FC Bayern Munich has repeatedly been plagued by staffing concerns in defense this season – but coach Thomas Tuchel apparently cannot hope for many additions to improve the situation in the winter. At least that’s what honorary president and supervisory board member Uli Hoeneß indicated. “If we feel like we need additions by then, we will do something. But there definitely won’t be a big transfer offensive,” said Hoeneß on RTL/ntv on Thursday.
The 71-year-old explained that Bayern are “a commercial company” and want to “be healthy for the next ten years” – so he doesn’t believe in expensive and short-term additions. Hoeneß spoke of “unwise statements” made by coach Tuchel, among others, which had led to great expectations among the public. The coach had called for reinforcements several times, for example in the defensive midfield. Hoeneß replied: “If you see every weekend what we have on the bench – only national players – then we don’t have a thin squad.”
In Dayot Upamecano, Matthijs de Ligt and Min-jae Kim, there are only three central defenders of top international caliber in the FCB squad; Upamecano recently suffered a muscle injury against SC Freiburg and, according to media reports, will be out for several weeks. De Ligt only started running training again on Tuesday after a knee injury.
Hoeneß praises Nagelsmann, but criticizes the trip to the USA
Hoeneß welcomed the fact that the Munich team recently refrained from signing former world champion Jérôme Boateng despite the lack of personnel in the center of the defense chain. The long-time Bayern professional shouldn’t have played in the Champions League anyway. And if Bayern bring in another defender during the winter break, that would mean “that Jérôme would practically only be signed for eight Bundesliga games,” said Hoeneß, “and that is completely economically nonsense.” He added that rejecting Boateng was “a sensible decision.”
The German Football Association (DFB), on the other hand, received praise for the commitment of national coach Julian Nagelsmann. The former coach of Bayern Munich is “exactly the right person for this situation now,” said Hoeneß: “He’s fresh, he’s young. He’s totally recovered now, he took a lot of vacation after leaving FC Bayern. And he has a lot of enthusiasm. I am convinced that he has recharged a lot of energy. And now the national team needs optimism. It needs a spirit of optimism and I think Julian is exactly the right person for that.”
However, Hoeneß doesn’t think much of the national team’s current trip to North America – before a home tournament like the 2024 European Championship, the DFB should have organized as many test matches as possible in their own country, said Hoeneß. Hoeneß criticized the fact that the second game of the USA trip against Mexico next Wednesday will kick off at 2 a.m. German time as “amateurish”. That’s not how you manage to get the German fans and spectators behind you, he said: “You would have had to say: ‘Either we can do it, we’ll do it at a reasonable time, or we won’t go to America.’ ‘”