The most important game of Bayern Munich's 2020-21 season came during the international break, when most players from Champions League clubs were away with their countries.
Fixture congestion after last season's delayed European campaign saw Bayern's DFB-Pokal first-round tie with minnows Duren pushed back to take place just as the majority of international players were travelling back to their clubs.
As a result, Bayern handed debuts to eight players in the cup tie, with only young defenders Alphonso Davies and Niklas Sule and veteran duo Thomas Muller and Jerome Boateng playing from their regular starting XI.
In previous years this was the kind of tricky fixture where Bayern would struggle. Just 12 months earlier they needed to send on Robert Lewandowski and Muller to save a cup game against Bochum.
There has never been any doubt that Bayern Munich possess one of the best starting line-ups in world football and they showed that time and again this summer, first in the Champions League mini-tournament in Portugal and then against Sevilla in the UEFA Super Cup.
Depth is often where Bayern have been lacking, and injuries to key players saw them slump out of the 2018-19 Champions League when a close domestic title race meant that rotating and resting players was a difficult challenge.
The game against Duren last week was never going to be a major upset - their owner even commented before the game that he hoped they could concede fewer than eight goals, proving they were tougher opponents than Schalke and Barcelona.
What it showed is that Bayern have signed smartly in the transfer window, buying players to improve the squad and allow them to compete on all fronts.
Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting scored twice and has proven at Paris Saint-Germain that he is a more than adequate back-up striker - something Bayern have lacked in recent years. They have been forced to rely on Lewandowski's impressive durability and even more impressive ability for scoring more goals than any other striker in world football.
Thiago Alcantara traded Munich for Liverpool in the summer, but despite that sale, Bayern are stronger this time around than last season, when they won the treble.
Instead of trying to replace the Spain midfielder, they signed Marc Roca from Espanyol to build for the future. Hansi Flick and the Bayern board had planned for a German core of Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka as their midfield duo anyway, even if Thiago had remained.
Bouna Sarr arrived from Marseille to solve the right-back depth issue caused by Kimmich moving to midfield, while Ivan Perisic's loan expiry has been more than covered by bringing Douglas Costa back to the club on loan from Juventus.
Those players, as well as back-up goalkeeper Alexander Nubel and teenage defender Tanguy Nianzou, give Bayern many more options to rotate as they aim for back-to-back trebles.
"We have three trophies to defend," Serge Gnabry told FC Bayern TV. "We all know that we want to win more trophies as a team, we want to repeat the feeling of the successes.
"It's not that it all worked out last time and we've said 'Okay, that's it, we've done it', but rather we want to do the same thing again.
"I think the prospect of repeating things is more difficult than to just achieve it once, so we want to give our best and have fun defending the treble."
Lewandowski and Gnabry finished first and third in the top-scorer chart for the Champions League last season and formed two-thirds of the most potent attack in Europe.
That attack got even stronger this summer as Bayern finally signed Leroy Sane, the German winger they had long been trying to sign from potential European rivals Manchester City.
GoalSane will miss Bayern's opening Champions League clash against Atletico Madrid on Wednesday due to injury, but is close to a return and showed in the opening day 8-0 demolition of Schalke that he already has an understanding with his new team, scoring once and assisting two more in the rout.
The Sane-Lewandowski-Gnabry front three will be a nightmare for every defence in Europe and gives Bayern the kind of attack that helped Real Madrid dominate the continent from 2015 to 2018 with Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Like that Madrid team, this Bayern squad has excellent options on the bench with adequate replacements for every single position.
Similarly, it is hard to find weaknesses in this Bayern XI, who have the technical skill to unlock stubborn defensive opponents and have the pace to get in behind better teams.
It took seven years for Bayern Munich to win a second treble after their 2013 success. With this squad and this head coach, they have built a dynasty capable of doing it two years in a row.