Last weekend, there was a somewhat bizarre rumor that emerged out of nowhere — straight from the mouth of Lothar Matthäus (!?) — where the all-time Bayern Munich and German national team great said that he heard Bayern Munich had made inquiries to Manchester City defender Joško Gvardiol.
Now, Sport Bild journalists Christian Falk and Heiko Niedderer are chiming in to say that there is mutual interest from Gvardiol in a move to Bayern Munich. It seems too good to be true, right? Maybe.
If the reports
are accurate, then mutual interest appears to be there. When you factor in that Pep Guardiola is leaving the club and that Manchester City has a slew of center-backs — Rúben Dias, Marc Guéhi, Abdukodir Khusanov, Nathan Aké, Max Alleyne — and left-backs — Nico O’Reilly, Rayan Aït-Nouri — a sale of Gvardiol does seem possible.
However, Manchester City likely will not sell Gvardiol cheap, which could be a problem for the Bavarians:
Joško Gvardiol would love to return to the Bundesliga and is very keen to join Bayern. The player’s entourage is also pushing him to make the move. Bayern like Gvardiol, but in the end it’s a question of money. He would cost at least €70m, and Bayern would need sales before. Therefore he’s not a ‘hot topic’ right now. Gvardiol also has a renewal offer from Manchester City.
Here is the thing — Bayern Munich can afford Gvardiol at just about any asking price, but it comes down to just how much the Bavarians want to pay. If a club’s price on a player exceeds the maximum amount that Bayern Munich wants to shell out, the German Rekordmeister will just typically walk away (even if they really can afford the price).
Gvardiol is a 24-year-old, versatile beast of a center-back, who can play left-back as well. If there was a center-back to splurge on in this market (who is actually affordable if Bayern wants to spend the money), it is the Croatian.
Should Bayern Munich go all-in on a treble run for next season and get Gvardiol?
Song of the Week: “All I Want” by The Offspring
Sometimes, when scrolling through my iTunes, I hit a genre or a time period and it triggers to me to think about an artist or group that I don’t have a lot of in my library. I like The Offspring, but don’t have a lot of them stored away for my own listening pleasure on demand.
A group that really never lost its sound or its soul, they have just stayed consistent. From first hearing them in the mid-90s (they actually started in 1984) to now, they still sound the same…and it still works. Enjoy this one from 1997 — a total banger of a year (one of the best of this guy’s life):
Entertainment Rundown
The Boys — Wrapping up this mess of a final season
If you have been on social media this week, you have probably run into spoilers and reviews of The Boys. It has been borderline unavoidable.
The final season, while widely panned, has spawned a movement of folks who are praising the series finale rather than just seeing it for what it was — a lazy, poorly written episode of a show that has been on life support for at least three seasons (spoilers from the final season included).
Of course, because we cannot just have entertainment, the episode has become politically charged with people on both sides of the fence battling it out. Leaving all of that political nonsense out of it, we can call it what it was —just a bad episode of TV. Let’s dive in:
- The final season was a downward slope of just bad storylines, plot holes, and the show just deviating from all the things that made it so strong initially.
- To me, where the show went wrong is when Butcher lost his humanity (by actually becoming a supe and being so revenge driven that he alienates everyone around him) and Homelander became too human (instead of continuing to despise normal people, his insecurities led to him becoming one of them). This, of course, started before the final season, but it is what made the last season so bad.
- At his best in the series, Homelander was ruthless and pure evil. However, this flawed, anxious, and increasingly insane version of Homelander was tough to watch, even if Antony Starr did a tremendous job in playing the role. Meanwhile, Butcher lost so much of what made the character great by the final season — there was no loyalty and zero camaraderie among the group hunting Homelander — and that started with Butcher. It made zero sense for the arc of either character.
- Prior to the finale, Frenchie’s death was really the only one of significance and even that felt very contrived.
- The re-creation of Soldier Boy’s hero-power zapping blast was just…awful. It was way too easy and, again, convenient. Speaking of Soldier Boy, just putting him on ice was a weak way to write the show out of an issue. No Soldier Boy in the finale was also an interesting choice after the character had been built up so much.
- In the end, there was really no point in Sage being on the show at all. Her character would prove to be a time waster…and she was around for a long time.
- Ashley helping The Boys get into the White House was, again, way too weak and convenient.
- The Starlight-Deep fight was overdone and stupid. The Deep’s method of death (and swimming like a normal person?) was stupid even for this show. The funny part is all of the psychological deep-dives into these characters on social media — let’s be clear, there was no depth to any of this, the writers were looking for shock value deaths in a lot of cases.
- As far as the final scenes go, Homelander had about a dozen opportunities to take out Kimiko before she zapped him, but inexplicably did not. The plot armor was thick and got even thicker when Ryan showed back up. Again, the fan explanations for all of this are just people grasping at straws, it was poor writing.
- How did Homelander not have any back-up at the White House aside of Oh Father, who was useless? Again, poor writing.
- There was — at least — something cool about Ryan’s character trying to help rid the world of his own dad, who was likely eventually gong to zap everyone. Of everyone in this episode, Ryan was the only one whose arc seemed to fit.
- Butcher (as a supe) defeating Homelander (as a normal person) just didn’t feel like the payoff it should have. It just seemed like fan service that betrayed the story. Honestly, I hated the entire “Butcher is a supe” part of the story.
- Terror dying did suck, but that potentially being the catalyst for Butcher to release the virus and kill all supes was dumb as hell.
- Butcher going completely unhinged, forcing Hughie to shoot him, and then having a realization that he was in the wrong was — again — dumb as hell. They just finished the job and killed Homelander and — for some reason — the writers had to try and outdo themselves with the idiocy. They forced a death that was completely unnecessary to formally end a story that no one wants to see any more of anyway.
- People who are massive fans of the show seem to never see a flaw will think the ending was perfect, but it was weak and rushed. It made Game of Thrones look like it was well thought out and effectively planned. The entire last season was brutally done and the finale lacked any real substance. It was poor execution of a worse idea.
- While I did not read the comics, the ending to the series was far better than this mess (and even that has been widely criticized). If that was the ending from the comics was the ending to the show, I would have been all good with it. It all just seemed to fit better.
- Despite some associated shows already in development, it will be hard for any of them to be successful with how badly the original fell off (see The Walking Dead).
- Overall, the series started out fun and pushed the limits of good taste in a unique way, but with each season it got more outlandish and lost its way. It could have been an all-time great series, but it just tried way too hard to push the envelope, which failed. In the end, this is just another show that started out strong and progressively got worse over time. If you haven’t started it…don’t.
Season 5 overall rating: 2.00/10.00
Series finale rating : 2.00/10.00
Series rating: 5.00/10.00
Predictions
Let’s get this out of the way, Bayern Munich is a nightmare of a matchup for VfB Stuttgart.
Stuttgart is a very good team, but styles make fights — and Bayern Munich is just too quick and too strong for Die Schwaben. Why the Bavarians are such a tough opponent for VfB Stuttgart is because Sebastian Hoeneß, who is a very strong coach, has a “live by the sword, die by the sword” mentality. Hoeneß just will not back down and will send his team out to play like it has all season — aggressive and always looking to score.
The coach is unwilling to break that mentality and he should be commended for it…but it will not help him or his squad against what should be a very motivated Bayern Munich group.
Prediction: Bayern Munich 3-0 VfB Stuttgart
Prediction Records
- Total: 531-352
- Perfect Picks: 55
- Bundesliga Last Matchday: 3-6
- Bundesliga Overall: 167-139
- DFB-Pokal: 51-11
- World Cup Qualifiers/Friendlies: 164-95
- Champions League: 100-80
- Club World Cup: 39-23
- Club Friendlies: 4-0
- Franz Beckenbauer Supercup: 1-0
If you are looking for more Bayern Munich and German national team coverage, check out the latest episodes of Bavarian Podcast Works, which you can get on Acast, Spotify, Apple, or any leading podcast distributor…
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