Welcome to the FC Bayern Campus Round Up of the U-19’s season, where this time not the weekend results but the entire Regionalliga Bayern campaign of the Bavarian’s U-19 team has been recapped for your reading pleasure. The Regionalliga takes place over 34 matches, just like the Bundesliga. The U-23s want to consistently be in the race for 1st place, which allows the team to either be promoted or enter a promotion playoff, depending on the year.
Information on the U-23 team’s season is provided by
the official FC Bayern website here.
A promising summer
While the senior team seemed to flounder on the transfer market, Bayern’s U-23s were signing heavy hitters left, right and center. Strikers Anton Heinz and Richard Meier dropped down from the 3. Bundesliga, playing for Alemannia Aachen and SV Sandhausen, respectively, to join the Bavarian’s amateur side in the fourth division. David Heindl joined from the 2. Austrian Bundesliga. The biggest signing would be Benno Schmitz, however, as the former Bayern academy player dropped from the Swiss first division with Grasshopper Zürich to play in the Regionalliga. It was a genuinely crazy signing.
Now, this was not necessarily a transfer offensive to win the league. Though this is the U-23 team, they are allowed three O-23 players. But the likes of Timo Kern and Maximilian Welzmüller, old heads that had helped the young players of the U-23s for many years, have ended their playing careers and so needed replacing. 30-year-old Schmitz and 27-year-old Heinz were supposed to be exactly that.
Having said all of that, the caliber of signings was so high that expectations were still set high. This could be the year they finally win the league and get promoted to the 3. Liga.
A good start hides a sobering reality
A last minute winner by Jussef Nasrawe saw Bayern II triumph 2-1 over Augsburg and brought some momentum, leading to a 6-3 victory over TSV Buchbach and 5-0 win over Schwaben Augsburg. For a moment, thing seemed good. Then they quickly unravelled.
Bayern II lost to rivals SpVgg Unterhaching and dropped unnecessary points against SpVgg Bayreuth to end August. A sobering September brought three losses from three games. Both October and November both contained just one victory each.
By the time December and the end of the first half of the season rolled around, Bayern II had dropped down to 7th place and were miles off of the desired participation in the title race.
“It was a very intense preliminary round, especially for our young players who took their first steps in men’s football. For many, it was a completely new experience: The game is faster, more physical, more direct, and the tone is also different than in the youth leagues,” Bayern II head coach Seitz summarized at the turn of the year.
Second half of the season
There were some personnel changes for the second half of the season. Promising youngsters Tim Binder and Leon Klanac would suffer injuries that ruled them out for the rest of the season while starting midfielder Felipe Chávez was loaned out to FC Köln. Meanwhile, outstanding U-19 performers David Santos Daiber, Maycon Douglas Cardozo and Deniz Ofli would be promoted to the U-23s.
The latter trio were surprisingly starters from day 1 and all of them immediately looked like some of the team’s best players. Unfortunately, they could not do much to change the team’s trend. The team would continue to lose, win and draw in equal measures. In April, a bitter trend of late losses would see Ansbach score a 103rd minute winner and Würzbuger Kickers scored a a 90+8 penalty, while Ansbach and Nürnberg II won due to late goals as well. The 4-1 loss to Nürnberg II was the second time the U-23s of Bayern’s long time rivals beat Bayern that season and the humiliation got worse when the much less expensive squad finished the season as champions on 77 points, 30 ahead of Bayern II.
Most frustrating of all, however, was the fact that they declined the opportunity to get promoted entirely. Applying for all the necessary licenses and getting all the facilities up to the necessary levels would have cost too much money. The same applied for 3rd placed SpVgg Unterhaching and 4th placed FV Illertissen. In fact, none of the top 7 aside from 2nd placed Würzburger Kickers were financially ready to apply for the 3. Liga license. It would then be Würzburger that competed in the promotion playoffs and emerged victorious, securing promotion to the 3. Liga. If Bayern had managed to compete in the title race, they could have still won promotion to 3. Liga without making it to 1st place.
What went wrong
Unfortunately, injuries had a large part to play in this whole mess. Though Bayern II are usually forced to deal with a lot of injuries, the team entered the season with three players- Steve Breikreuz, Roko Mijatovic and Younes Aitamer- out with ACL injuries and another- Vincent Manuba- just recovering from one. The injury list normally numbered in the double digits and could reach as many as 15 players.
Bayern’s official website has more info on the situation:
At times, several regular starters were sidelined simultaneously, with double-digit numbers missing, further increasing the already heavy workload for the youngest squad in the league. For many talented players, this meant even more responsibility and significant playing time in crucial moments. As a result, 19 players from the club’s own youth academy made their first appearances for the amateur team in the Regionalliga Bayern. Almost half of the playing time in the past season was accounted for by players aged 19 or younger.
Furthermore, the defending was atrocious. The team conceded 52 goals in 34 games, often at terrible times and through individual mistakes. Outside of Robert Deziel Jr., no defender managed to string together any decent performances and, with leader Breitkreuz missing, star CB signing Heindl was unable to grow into the role and settle the defense.
Nor was the offense very good. Too many of the team’s chances came through set pieces and individual quality. There were too few ideas in possession on how to unlock the defense. It was not a total disaster, of course, as Bayern’s final total of 61 goals in 34 games made it the 5th best offense in the league. But, if the team wants to improve, it cannot rely on the individual quality of star striker Anton Heinz so much. Furthermore, Bayern’s website captures just how much the attack slowed down in the second half of the season:
While the offense was efficient in the early stages of the season and up until the winter break, this was no longer the case in the second half. Seitz’s team only managed to celebrate 25 goals [in 17 games] in the second half of the season, 11 fewer than before the turn of the year. The Munich side only managed to score more than one goal in four matches – too infrequent to secure victory in the many close encounters.
Outstanding performers
Still, Heinz did very good. He is not a talent and will not ever be relevant for the senior team, but his stats, as Bayern’s website shows, are quite good. A few other players also did well in the goal scoring front:
In attack, the amateurs found their perfect duo over the course of the season: striker Anton Heinz and forward Guido Della Rovere. Heinz developed into a clinical finisher, crowning his first season with FCB as the top scorer in the Regionalliga Bayern with 21 goals. Della Rovere not only contributed four goals himself; with ten assists, he was also the Munich side’s leading provider and, until his injury on matchday 28, the perfect partner for Heinz. Together, the two creative attacking players amassed 39 scorer points, the second-best tally behind Illertissen’s duo Milos Cocic and Yannick Glessing (50 scorer points).
Behind them, the goal threat was widely distributed: Heindl, Deziel Jr., [a product of set pieces goals] and Della Rovere each scored four times, while Degraf and Binder each contributed three goals. In total, the amateurs had 20 different goal scorers – an indication that the responsibility in attack was shared among many players.
Season verdict from Seitz
The season was not good at all but head coach Seitz, who has now managed 189 games for Bayern II in two stints, has become something of an icon for the U-23s. He is liked by both the team and the fans, which resulted in a fitting farewell for the 52-year-old. Bayern’s website, once more, captures the moment:
It was time to say goodbye at the amateur team’s final home game against Eichstätt, as Holger Seitz received a fitting farewell from the team in the locker room and the fans with a two-part choreography. “That was very emotional for me today. It showed me that the fans and I have a special connection,” said the coach. After 189 games as amateur team coach, Seitz will no longer be on the sidelines in the upcoming 2026/27 season. “Sitting on the bench for the last time in this stadium, where I’ve truly experienced everything that makes football what it is, was very moving.”
What comes next?
Bayern recently confirmed the signing of 2013 treble winner Dante as the new head coach of the U-23s. The 42-year-old brings a lot of know how from his playing days, is a natural leader, has his UEFA Pro License and, of course, knows Bayern well. This is quite promising.
Meanwhile, standout senior players Anton Heinz and Benno Schmitz will stick around another year while the team around them changes. Many of the U-19s will be promoted to the U-23s and some of the current squad may stick around. There is every chance next year’s squad will be better than this year’s.
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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