heynckes to replace the recently sacked Carlo Ancelotti, with the 72-year-old taking over on an interim basis until the end of the season.

The Bavarian outfit fired Ancelotti after a 3-0 loss to Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League, after which Heynckes emerged as a leading candidate. He now returns to work on the touchline of the Allianz Arena, where he'll be joined by assistants Peter Hermann and Hermann Gerland, both of whom took on roles elsewhere after Heynckes' last stint at the club ended.

"There's a great mutual trust between Jupp Heynckes and FC Bayern," club CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge said in a statement. "That showed itself again in the conversations that Uli Hoeness, Hasan Salihamidzic, and I have had with him. We're very thankful to Jupp that he's accepted the offer of head coach. He's the ideal man for FC Bayern at this moment in time."

Salihamidzic added: "Jupp Heynckes is a master of people management and tactics. We're convinced he's exactly the right man to get the team back on track and achieve our aims."

It's the fourth time Heynckes has occupied the role of head coach at the Bavarian outfit, and his second stint as interim manager. He first took over at Bayern for the 1987-88 season, and departed in 1992, before returning to take over for the sacked Jurgen Klinsmann in the 2008-09 season.

He then replaced Louis van Gaal for the 2011-12 season, and stayed for the 2012-13 campaign, one that saw him guide Bayern to a clean sweep of titles in the Champions League, Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal, and DFL-Supercup. In total, Heynckes has three domestic titles with Bayern over eight seasons at the club.

Between 2011 and 2013, and over the course of 109 matches at the helm, Heynckes' Bayern teams managed to recorded 83 victories, losing just 14 times and drawing 12 times. They combined to score 270 goals and conceded only 53, according to Squawka.

With those numbers and titles in mind, Heynckes had nothing left to prove to fans of Bayern, or to his peers, among whom he now stands as the eldest in Europe's top five leagues. But in the end, he said Bayern is a special circumstance.