Double, double toil and trouble: Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes…
Back on August 28th, 2022, Lothar Matthäus said that he felt like Bayern Munich’s domestic dominance was about to end.
While many scoff at the hot takes from Matthäus, he was dead-on his assessment of Bayern Munich’s evolving situation.
Back then, this is what Matthäusn told Tz: “In the next five years, Bayern will not be champions five times, but only three times. [Bayern] made mistakes in the planning and didn’t work as (forward-thinking) as in previous years. Far too often, the club is late in talks, just look at Robert Lewandowski. Everything used to be more stable, now some things are faltering.”
Even back then, Matthäus called for the club to show fauth in younger players and also some belief in these specific players — Chris Richards, Angelo Stiller, Josip Stanišić, and Christian Früchtl: “They identify with FC Bayern and would have cost nothing,” he said of the quartet of youngsters. Richards’ loan at TSG Hoffenheim ends at this season’s conclusion, while Stiller has rarely been used in the first team by Julian Nagelsmann. Stanišić deputized often more towards the beginning of the season in Benjamin Pavard’s absence and Früchtl was always going to be hard pressed to find any time behind both Manuel Neuer and Sven Ulreich.”
Wow…since that point, Richards eventually moved on to Crystal Palace and become a consistent starter, while Stiller (VfB Stuttgart) and Stanišić (loan to Bayer Leverkusen) have proven to be extremely strong starting-caliber players in the Bundesliga.
The only outlier is Früchtl, but even the goalkeeper was a consistent starter for FK Austria Wien this season.