Vincent Kompany’s last club campaign, for Burnley in the English Premier League, ended in relegation. The result was not unexpected for a club he had just taken up from the Sky Bet Championship the year before, but at Bayern Munich, the spotlight will shine a lot brighter — as it did last season under Thomas Tuchel, with the tumult ultimately giving way to the veteran manager’s departure.
But Kompany, though much less experienced coaching at the highest levels, is prepared.
“I have lived in this environment so I understand, and every headline in the end in reality is quite predictable,” the 38-year-old former Belgium international said in a wide-ranging interview on Bundesliga.com. “When you’re at your weakest and you’re vulnerable for a period of time, it’s coming and you have to be together.
“You have to focus on the one thing you can affect, which is winning the next game. Eventually, with talent and with hard work, you get out of that cycle. You can get caught up in this idea of being the most important person in the world, which is never the case. Just be a footballer and work on the things you need to improve on as a team and individually, and then have absolute belief that you can have success again. We can’t forget that the other team got 90 points last year, but you can’t have any regrets about your own behavior and then a club like our club will have success.”
Kompany starred under Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, so he is not new to high expectations. Can he guide the Bavarians through the season and reclaim the Bundesliga title from Bayern Leverkusen?
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