As someone whose formative football memories come from the 90s, its always weird for me to see Sammer at Bayern rather than Dortmund.
That mid 90s Dortmund team was something. Andreas Moller, Karl-Heinz Rielde...what a team. They even made Lars Ricken look world class.
Sammer's injury problems were a tragedy for German football and football as a whole. I really thought he was the heir to Lothar Mattheus.
You can't imagine the pain you caused me in 1997.
As for Bayern, there's elements of truth to what
@fcbforever says. Bayern was drifting until the early 2010s. However, the upturn definitely predated Pep. Its true that Klopp's Dortmund upset Bayern a bit and Van Gaal's end was, as you'd expect, disastrous.
That being said Bayern was firm favourite in the 2012 Champions League final, and the idea of bottling was probably a lot stronger in Germany than outside. Everyone else knew Chelsea had fluked it. Then came the Treble with Bayern playing a brand of football that was discernibly German, which crushed the Barca style over two legs.
Pep changed Bayern's football and nobody can say a Pep team at its best isn't beautiful to watch.Say for example Heynckes wins the Champions League again this year, playing his way not the Spanish way though. Many will say Pep's innovations were just a needless move away from what Jupp did. They will also likely say that Hispanising the team, sometimes at the expense of stalwarts like Thomas Muller, went against Bayern traditions pointlessly.