James Rodríguez believes Bayern are Champions League favourites | OneFootball

James Rodríguez has piled the pressure on he and his Bayern Munich team-mates by insisting they are favourites to win the Champions League this season.

The Bundesliga champions take on Beşiktaş in the first-leg of their last-16 tie next Tuesday and James – who is on a two-year loan at the Allianz Arena from Real Madrid – sees no reason why they can’t go on to lift the competition for the first time since 2013.

“Bayern is my favourite to win the Champions League,” the Colombian told German outlet Sport Bild.

“We have a super team with top players. Why shouldn’t we win the Champions League?”

James was part of the Madrid side which knocked Bayern out of Europe’s premier competition at the quarter-final stage last season and after a rather difficult start to life in Germany, the 26-year-old has slowly adapted to his new surroundings and become an integral member of Jupp Heynckes’s league-leading team.

This is partly due to the fact he has been learning to speak German “two to three” times a week, but he has also been helped greatly by Heynckes being able to speak fluent Spanish.

“That [speaking Spanish] has helped a great deal to integrate better into the game,” James said.

Sport Bild claim Bayern currently pay a loan fee of €6.5 million-per-season to James’s parent club and will almost certainly sign him permanently for €42m in 2019.

“I will not veto any option to buy James,” Edmund Stoiber, a member of Bayern’s auxiliary board, has said.