By now some of you may have seen Lufthansa’s new commericial featuring the beloved Bayern Munich Football team (soccer to us Americans!). Its a great commercial that starts out with a small boy talking to his father about how he wants to become “captain” what happens from there was fantastic!

This month, in Lufthansa’s iPad App Version of “magazin” there’s a great article that goes behind the scenes of the commercial and I thought I’d share it with you here.

FROM Lufthansa’s “magazin” iPad edition January 2012:

CAPTAINS MAKE A GREAT WINNING TEAM

Lufthansa and FC Bayern Munich have been cooperation partners since March 2004. “Lufthansa is a global aviation leader and the perfect airline for us both for domestic German and international flights,” says Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, CEO of FC Bayern Munich AG, explaining why the soccer and airline teams joined forces. Lufthansa has now been official carrier to Germany’s record-breaking champion soccer team for seven years. As official carrier, the airline lays on special flights to take the team to its German league away games and also to Champions League and Europa League encounters at stadiums abroad.

Since the start of the cooperation, FC Bayern Munich has clinched the double four times (winning both the German league and cup titles in 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2010) and also made it to the Champions League Final in 2010. “The service our club and our team receive under this partnership is an important piece in the mosaic of our success,” Rummenigge stresses. The aim, of course, is to build on that success in the coming years.

At home games in Munich, Lufthansa is a premium partner of FC Bayern Munich, advertising on the perimeter fence, for instance, and also, twice a season as sponsor of the day, organizing players’ escorts. This gives Lufthansa the chance to fulfill many a child’s dream: the dream of running out onto the turf of a crowded stadium at their heroes’ side.

This year, frequent flyers have also been given the chance to benefit from the cooperation between Lufthansa and FC Bayern. Miles & More now offers members the option not only of redeeming their miles at the club’s fan shop, but also of boosting their miles account when they purchase Bayern Munich merchandise. Fans can also exchange their miles for tickets for seats on the main stand (up to four tickets per home game).

Here on your iPad, you can watch the recently recorded commercial, along with some exclusive photos taken during its making, spotlighting the good cooperation between the two partners. The film shows a young autograph hunter at the terminal, eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Lufthansa plane carrying the Bayern Munich team. Just as Captain Philipp Lahm is about to give the young fan his autograph, the boy snatches the pen away from him and rushes over to the Lufthansa crew, eliciting an amused smile from both Lahm and the Lufthansa captain.

The commercial is the work of young director/actor Simon Verhoeven, who in 2011 received a Bambi in the category of “Film National” for his big-screen production “Mannerherzen und die gan größe Liebe”. The eldest son of actor Senta Berger and director Michael Verhoeven is well know to soccer fans. He played at the highest levels of youth soccer as a striker in the youth squad of Bayern Munich rival TSV 1860 Munchen and was on a number of German Football Federation (DFB) selection teams. A severe injury put an end to a promising football career for Simon Verhoeven, who then devoted his attention to acting, composing film scores and directing.

The young director was allowed only one day at Munich Airport (MUC) in which to make the Lufthansa/FCB commercial, which involved integrating several Bayern Munich stars (Lahm,as well as a number of national team members: Manuel Neuer, Mario Gomez, Jerome Boateng and Holger Badstuber) into a team of over 90 people comprising the Lufthansa crew, production team members, lighting technicians, extras, stylists and organizers.

So now that you have a behind the scenes glimpse of the commercial, here it is complete with english subtitles:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8GXltFYfX8[/youtube]