As a direct neighbor of Germany, it’s weird that the Dutch players have struggled to stick at Bayern Munich. Daley Blind, Ryan Gravenberch, and Joshua Zirkzee each played a handful of matches for Bayern Munich but were quickly benched, loaned, or transferred.
After arriving on a €67M transfer from Juventus in 2022, Matthijs de Ligt is the latest victim. He was constantly in the doghouse under Julian Nagelsmann and Thomas Tuchel, but performed relatively well whenever he found his way onto the pitch.
Did de Ligt just want to reconnect with his former Ajax manager, Erik ten Hag, who is now running the show at Manchester United?
In an interview with Sky (as captured by @iMiaSanMia), Bayern sporting director Christoph Freund maintained the company line, saying “we wanted to make changes to the squad. That includes sales. Matthijs is a really good player and played a lot last season. But we’re very confident that we are well equipped in defense as it is.”
This doesn’t sound like it was de Ligt’s decision at all. Hopefully he privately received a better explanation for his sale because this is a bunch of malarkey (pardon the harsh language).
Bayern’s executives have stressed the importance of communication all offseason but still keep dropping lines like this. Either they’ve sealed up the leaks and are in complete alignment or everyone is trying to avoid being the blabbing mouthpiece, a role clearly being dominated by Uli Hoeneß.
