From a very young age, Germany born Kenan Yıldız’s talent was very clear and he quickly secured a move to the country’s biggest club, Bayern Munich, in 2012. At the age of 7, the attacking midfielder signed his first contract at the Bavarians. He rose through nearly every age group at the club, captaining multiple of these teams. Yet in 2022, Yıldız and Bayern could not come to a contract agreement and the youngster joined Juventus in Italy upon the expiry of his contract.
Multiple years later, Yıldız
developed from Juventus’s big talent in the youth academy to receiving the 10 shirt at the club, receiving a big long term contract that would tie him to the club until 2030 and even became the Turin club’s youngest ever captain. Though Bayern have Jamal Musiala, another player who technically came from the academy, it stands to reason that the Bavarians look back at the failure to retain the Turkey international and wonder if they made a very big mistake.
But why did Yıldız and Bayern fail to reach an agreement on new terms? Then-sporting director Hasan Salihamidžić claimed, as captured by @iMiaSanMia, that Bayern couldn’t meet his financial demands.
But Yıldız has his own version of the story.
“I’ve never played for money, but to improve. I’ve always thought that money was a consequence,” he explained, as again captured by @iMiaSanMia. “My family takes care of that part of the job. I simply told my parents that I was and am very happy at Juve. I’ve been here for four years, and everyone has always shown me great trust, something that was missing at Bayern. I was there for eleven years and I never felt their trust; there was always someone who was better than me. So it was easy, I’d say even natural, for me to leave.”
Of course, for many players trust is demonstrated in how much money a club is willing to spend to keep them at the club. Of course, whether that is also the case for Yıldız cannot be said for sure. Many of these stories do tend to devolve to two sides saying very different things for different reasons. It has to be said, though, that Musiala was the exciting youngster making waves in the first team in a very similar position to Yıldız in 2022. Perhaps this was the player Bayern perceived as being better than Yıldız.
Whatever exactly happened, it is clear Bayern have their superstar #10 and Juventus has theirs. All sides seem fairly happy with their current arrangement. Of course, Bayern could have received much greater financial compensation for Yıldız and perhaps there would have been a chance that Musiala and Yıldız could have both broken through to the first team at similar times. But the odds of that are not too great. This is not such a bad outcome for all parties.
