Bayern Munich’s youth system continues to revamp under the stewardship of sporting director Christoph Freund. Now that he has sole control of the FC Bayern Campus without board member for sport Max Eberl’s input, he is taking big swing after big swing to restructure it in his vision. He brought his own director in, he is letting go of a lot of the coaches at the Campus for fresh blood and is reportedly bringing back a former Bayern icon to manage the U-23s.
But this is not just about the individual
moves Freund is making. The philosophy he brings from his successful days in charge of RB Salzburg and their feeder club, FC Liefering, is being used to change things at the FC Bayern Campus. Which is existentially terrifying, because Red Bull is an evil company. But perhaps Bayern can learn from their successes and evolve with the help with one of their former top employees. Bild reports, as captured by @iMiaSanMia, that Freund has established a brand new philosophy for the U-23s’s coaches:
The appointment of Dante as new FC Bayern II head coach marks the start of a new strategy by the club. The future model, meticulously developed over several months, envisions that young coaches will take charge of the second team – coaches who are still at the beginning of their careers and, ideally, have previously played for FC Bayern. The idea behind the strategy: The former players gain experience in coaching and are given the opportunity to develop at Bayern – in order to then take the next step. Bayern want to train former players into coaches from whom they can still benefit even after their departures – for example, through their network and identification with FC Bayern, especially if they end up at top clubs in the future. Sporting director Christoph Freund played a key role in this strategy, with the role model being RB Salzburg, where Freund worked for eight years. RB repeatedly formed coaches through their ‘farm club’ FC Liefering, who then went on to work at Salzburg and ultimately elsewhere, like Matthias Jaisse, Thomas Letsch, Oliver Glasner, Bo Svensson, Marco Rose and Adi Hütter.
BFW Analysis
The new strategy is…the old strategy? Bayern have struggled to keep a manager of the U-23s for long, with the longest appointment as U-23 manager in the last decade and a half lasting just two years before current manager Holger Seitz took charge (again). Most notably, the two managers of the U-23s before Seitz’s latest term were Sebastian Hoeneß and Martin Demichelis. Notably, Sebastian is Uli Hoeneß’s nephew and the Argentinian Martin Demichelis is a former player at Bayern. Hoeneß and Demichelis were both young coaches who had Bayern connections, but they also used the job as a spring board to TSG Hoffenheim in the Bundesliga and River Plate, one of the two biggest clubs in Argentina, respectively, interrupting the continuity of the young players at the club. The continuity is why Bayern opted to retain the safe and boring choice in Seitz for so long.
Hoeneß and Demichelis are almost exactly the sort of coaches this new model would be focused on developing. But their development has hardly born fruit for the club itself.
The idea of developing coaches to go on to help Bayern even after their departure is a difficult one to see working out at Bayern. FC Liefering could do it because they were a feeder club to a team with greater ambitions. Bayern clearly, fortunately, are not a feeder club. If the previous coaches could get such illustrious jobs offers during their stint at Bayern’s U-23s, in what capacity would they wish to work at Bayern aside from the head coach job? Unless one of these former players turn out to be another Vincent Kompany, it is hard to imagine the development of young coaches benefitting Bayern.
But hey, Freund did exceptional work at Salzburg and Liefering. He is an expert in this regard, so it is worth seeing how this process, if the story is true, will play out.
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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