Is Bayern Munich ready to be patient with Vincent Kompany?

Bayern Munich is once again embarking on what has the makings to be one of the most exciting footballing projects in Europe.

Never mind the circumstances. Not many of European powerhouses would have turned the keys over to a relatively fresh-faced unknown as Bayern has done in hiring Kompany. The 38-year-old is in the beginning stages of his managerial career, with only brief stints at Anderlecht and Burnley to his name.

But the former Manchester City defender was a star in his day, and like Leverkusen’s Xabi Alonso and Arsenal FC’s Mikel Arteta, launched his coaching career by studying under some of the best in his playing days.

Kompany has serious work to do at Bayern, though, and he is not the only cook in the Bavarians’ kitchen.

Sporting executives Max Eberl and Christoph Freund have spent a busy summer transfer window trying to remake an aging, wages-heavy Bayern roster — reportedly brushing up against a supervisory board keen on tightening the purse strings in the process. That overhaul has largely not come to fruition yet, with the Bavarians selling off young stars they had invested in (Matthijs de Ligt and Noussair Mazraoui, both to Manchester United) while struggling to offload veteran contracts in positions of plenty.

That means the squad Kompany has to work with is very much a work in progress. Coming off a third-placed finish in the Bundesliga in a trophy-less 2023/24, it’s clear that rejuvenation is required. But failure to slash the wage bill significantly also means that economic room to maneuver is narrowing ahead.

It is an awkward time for Bayern to be in transition. In many ways, the squad is set up to win now — major recent investments such as striker Harry Kane and defensive midfielder João Palhinha are at or past 30, and brought in to fill huge tactical needs in a mega-talented but unbalanced squad around them. The Champions League Final this season is in Munich — and Bayern brass had probably long imagined this to be the prime of a multi-year project under Julian Nagelsmann coming to bear fruit before generational veterans like Thomas Müller and Manuel Neuer stepped aside.

But Bayern turned from that path long ago. Instead it has a green coach still learning the ropes, and question marks around even its recent signings — from those like De Ligt, signed two years ago and already gone, to Kim Min-jae, signed last year and apparently not as suited to Kompany and his high-pressing style as he was to Thomas Tuchel.

Kompany’s early Bayern tenure has already shown real promise. Müller lit up the scoreboard in Bayern’s first competitive match of the season against lower-tier competition in the DFB-Pokal, and Bayern’s attack looked as potent as ever in its Bundesliga opener at Wolfsburg. Unlike Tuchel and Nagelsmann before him, Kompany is the consummate player’s manager — with a playing pedigree the squad will respect and an open-door style underneath his fiery, tough love brand of leadership. But there are trouble spots, too.

Defensive lapses and shocking concessions are nothing new for Bayern and they reared their ugly head again at Wolfsburg. In the spotlight now are two relatively new defenders, Kim and right-back Sacha Boey, both acquired for a previous coach and previous system. Bayern’s players — and so too its squad composition — are reeling from a third new system in as many years. And Kompany himself will have much growth ahead of him as he navigates the challenges that come with coaching at a much bigger stage.

Bayern Munich, of course, is not a club that regards itself as a place for inexperienced managers to cut their teeth.

Expectations at Säbener Straße are brutal and unrelentingly high. At its best, it will forge diamonds — as only the toughest will survive. At its worst, it will lead club leaders to pull the plug on projects before they have a chance to blossom, as they did two years ago with Julian Nagelsmann.

After all, at a club with Bayern’s history, star power, and financial muscle, it is all too easy to imagine the alternatives. It is a big club. So big that even a young upstart can achieve great things given the keys. So big that anyone might to great things in the manager’s chair and everyone will want to — and the board knows it.

There is a notion in chess that, in the uncomfortable fog of a muddled middlegame, the best plan is the one you are currently executing. That is: maybe it isn’t the optimal path, but sticking to it and keeping all your pieces in harmony is better than changing plans with every move, resulting in an incoherent mess and collapsing the position completely.

Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images

Bayern has done its fair share of the latter in recent years. Perhaps there are lessons to arise from that — from Tuchel’s brief and dramatic tenure to the string of rejections that led to Kompany’s hire in the first place.

If results don’t come and fast, though, it is not hard to imagine the trigger finger getting itchy again. Jürgen Klopp, Xabi Alonso, and the hottest names of next year’s coaching market will be sitting around.

Can Bayern finally learn to build with what it’s got?

Looking for more analysis of Kompany’s Bundesliga debut? We’ve got you covered — INNN and Samrin go in-depth with a discussion of the lineups, tactics, substitutions, individual performances. PLUS we also compare and contrast Vincent Kompany’s start at Bayern Munich to what Hansi Flick has done at FC Barcelona thus far. Listen to it below or on Patreon or Spotify.

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