As a season starts, a team still needs to find itself, establish a clear pecking order and what it looks like at full strength. But as the season progresses, experimentation lessens. And in those crucial March-to-May weeks, many managers prefer to pick the small group of players they trust the most to carry the team through to the end of the season.
We are now in those crucial weeks and Bayern Munich head coach Vincent Kompany has whittled his preferred group of players down to 12. It is obvious to predict
Kompany’s preferred XI-except for one position. Between the trio of full backs of Alphonso Davies, Konrad Laimer and Josip Stanišić, only two can start any given game.
Due to Davies’ ACL injury, the Canadian has been out of the picture for a long time as the latter duo have grown in importance. But the former Vancouver Whitecaps player is slowly returning to full match fitness and started Bayern’s 4-5 loss to Paris Saint Germain last week ahead of Konrad Laimer, only to play 45 minutes. Laimer came in to the match but had a poor game, at fault for two goals as the Qatari sportswashing project threatened to run away with the game at 5-2 up. Stanišić arguably had an even worse game, getting spun time and time again by PSG’s dangerous Kvicha Kvaratskhelia.
So who starts the game and how will they be chosen? Asked this question, Kompany maintained his consistency and refused to reveal the starters. But, as captured by @iMiaSanMia, he did offer some of his thoughts on his players.
“All three have shown that they can compete at this level and are important. Of course they have different profiles. Konrad has intensity, runs, and aggressiveness. Stani is clean on the ball and is also quick, he always makes the right decisions on the ball. Phonzy [Davies] is extremely quick, has 1v1 qualities and is left footed, which is different to the other two. We’re very happy to have them. We’ll see who starts tomorrow.”
There seem to be no ideal choices for Kompany at the full back position at the moment, but all three of these players have proven their quality in the past. It will be up to them to call upon this quality once more in arguably Bayern’s biggest game of the season on Wednesday.
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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