For some Bayern Munich fans, the jury might still be out on Vincent Kompany, but his perfect record as manager thus far is instilling a lot of faith amongst the Rekordmeister’s faithful. Across all competitions, it has now been five wins from five for the Belgian manager and their 9-2 Champions League triumph over Dinamo Zagreb at the Allianz Arena was the club’s largest ever win in the competition. It was also the most goals in a Champions League match Bayern has ever scored, so it is hard to argue that Kompany is doing a good enough job as of yet.
Of course, the matches will continue to come thick and fast both before and after the October international break, especially with the new Champions League format. After the aforementioned break, there will be a decent stretch where Bayern is playing a match every 3-5 days as they push across all three fronts. It will be an incredibly difficult balance to manage for Kompany. He has already had to deal with the trio of defensive injuries to Hiroki Ito, Josip Stanišić, and Sacha Boey, an more injuries could yet come for him to deal with.
Time will tell how Kompany’s maiden season with Bayern ends up, but board member for sport Max Eberl recently shed some light into the process the club went through in order to land the former Burnley boss. Naturally, there were a bevy of names linked with the Bayern job after the club made the decision to part ways with Thomas Tuchel after last season, but it took awhile to get to Kompany.
“There was always a ranking list. You start and write down names of coaches. At Bayern, it’s a different level than in Gladbach. Lots of names were mentioned publicly. I didn’t even speak to Unai Emery, for example. We got rejections from Julian Nagelsmann and Ralf Rangnick, we made offers to them. But there were more names on the shortlist – 15 to 16 coaches. You then have discussions and then make the decision. Vincent Kompany was on this list from the start. I saw him in Anderlecht – he’s a huge talent as a coach,” Eberl explained on a recent appearance of Sport1’s Doppelpass (via @iMiaSanMia).
When Bayern had finally landed on Kompany, from the outside looking in, there were portions of Bayern fans jumping to the conclusion that the former Burnley boss was a sort of last resort, but that was not the case. As Eberl alluded to, while the Belgian might not have been the club’s first choice, he was on the short list of candidates and his pedigree stacked up against some of the other names perhaps made it easier for his name to not get leaked out and circulated in the news cycle as much.
For Eberl, Bayern’s front office, and the supervisory board, they very much appreciate how Kompany has always stuck to his guns and stayed true to his playing style. Even though he got relegated with Burnley after getting them promoted from the English Championship, there were signs that he had what it took to manage an elite club like Bayern.
“He was relegated with Burnley, but he always stuck to his style of play. We then made the decision – with all the courage that goes with it. We actually were annoyed that we didn’t speak to him earlier,” Eberl continue in his retrospective assessment of the club’s pursuit of Kompany.
Looking to get ready for Bayern Munich’s big Bundesliga showdown with VfB Stuttgart? We’ve got you covered with our Bavarian Podcast Works — Preview Show, where we hit on the recent form of each team, take a look at the league table, discuss the injury situations for both clubs, take a guess at the lineups, and attempt to predict the final score. You can get the show at Patreon, Spotify, or below:
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