Last season’s Bayern Munich U-17s head coach Leonard Haas has moved up to the U-19s and brings most of the U-17s with him. This group of players will look to improve not only on their finish in the 2025/26 season, disappointingly ending the U-17 season in the Round of 16, but also hoping to improve on what the U-19s did in the 2025/26 season.
The U-19s also got knocked out in the Round of 16, but furthermore were knocked out in the group stages of the UEFA Youth League (essentially, the youth Champions
League) and the first round of the Youth Cup. When it comes to results, the season could not have gone much worse. Dante will lead the team into the Youth League, but Haas will be in charge to make sure the team does better in the other two competitions
Bayern’s official website provides a good look at what lies ahead, before the season even truly begin, starting with a review of the coaching staff:
The new season brings some changes to the coaching staff: The previous U17 coaching trio of head coach Leonhard Haas and assistants Stefan Meißner and Florian Mayer have moved up to the U19 team.
“The lads were really keen to get going again,” Haas explained after the first two training sessions at the campus. The break had done the players good, allowing them to mentally unwind and gain some perspective. The past few weeks were also valuable for the coaching staff: “After the season, it’s not just a chance to catch our breath, but also to reflect on the past months and identify what we need to work on. This sport is always about change.”
Preseason schedule
Naturally, preseason is filled with a lot of intensive training and multiple friendlies. The Bavarians have schedule 4 friendlies thus far, as well as two tournaments in the Bundesliga Cup and the Red&Gold Global Trophy tournament. They will, too, go through an intensive preseason before the season official begins on August 9th:
July 4 : vs FC Augsburg U-19s (6-1 win)
July 8: vs Bayern World Squad (2-1 win)
July 11-12.: Bundesliga Cup
July 18: vs SpVgg Unterhaching U-19s
July 25.: vs Slavia Prague U-19s (3-3 draw)
August 2: Youth Cup Round 1 vs RSV Eintracht 1949 Stahnsdorf
August 4-6: Red&Gold Global Trophy tournament
August 9: Season start
First phase group opponents
If one is not familiar with the format of Germany’s U-17 and U-19 leagues, one can read about it here. In short, though, there are three phases to each season. The first phase consists of 12 league matches in groups of 7, with Bayern set to play against 6 opponents twice. This season, the first phase starts on August 9 and ends on the weekend around December 6th.
Bayern have been drawn into Group D with these other teams:
- FC Ingolstadt 04
- SGV Freiberg Fußball
- SpVgg Unterhaching
- SSV Jahn Regensburg
- TSV 1859+1 Munich
- VfB Stuttgart
Haas has this to say about the opponents, via Bayern’s website: “With Stuttgart, we have an absolutely top team in the group, whom we already know from last season as German U17 champions – we’ve also already played against Unterhaching. Overall, it’s a good group with many Bavarian opponents – we’re especially looking forward to the city derby against 1860 Munich.”
Full squad list, promoted players
The transfer window is now open and one external transfer has been made in Austrian phenom Matteo Maric. This is a list of all the players currently registered for the U-19s. Of course, there is every chance new players/returning loanees will arrive over the course of preseason or even after the season has already started. Or a few of these players could be let go, loaned out or promoted to the U-23s over the course of the window. Furthermore, there are multiple players out injured that are listed as part of the squad yet cannot participate in any of the training sessions or games.
Still, at the time of writing, here is the full squad list:
Goalkeepers
Matthias Kösters, Daniel Podar-Stiube, Luis Nadler, Jae-Won Heo
Defenders
Ryan Moumouni, Richard Ajayi, Valentin Beckert, Jonas El Allali, Xaver Pucci, Jakob Horvath, Afrim Gashi, Adam El-Chaar, Konstantinos Karandrikas
Midfielders:
Erblin Osmani, Simon Schaff, Kuba Horozsczak, Matteo Maric, Leopold Schmid, Michael Matosevic, Paul Kerschberger, Roy Snip, Luca Babl, Aviel Hentcho-Nseke
Forwards:
Chris Aaron Afanou, Philipp von Taube, Wisdom Imade, Aristide Hentcho Nseke, Frank Egwuatu
Analysis
Immediately, the squad seems very balanced. There could be a need to add one more forward and move on one or two midfielders, but otherwise the squad looks strong heading into the season.
Friendlies
At the time of writing, Haas’ men have played four friendlies.
(I dunno what happened to the game against Unterhaching, it was not mentioned on the website).
Season goals
Of course, the main priority remains-as always-player development.
But, if we look at the sporting goals for the season…
The U-19s have lost in the first round of the Youth Cup in the last two seasons, an embarrassment for the club. Their goal is to go far and challenge for the trophy. Furthermore, the Bavarians will wish to compete for the U-19 Bundesliga title. The minimum goal is likely to reach the quarterfinals of the competition. Finally, the U-19s will lookmto qualify from the group stages of the Youth League and hopefully at least equal their best ever finish in the competition (quarterfinal exit in 2025).
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