Bayern aim to bounce back to form

(CNN) -- Every big club begins a new season with something to prove. But none more so this year than Bayern Munich.

The undisputed giants of German football, Bayern are coming off the back of a dismal campaign in 2006-07 that saw them finish a lackluster fourth in the Bundesliga -- missing out on a Champions League place for the first time since 1996 and forcing them instead to suffer the indignity of the UEFA Cup.

In the Champions League they squandered a hard-fought 2-2 draw at AC Milan in the first leg of the quarterfinals by then losing 2-0 at the Allianz Arena against the eventual winners.

Following the dismissal of Felix Magath in January, not even the returning Ottmar Hitzfeld, who won two German titles and one European Cup in his first spell at the club, was able to stop the slide as Bayern finished the season empty-handed.

But Bayern fans should at least be able to draw fresh hope from a lavish close-season spending spree -- following an equally drastic clearout -- administered by Hitzfeld.

Midfield holding man Owen Hargreaves was the biggest name to leave, finally permitted to complete a long-sought move to Manchester United, while Dutch striker Roy Makaay, Peruvian forward Claudio Pizarro and Bosnian utility man Hasan Salihamidzic have departed, Paraguayan striker Roque Santa Cruz is on the transfer list and veteran midfielder Mehmet Scholl has retired.

Their places have been filled by playmaker Franck Ribery, signed for a club record $35 million from Marseille to add some Gallic flair to Bavarian pragmatism, prolific forward pair Miroslav Klose from Werder Bremen and Italy's Luca Toni from Fiorentina and former favorite Ze Roberto, returning to Germany for a second stint following a spell back home in Brazil.

Ribery has already started paying off his transfer fee, scoring a 25-yard drive in a 2-0 win for Bayern over German champions Stuttgart in the semifinal of the German League Cup.

That followed a 4-1 win over Werder Bremen in the quarterfinals of the Bundesliga's unusually robust pre-season tournament.

"I have come here to win everything," Ribery declared earlier this month. "It is important that we stay in the UEFA Cup until the very end and that we win the league and the cup. Therefore I will give my all."

A victory over rivals Schalke in Saturday's final may not go far towards masking the disappointments of last season, but it would at least give Bayern fans cause for optimism that 2008 will deliver some silverware really worth toasting in the beerkellers. E-mail to a friend