Borussia Dortmund – Bayern Munich: Jude Bellingham and many others: Bayern and the scattering of young prodigies

Manuel Neuer, 35, Robert Lewandowski, 33, and Thomas Müller, 32, are three of the most important and influential players – quite frankly – in Bayern’s current squad. Whether it’s from them, their club, or both parties, the desire to extend contracts that all expire in 2023 is real. For these dashing thirties, it is a pledge of loyalty, a proof of continuity, a real culture of stability, even if there are, here and there, counter-examples, such as Jérôme Boateng, recently pushed towards the exit.

It is all the greater a difficulty, too, to allow young people, recruits or trained at the club, to break into the eleven and a fortiori to settle there. This is how Bayern has regularly lacked in recent times possible transfers of players whose talent would allow them, in absolute terms, to have their chance in a club of this standing. But, the six-time winner of the Champions League not being able to guarantee them a playing time that satisfies them, they will look elsewhere.

The Karim Adeyemi case is the most recent in a long and prestigious list. The Salzburg rocket, revelation of the season at 19, is slowly but surely heading towards a transfer to the Ruhr area, to the yellow and black rival. The Bavarians, however, are fully aware of the value of the young German international.

In mid-October, Thomas Solomon, Adeyemi’s advisor, split from a visit to Bayern headquarters, Säbener Strasse, in Munich. He spoke with the club’s officials there. No one has made a secret of this gala meeting which appears in fact, on the part of the agent, as a way of blurring the lines since he never seriously appeared in the latter’s plans. to work for the arrival of his foal in Bavaria. The most probable options rather leading to Dortmund, therefore, or Leipzig.

Sancho then Bellingham rush to Dortmund

This scenario sounds like a well-known refrain in the waltz of Germanic football. Bayern recruiters obviously have the best young people in the world of football on their radar; However, the Bavarian squad is so competitive that the possibilities to develop there and make it through playing time are minimal.

Thus, Bayern’s decision-makers have never pursued the track with real conviction, as the winger position is filled in their troops today, from Leroy Sané to Kingsley Coman via Serge Gnabry. The first named, whose talent finally gives its measure at 25, has a contract until 2025, while his 26-year-old compatriot will be concretely in discussion to extend beyond 2023 from January.

In this same post, a precedent followed the same logic. Intense discussions would have taken place in 2018 with the prospect of the arrival of Jadon Sancho, who finally settled in Borussia rather than at the foot of the Alps. Bayern sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic assured at the time that the club would gladly have recruited the Englishman and even made him an offer, « which unfortunately was not accepted« .

Rebelote in 2020 with Jude Bellingham, to whom Dortmund then offered the best prospects and who in a few months, at 18, became the best member of the Yellow and Black squad. The English teenager had nevertheless visited Munich several times, even invited by Bayern to attend the grandstand at the National Cup final in 2019. But as previously with Sancho or Pulisic, who have since left for Manchester and London, the Borussia leaders had persuaded the player to offer him better prospects for development and tenure.

Musiala in a traffic jam

In these cases, Bayern procrastinates many times. This is how he let Ridle Baku escape in Wolfsburg, finally surprised by the 10 M € released by VfL in Mainz, where the young full-back, now international, of 23 years old has played until then. In this position, the German champion himself created the conditions of the puzzle by recruiting at too high a price Bouna Sarr, who has no desire, which can be understood, to prematurely renounce contractual conditions advantageous.

But even when there is unanimous support for the talent available internally, the situation is complicated. We want to talk here, of course, of the Jamal Musiala case. The prodigious 18-year-old attacking midfielder, considered in Bavaria as as gifted as a Messi – this is to say the credit he has, moreover, and rightly so – must be satisfied with ends of the match which he cannot, in the long term , reasonably be satisfied. And with which, moreover, he is already only moderately satisfied, if we are to believe his inclinations to discuss with his trainer. Musiala firmly intends to continue his progress in his club and is clearly opposed to a possible loan.

At peak, the problem, as we will have understood, is exactly the same. Despite repeated interest in Erling Haaland, Bayern had to bring themselves to see the Norwegian colossus slip away to their domestic rivals. The equation was insoluble: Haaland is neither athletically nor financially an understudy. The same reasoning is in progress with Dusan Vlahovic: the 21-year-old Serb is of course on Bavarian radars but his advisers are not at all keen on the idea that he waxes the bench while waiting for a hypothetical failure of Lewandowski, whose l The agent wants to start extension talks in early 2022.

On the other side of the field, no need for a thorough investigation by Inspector Derrick to copy and paste the circumstances: Alexander Nübel, on loan to Monaco until 2023, had to swallow a new snake when he heard Manuel Neuer declare recently that playing beyond 40 was a very possible prospect. Knowing the champion character of the Bavarian goalkeeper, it’s hard to imagine him giving up matches just to allow someone else to take his place. In this case, Nübel risks leaving. And Bayern will have to start from scratch in the search for a goalkeeper of his standing when Neuer hangs up his boots. It’s hard to be a giant!