Last season, Bayern Munich coach Vincent Kompany was criticized for not using more young players last season, but so far during this campaign, the head coach has show at least some willingness to integrate the kids into his squad.
Per Tz journalists Philipp Kessler and Mano Bonke (via @iMiaSanMia), last season was a campaign for Kompany to rely on his veterans to guide the team, but 2025/26 should represent more opportunity for young players to break into the senior squad:
In his first season, Vincent
Kompany relied almost exclusively on experience. The squad was structured in a way that every position was filled with established players, therefore there was no chance for the young players to make their breakthrough. This season, however, the squad is smaller and the starters are clearer. The young players will fill the gaps in the squad and therefore get more playing time. This plan is supported by Kompany. The motto is to show more courage and give young players their chance.
However, it could be hard to continue effort to integrate youngsters when Kompany has not been impressed by any of the current crop of Bayern Munich II players:
What’s striking is that almost no player from the second team has impressed Kompany so far. That hasn’t gone unnoticed by the club’s management. Not only is the club’s failure to achieve promotion last season in the Regionalliga viewed with criticism, the style of play the club has chosen for its future (high pressing and possession football) has also not been implemented in the second team.
It seems that Bayern Munich II could be going the way of Class AAA teams in Major League Baseball’s system, where it is becoming more prevalent that youngsters make the jump from Class AA (in this case, Bayern Munich’s youth teams) to MLB rather than spend time in Class AAA. If so, Bayern Munich might need to think about its approach with roster building for the second team:
The group of talented players, who regularly train with the first team, traveled to the Club World Cup, and recently impressed in preseason (Lennart Karl, Wisdom Mike, etc), have been promoted directly from the U17s and U19s – who reached the youth championships semifinals with a style of play that the club wants for the future. Sporting Director Christoph Freund and the respective youth coaches, Patrick Kaniuth and Peter Gaydarov, among others, recommended these talented players to Kompany. This trend was initially criticized at the Campus. The general consensus was that older talents were being overlooked in favor of younger ones. But the atmosphere has since improved, as the talented younger players made better use of their chances with the first team.
The entire club could be headed into a period of transition next summer, so to re-think the roster for Bayern Munich II and the objectives for that squad could be another item on the agenda to be addressed.
Bayern Munich is back in action this week and a tough slate of games lies ahead. Before we tackle all of that, though, there is much to unpack from Germany’s international break and the explosive performance from Uli Hoeneß on SPORT1-Doppelpass over the weekend.
Let’s get into all of that more on this edition of the Bavarian Podcast Works Show! This is what we have on tap:
- Let’s talk about the good, the bad, and ugly from Germany’s international break performances vs. Slovakia and Northern Ireland.
- Julian Nagelsmann is in a make-or-break period with Germany.
- Does the DFB need to think about bringing in Jürgen Klopp to overhaul the entire organization.
- Uli Hoeneß says Bayern Munich was the real winner of the transfer window and that Nicolas Jackson needs to get 40 starts for the obligation to buy clause to activate.
- Chuck quickly addresses Philadelphia’s return to the spotlight (for all of the wrong reasons).
- It’s time to turn focus back to Bayern Munich.
