Bayern Munich have been Germany’s wealthiest club for the best part of 50 years but until the turn of the decade, the Bundesliga was still sufficiently competitive to restrict them to winning the championship every other year.
One of the reasons for this underperformance was their own, somewhat capricious, transfer dealings. They found it easy to buy the league’s big-name performers, such as Michael Ballack, Mehmet Scholl, Stefan Effenberg or Mario Basler thanks to their money and clout but efforts to strengthen in depth routinely floundered because of their unimaginative and unsophisticated methods.
Advertisement
Bayern supporters and detractors used to joke that Uli Hoeness, the club’s dominant administrative figure since 1979, would sign anyone who happened to score a couple of goals against the German record champions. It was funny because it was true: Bayern’s squads in the 1980s, 90s and 2000s were littered with players such as Ciriaco Sforza, Alain Sutter, Ali Daei, Andy Herzog and Roy Makaay, all of whom had inflicted painful defeats on them.
Apart from the therapeutic effect of making those you can’t beat join you, this strategy had the useful side-effect of weakening domestic opponents. But more often than not their erstwhile tormentors didn’t do much for them after swapping shirts.
Bayern fared worse when it came to international recruitment. With the exception of Bixente Lizarazu, Soren Lerby and the aforementioned Makaay, almost none of the foreigners brought in from outside the Bundesliga — Massimo Oddo, Ruggiero Rizzitelli, Emil Kostadinov, Radmilo Mihajlovic, Mark Hughes — left a lasting mark.
Unable to match the wages Italian and Spanish teams were paying for genuine superstar players, they were also forced to gamble on a series of speculative South Americans who never quite worked out. Roque Santa Cruz, Julio dos Santos, Jose Sosa, Bernardo and Adolfo Valencia all came and failed to have the desired effect, while Bayern passed on the likes of Carlos Tevez.
Worst of all, though, was the pair of Brazilians signed in 1991. Midfielder Bernardo only played five truly disastrous games before getting sent back home three months later. Mazinho, a striker, did score 11 league goals in four years but his overall level was such that it gave rise to a persistent rumour. Could it be that Bayern had confused him with his World Cup-winning namesake, the father of Thiago Alcantara?
Advertisement
A change of tack towards supplementing domestic galacticos with up-and-coming youngsters in the new millennium rarely hit the spot either. The likes of Tobias Rau and Marcell Jansen left as quickly as they had arrived.
Increased revenues from their new Allianz Arena stadium after 2005 made it possible to go after more recognised performers such as Arjen Robben, Franck Ribery and Luca Toni to lay the groundwork for their re-emergence as a continental force but they only truly mastered the transfer market after the departure of Louis van Gaal.
In the wake of 2012 Champions League final defeat by Chelsea, Bayern first brought in Matthias Sammer as a sporting director and then hired Bayer Leverkusen’s former talent spotter Michael Reschke. Both are no longer at the club but the professionalisation of the scouting network they oversaw has resulted in a hit rate that is now the envy of many elite sides in Europe.
Bayern still get it wrong, of course, but flops are the exception since Hasan Salihamidzic was appointed as sporting director and Marco Neppe became chief scout (both in 2017), even if the new signings don’t all arrive as full-fledged top performers like Robert Lewandowski or Leroy Sane.
The club’s new-found ability to spot a bargain, a hand for developing talents, very deep pockets to keep stars tied down and making the right strategic choices for the emergence of a post-Robben-Ribery team lie at the heart of their competitiveness in the Champions League this decade. This is how the starting XI in the 2020 Champions League were built.
Goalkeeper: Manuel Neuer (€30 million from Schalke 04 in 2011)
Bayern had decent if unspectacular keepers after Oliver Kahn’s retirement in 2008. They were in the market for a new, blond behemoth in goal and found one in former Schalke 04 keeper (and ultra) Manuel Neuer. The club first approached him before the 2010 World Cup — less than a year later, he told Schalke he wouldn’t renew his existing contract beyond 2012. They had no choice but to sell but managed to extract €30 million from Bayern, including add-ons.
Advertisement
Right-back: Joshua Kimmich (€8 million from RB Leipzig in 2015)
The Germany midfielder had long been tracked as one of VfB Stuttgart’s outstanding prospects. He had moved to RB Leipzig, then in the second division, but Stuttgart had a buy-back clause which they exercised to sell him on to Bayern in January of 2015. Pep Guardiola and Matthias Sammer had personally convinced the under-19 international that a move to Bayern would further his career. They were right.
Centre-back: Jerome Boateng (€13.5 million from Manchester City in 2011)
The former Hertha BSC defender didn’t enjoy his time at City. Injury problems had further depressed his market value when Bayern came calling a year after his breakthrough for Germany at the 2010 World Cup. Nine years later, he’s still proving the doubters wrong.
Centre-back: David Alaba (€150,000 from Austria Vienna in 2008)
Austrian international Alaba joined Bayern at the age of 16. He became a regular under Van Gaal in the 2009-10 season barely two years later, spent one productive year on loan at Hoffenheim and will contest Bayern’s fourth Champions League final since his arrival on Sunday. Bayern Munich supporters regard the immensely popular defender as one of their own. But the 28-year-old is yet to sign a contract extension beyond 2021.
Left-back: Alphonso Davies (€19 million from Vancouver Whitecaps in 2019)
Not all board members felt that spending €11 million, plus €8 million in add-ons, on a teenage Canadian was a good idea in the summer of 2018 but Salihamidzic persisted and won the argument. Davies has been a revelation.
Central midfield: Leon Goretzka (free transfer from Schalke in 2018)
Goretzka, a powerful box-to-box player who is strong in the air and one of the most socially-minded professionals in the game right now, ran down his contract to join at the age of 23. He had offers from abroad but the deal underlined Bayern’s unique pulling power as far as German players are concerned. They could offer huge wages, a big sign-on fee, and a sizeable agent commission that all rather belie the notion of a free transfer.
They also guaranteed trophies, competitiveness in Europe and better chances to make it in the national team, where Bayern players can benefit from their existing network and media clout. Rival club bosses have cited this type of deal as hugely problematic for the Bundesliga: Bayern are so appealing to players that they can make them run down their contracts rather than pay a big transfer fee, which would at least help finance the “selling” club’s transfer dealings and circulate money inside the league.
Central midfield: Thiago (€22 million from Barcelona in 2013)
It’s taken the former Barca player a while to become the dominant figure in Bayern’s game that Pep Guardiola had envisaged him to be but this season, he’s been absolutely key for the team’s rejuvenated passing game in midfield. Bayern were able to secure his services for relatively little money due to a release clause in his contract. Guardiola’s brother Pere was Thiago’s agent at the time.
Advertisement
Forward: Serge Gnabry (€8 million from Werder Bremen in 2017)
Kimmich’s former team-mate in the Stuttgart youth team was bought from Arsenal by Werder Bremen after the 2016 Olympics, in which he had excelled. Bremen’s advisory board member Willi Lemke later admitted that Bayern had made an agreement with Werder that he could move on to Munich in the following season. They paid €8 million, sent him on loan to Julian Nagelsmann’s finishing school in Hoffenheim for a year and now have a player fit to be the heir of the “Robbery” duo on the flanks.
Forward: Thomas Muller (youth product)
All you hear is “Radio” Muller in Lisbon, the 30-year old running the show with incessant instructions and loud encouragement for his team-mates. Raised in the Bavarian village of Pahl, the self-styled “space interpreter” joined Bayern as a 10-year old. Jurgen Klinsmann nearly sold him to Hoffenheim in 2008 but youth coach Hermann Gerland intervened to stop the transfer going through. A couple of years later, Muller’s mazy movements beguiled Van Gaal enough to make him a regular, and Muller became a star at the 2010 World Cup. He’s widely expected to become part of the club’s leadership structure after his career.
Forward: Ivan Perisic (€5 million loan fee from Inter Milan in 2019)
The Croatian was brought in as a temporary squad player last summer to help out on either flank but especially on the left, where Sane was originally meant to be and Kingsley Coman (a €28 million buy from Juventus in 2015) has often been injured. Bayern were initially reluctant to exercise their €20 million option to buy the 31-year-old but might attempt to negotiate a better price with the Italians.
Striker: Robert Lewandowski (free transfer from Borussia Dortmund in 2014)
Quite possibly the most expensive “free” transfer in the world, Lewandowski agreed to join Bayern in 2013 for big wages and even bigger signing-on payments but was forced to wait one more year until his contract had expired to make the move south. Dortmund have since denied reports that Bayern had made a firm offer to buy him the previous summer. The Polish forward used to eye a move to Spain but twice extended his contract. His wages are estimated at £350,000 per week.
Players bought from Bundesliga teams: 2
Players bought from Bundesliga 2 teams: 1
Players signed on free transfers: 2
Players bought from abroad: 4
Player on loan: 1
Youth product: 1
Total transfer and loan fees spent: €105.6 million
Annual wages: €336 million (whole squad and non-playing staff, 2019)
(Top image: Tom Slator for The Athletic)
