Last Week in Bayern News
June 15, 2020 Sunday
We start the week off with another look at the right back search. Bayern are supposedly in talks with Sergino Dest on a “daily basis” which seems blatantly ridiculous if we’re being honest.
In England Bernd Leno felt the need to comment on the competitiveness of the Bundesliga saying that “Bayern are already champions” and that “It’s boring and sad.” An interesting take given how dominant Juventus (8 straight), PSG (7 of last 8) and Barca (8 of last 11) have been in their respective leagues. Even in the supposedly “balanced” Premier League, this season will be the second time anyone outside of Manchester City, Manchester United or Chelsea has won the Premier League since the 2003-2004 Arsenal team. But please, continue to tell me how the Bundesliga is comparatively broken.
FC Bayern started off the week by celebrating a huge milestone for the women’s team. It was 50 years ago on this day when the club started the FC Bayern Frauen. Also, they came out of the gate with some nice kits.
The club took another trip down memory lane by reminiscing on the signings of Luca Toni and Franck Ribery 13 years previous on this date.
Hansi Flick is not pleased with Müller and Lewandowski both picking up yellow cards and missing the Gladbach match saying it was “annoying” while also clearly disagreeing with the decision against Lewy.
Niklas Sule is not expected to return for the Bundesliga or DFB Pokal this season, however he is expected to be included in the Champions League when it resumes.
Kicker’s player ratings for the Leverkusen game were also announced. Goretzka received the only 1. Müller, Boateng, Kimmich and Coman all received twos. Goretzka, Müller and Coman were all also featured in the Kicker team of the week.
Monday
Leon Goretzka was OptaFranz’s Bundesliga player of the matchday.
According to RMC Sport FIFA will allow leagues to open their transfer windows 4 weeks before the end of the current season with the players not moving till the start of the next season. The leagues are also discussing keeping the window open till October.
According to CIES Alphonso Davies is now the 9th most valuable player in all of Europe at €133.5 million.
Loddar is extremely confident in Bayern’s chances in all competitions this season. Hopefully it’s not a jinx…or maybe its a reverse jinx. Who knows?
Tuesday
Tuesday started off with more birthday wishes, this time to make all of us feel old again as Miroslav Klose turned 42.
In his interview prior to the Pokal match against Eintracht, Hansi Flick described Frankfurt as an experienced team that plays with “passion” and “like to put pressure on the opponent and chase every ball” which was clearly just a nice way of saying they play dirty.
An update on Sané was provided by Sky Sports, if you can call it an update that is. The contract negotiations are still ongoing with Bayern still €30 million below Man City’s asking price.
As everyone will now know, Bayern also decided that they would debut their new home kits for Wednesday’s pokal match with Frankfurt.
Tuttosport is claiming that Bayern want to bring back Mario Mandzukic as a backup for Lewandowski. While many supporters may be happy if this were true, it smells a bit like…well…the stuff that comes out of the back of bulls.
Wednesday
Most of the early content relating to Bayern on this particular matchday was related to the new kit. However, eventually some real news surfaced regarding Ivan Perisic. According to Football Transfers, Inter Milan are looking for €15 million and Bayern appear unwilling to go above €10 million. Manchester United and Tottenham (for some unknown reason) are also apparently interested in the Croatian, however Bayern remains the first choice.
While most of the attention for Munich supporters was on the new home jerseys for Bayern, Eintracht made some changes themselves playing with #blacklivesmatter indeed inplace of their usual kit sponsor on the chest. A classy move for the Frankfurt side.
Unsurprisingly, the forgotten French midfielder Corentin Tolisso will be allowed to leave in the summer assuming someone is willing to pay €35 million for him. After such a promising start for the player, injuries coupled with the shift in position for Joshua Kimmich and the form of Leon Goretzka have all but made it impossible for the World Cup winner to expect any playing time in Munich. Very unfortunate for such a talented player. Hopefully he regains his previous form and has a very successful career wherever he ends up.
With the win on Wednesday, Thomas Müller tied Gerd Müller and Sepp Maier for the clubs all time DFB Pokal wins at 47, excluding penalty shootouts…what a convoluted statistic…but congrats anyways.
Speaking of which, Bayern will face Bayer Leverkusen on the 4th of July for the DFB Pokal final which will take place, as always, at the Olympiastadion in Berlin. They even made a cool graphic for it.
Thursday
Niklas Süle and Philippe Coutinho had a nice little running date together on a pitch while kicking the ball…very cute.
Some Bayern fans apparently watched the match against Frankfurt drive in movie style. It was an event put on by Audi and I can’t tell if these people knew they were there to watch a Bayern match or were just trying to buy a car and then forced to watch it while a salesman coerced them into buying a new car.
Exciting news! A Bild photographer noticed some weeds growing in the Allianz Arena during Wednesday’s match which, in a way, means the Reds are not playing in an empty stadium after all.
Bild reports that Müller is unhappy with Bayern’s intent to sign players this summer while at the same time reducing salaries for the current players. In addition he is especially displeased that Bayern may sign yet another young expensive player that plays the exact same position as him with Kai Havertz.
In maybe the rarest of rarities, Martin Hinteregger actually apologized for his shove of Thiago at the end of Wednesday’s match saying that “it was not his intention” and that it was “a stupid foul” and that he was “sorry”. Somewhat amusingly, he said that it occurred because after defending Lewandoski for 90 minutes, Thiago was simply too small and he misjudged his challenge.
Friday
More birthdays! This time it’s Philippe Coutinho who turned 28 years old. Seriously, how many birthdays are Bayern celebrating this month?
In what may be the most ludicrous claim in recent memory, Atletico Madrid’s president told Mundo Deportivo that if “the Champions League is not played due to the coronavirus, then the champion should be the one who beat the champion.” meaning of course Atletico. That seems like a reasonable suggestion fair rational the ravings of a madman. I suspect he’ll have loads of support from other clubs.
Arjen Robben returned to the Sabener Strasse! But only to get in a workout, which apparently he is incapable of doing anywhere else and has no intention of making a return.
Unfortunately, Hansi Flick revealed in his prematch press conference that Thiago had to undergo groin surgery and would miss at least 3 weeks. They are hoping he will be available for the DFB Pokal final.
Süle and Coutinho could potentially return to team training next week and therefore be options going forward.
In news that I’m sure will sadden all of you who are fans of witch doctors experimental doctors, Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt announced that he was ending his career at FC Bayern Munich after June 30th. Where are the Bayern players going to find another expert on the injections of extracts from cockerals or goat blood?
Saturday
Match day kicked off with yet another birthday. This time it’s Kingsley Coman who turned 24.
Achraf Hakimi has popped up again on Bayern’s radar to fill their right back needs for next year.
According to OptaJohan, Joshua Zirkzee scored the 4th goal of the season and all of them were scored on his first attempt of the game.
As further evidence of Bayern’s poor first half, Opta noted that Gladbach attempted 337 passes in the first half, more than any other away team this season.
Hansi explained his substitution of Lucas Hernandez on Saturday with an emphasis on the obvious.
