At the midway point of the season, it is fair to look back at Bayern Munich’s summer transfer window and what we all thought about it back then. As it turns out, Bayern Munich adding Jonathan Tah, Luis
Díaz, and Tom Bischof was a master stoke by board member for sport Max Eberl and his staff. Simply put, it was a very encouraging summer from a squad planning standpoint. However, it was not all about the additions, but also the subtractions.
Bayern Munich sold the following players Mathys Tel (€35 million, Tottenham Hotspur), Kingsley Coman (€25 million, Al Nassr), Paul Wanner (€15 million, PSV Eindhoven), Adam Aznou (€9 million, Everton), Frans Krätzig (€3.5 million, Red Bull Salzburg), and Gabriel Vidović (€1.2 million, Dinamo Zagreb).
Meanwhile, Bayern Munich loaned out João Palhinha (€5 million loan fee, Tottenham Hotspur), Jonah Kusi-Asare (€4 million loan fee, Fulham FC), Bryan Zaragoza (€1 million loan fee, Celta Vigo), and Daniel Peretz (€250k, Hamburger SV). Arijon Ibrahimović, Maurice Krattenmacher, Lovro Zvonarek, and Tarek Buchmann had no reported fees associated with their loans.
Finally, Bayern Munich also allowed Leroy Sané, Eric Dier, and Thomas Müller all to leave on free transfers.
At the time, Bild rated the transfer window as the worst in the league (yikes!):
We covered that story here.
We also had our own ratings, which were mostly okay!
(Author’s Note: Even a broken clock and all that, right?) You can check those out here.
As important as the incoming transfers were, the sales, loans, and overall exits were just as important for a variety of reasons.
When you look at that laundry list of exits, you exhale (because, damn, that is a lot of names) you realize that this season represented a changing of the guard and the continued transition from an older generation to a…somewhat younger generation.
Bayern Munich’s emergence could not have been possible without the club losing all of those players. Some were smart, strategic moves (Tel, Wanner, Sané, Coman), while others somehow overcame the bad vibes associated with out they played out (Müller). Some others were just necessary to create the space on the roster to operate like head coach Vincent Kompany has over the past few months (Palhinha, Dier).
For as much as fans were worried about a thin squad and as turned off by the handling of some of those situations, it has all worked…so far. Kompany has embraced the thin roster, believed that eventual return of his injured players would eventually provide the necessary balance, and allowed him to learn so much about players on his roster that he needed more exposure to.
If the plan was to go lean, learn, adapt, and attack…well, mission accomplished.
While the season is not over yet by any means, sometimes things happen for a reason and while some of those names on the exit list might have represented past failures or uncomfortable departures, they all happened for greater good of the team.
Maybe it was luck and Eberl has a four leaf clover in his pocket, but for now, he deserves the majority of the praise for work and for surviving another summer that reportedly took its toll on him.
If he has more aces up his sleeve next summer, Bayern Munich fans might feel a little less anxious heading into next season.
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…
