Denzel Dumfries recently switched to FC Bayern, at least as a rumor on European championship television. The new Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann could well imagine such a stormy right-back, it was said when the Dutchman once again chased up and down the right wing. It is true that the position “offensive right-back” is actually vacant at FC Bayern, but it will probably stay that way. Dumfries is about to move to Inter Milan and is supposed to replace Achraf Hakimi, another hard shoulder sprinter. Incidentally, Hakimi is moving to Paris Saint-Germain.
What’s going on there? Do the Bavarians sleep? Two players in their best and very best ages, 25 and 22, and you just let them move to the competition? The answers are: no, yes and no. No, Bayern are not sleeping. Yes, they let the players go. But no, not just like that. But on purpose.
This Wednesday the new Bayern era begins for the second time. On Monday the new CEO Oliver Kahn brought a few striking messages to the people, on Wednesday Julian Nagelsmann will get started. The new coach asks his players for kick-off training, he does so with an authority that no coach in the long history of FC Bayern has had. A Bayern coach has never been given a five-year contract, but they trust Nagelsmann to get the demanding team and perhaps even the untrainable office corridors under control.
The junior academy should become “a very important factor”
The trainer has now received clear signals from these hallways, publicly, so that everyone could take notes. Oliver Kahn said: “At FC Bayern, success has to come very quickly, FC Bayern are very voracious when it comes to their title ambitions.” And: “We expect the coach to bring a lot of young players forward that we may not even have on our radar.” The club’s own youth campus should become “a very important factor”.
The newcomer is supposed to be an organic wool milk sauce coach who wins as many titles with fewer transfers than before – and watches relaxed as Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain sign Dumfries and Hakimi while he is Josip Stanisic, 21, or Christopher Scott, 19, hairdos from the second team to sleek right-backs. Or the one or the other Richards: The 21-year-old American Chris Richards is back from his loan from Hoffenheim and offers himself as a central defender; The 23-year-old Englishman Omar Richards, a left-back by birth, has moved to Munich from the English second division club Reading.
In the club, they assure that the basically very brash coach was happy to accept the new requirements: He is a sensible young man who has a high level of understanding for the plight of a club that expects a loss of 150 million euros in the pandemic. Nagelsmann knows that it is not possible to fill every position twice in these difficult times, and when they say that in the club, it always sounds like a small tip in the direction of the late Hansi Flick. He wanted just that, and his argument was that you could easily afford a second right-back if you hadn’t invested so much transfer in Michael Cuisance or Lucas Hernandez and Leroy Sané hadn’t granted such spectacular fees.
The desperate FC Barcelona is seen as a terrifying example
As national coach, Flick will now pursue whether his ex-club’s plan works. In view of the pandemic budget holes, FC Bayern is planning a temporary change in strategy, the Munich have prescribed a certain amount of self-restraint. Wolverine, to paraphrase Kahn, has put himself on a diet. After Leipzig’s Dayot Upamecano committed over 40 million euros and the not cheap acquisition of the new coach (15 million plus a big X), Bayern currently don’t want to make any big transfers and prefer to play for a while; let’s see how the industry is doing after the pandemic. In Munich you can see how desperately FC Barcelona is selling expensive professionals like Samuel Umtiti and Miralem Pjanic on the market – the main thing is that at least a few million wages are free to keep Lionel Messi, who is currently officially without a club. If you stay patient now and don’t make any mistakes, so Bavaria’s calculation, will be the big winner after the pandemic.
Leon Goretzka, Niklas Süle (each contract until 2022) and Kingsley Coman (2023) should assume that FC Bayern is serious when Kahn says such sentences: He is not naive and knows “that absolute top players are paid accordingly , but we have defined our limits “. In a pinch, it says in the subtext, a player would again be released for free, just like David Alaba.
In the focus of an approaching contract poker (II): Bayern midfielder Leon Goretzka.
(Photo: Christian Charisius / dpa)
The Bavarians also want to avoid being driven into a spiral from which there is no escape because the numbers no longer remain secret. An exclusive group of advisors now divides the players among themselves and thus automatically gains insight into the club books. The legendary Pini Zahavi has already negotiated for Lewandowski and Alaba and is now doing it for Coman; Goretzka has recently been assisted by advisor Thomas Kroth, who has already contested Manuel Neuer’s contract extension with Bayern; Süle’s agency also represents the Bavarian access Dayot Upamecano and so knows what he deserves. The agency also represents the trainer Nagelsmann.