Injuries have made Bayern’s job far more difficult than it otherwise would be, but there is still hope.
Bayern Munich is still top of the Bundesliga table, six points clear of second-placed Bayer Leverkusen, and they could still turn the 2-1 aggregate scoreline around in Milan against Inter in the second leg of the Champions League quarterfinals. However, Vincent Kompany’s job has been made all the more difficult by the mounting injury problems that have plagued the German Rekordmeister for the better part of the past two to three months.
Alphonso Davies coming down with an anterior cruciate ligament tear while on international duty with Canada during March’s international break was a massive blow to Bayern’s fortunes for the rest of the season and during that same break, Dayot Upamecano suffered a significant injury, though he has resumed training. Hiroki Ito will now also be out for the remainder of the season and Jamal Musiala sustained a hamstring injury in the recent 3-1 win over Augsburg in the Bundesliga. Kompany’s life has not been made any easier.
Board member for sport Max Eberl recently vented his frustration at having to see the squad get decimated by injury problems at such a crucial period of the season. “The injuries are extremely annoying. International breaks are always a risk, where you as a club are at risk. Then there are games that are more unnecessary – when I think of Canada in the third-place match against the USA, which nobody cares about, and where Alphonso Davies suffered a serious injury. That hits us hard. But we sit together in the dressing room and have to find a solution as a group,” he riffed, highlighting the Davies injury that has caused a strife between Bayern and the Canadian soccer federation (via @iMiaSanMia).
Photo by Harry Langer/DeFodi Images/DeFodi via Getty Images
It has also been recently confirmed that, unfortunately, this will be Thomas Müller’s last season at Bayern after a long, historic, and well-decorated tenure at the club. In a fairytale fashion, he scored off of the bench in the first leg against Inter in the Champions League quarterfinals after the Allianz Arena crowd had been baying for him to come on. There was certainly an argument for him to have started that match, too, as it was clear that Kompany’s decision to start Raphaël Guerreiro as a central attacking midfielder did not pay off at all.
Eberl played a role in the decision to not give Müller a one-year contract extension, but he said he knows the Raumdeuter is still going to play an integral role for the club as the season winds down. “Thomas Müller is extremely important now, and he wants to show everyone that,” Eberl commented.
Of course, as he showed in his cameo against Inter, he can still be productive and give Bayern something creative in attack as they push for the Bundesliga and Champions League titles.
