The Best Players to Wear Bayern Munich's Number 7 Shirt - Ranked

For more than a decade, Bayern Munich's number seven shirt has been so synonymous with one particular Frenchman (don't worry, we'll get to him later) that no one dared don that distinctive digit in the 2019/20 campaign.

However, Serge Gnabry's sensational individual season - capped by a brace in the Champions League semi-final - has earned him a discernible shift up the pecking order and seen him become Bayern's latest number seven.

Aside from Gnabry's illustrious predecessor, a club steeped in as much history and glory as Bayern can boast their fair share of legendary number sevens the 25-year-old will be following.

5. Bernd Dürnberger

Bernd Dürnberger's name may often be lost in the fog of time but the versatile midfielder was a durable and reliable cog in the all-conquering Bayern side five decades ago.

Dürnberger featured in all three of the club's trio of European Cup triumphs between 1974 and 1976, playing out wide, at left-back and in midfield in each edition.

Across 13 years with the Bavarians, Dürnberger won no fewer than 11 major trophies but not a single national team cap - making him one of the most decorated players never to have represented their country.

4. Conny Torstensson

Bayern's glory years were almost ended before they had even begun by the Swedish village side Åtvidaberg. In the first round of the 1973/74 European Cup, Bayern were taken to a penalty shootout by Åtvidaberg thanks to a 3-1 second leg victory for the Swedes, courtesy of two goals from Conny Torstensson.

The tireless midfielder wasn't the most technically gifted (he was supposedly sent to the reserves early in his career after failing to complete ten keepy-uppies) but Torstensson had done enough to impress the German champions.

Bayern signed Torstensson a few weeks later and won that year's tournament - Bayern's new number seven would finish the season as the competition's second top scorer. Two more continental crowns followed and Torstensson was given the rather unimaginative nickname 'Mr European Cup'.

3. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge

Karl-Heinz 'Kalle' Rummenigge is perhaps more closely associated with the number 11 shirt, but Bayern's third all-time top goalscorer was kitted out with a seven on his back for Bayern's 1976 European Cup final victory over Saint-Étienne.

Now deeply entwined in the club's hierarchy, Rummenigge has overseen the longest period of Bayern dominance. Both on the pitch and in the boardroom, Rummenigge has worked wonders for Bayern over the past five decades.

2. Mehmet Scholl

Franck Ribéry had some pretty sizeable shoes to fill when he arrived in Munich in 2007. Bayern's previous number seven, Mehmet Scholl, had wooed the Bavarian crowd for the past 15 years, snaffling up every club medal on offer.

The attacking midfielder clocked up more than 100 goals - a number of which came from pin-point free-kicks - and also hit triple digits for assists across 469 games for Bayern.

1. Franck Ribéry

There could scarcely have been a more fitting end to Franck Ribéry's storied 12-year tenure at Bayern. Ten minutes after being subbed on in the final Bundesliga match of the season, Ribéry rolled back the years, tiptoeing through a forest of outstretched limbs before delicately dinking the ball over Eintracht Frankfurt's helpless goalkeeper.

Ribéry thrust the shirt which he had come to define into the air in celebration, giving the Bayern faithful one final glimpse of the phenomenal talent which had become a regular sight in Bavaria.