Hear him out…
Bayern Munich head coach Vincent Kompany has divided the opinion of fans at the club during his time in Munich, with some seeing his work as quite and others as below the club’s standards. But one critique levied at Kompany that the majority fans can agree with is that he has done a poor job of integrating the talented young players in the squad. Teenager Adam Aznou, Mathys Tel and Arijon Ibrahimović started the season the first team squad but received so little game time that they had to leave on loan in the January transfer window.
There was hope, at least, that the youngsters would get game time once Bayern wrapped up the title, which they now have. But, ahead of the weekend’s game against Borussia Mönchengladbach, Vincent Kompany has suggested that there will not be many youth call ups to the match.
“Our talents have done so well, they’re now all in the semifinals of their respective leagues. We want to support that as well,” the former Anderlecht coach said, via @iMiaSanMia. “That means although some of them were able to get some game time [with the first team], it’s now important for the Campus that they win titles together, like the women’s team has done and like we’ve done. Because of that, we’ll probably let the boys play [for their youth teams] this weekend.”
The new format of the U-17 and U-19 Bundesliga sees the league culminate in a knockout style format. Bayern’s U-19s are in the semifinals and will face Leverkusen’s U-19 side, while Bayern’s U-17s are in the quarterfinals and will face Borussia Dortmund’s U-17s. These are big games and see Bayern go up against the best youth teams in the country in a chance to win a title. There is certainly an appeal to seeing these players play a full match in those circumstances. These matches are also all on Saturday like the game against BMG, so participating in both would be extremely difficult.
Is playing the full 90 minutes in those youth matches worth more, however, than playing some minutes in the Bundesliga and being able to lift the title with the rest of the team in the Allianz Arena? That is certainly debatable.
Besides, the U-23s are also set to play dead rubber matches in the Regionalliga so their squad can be ransacked. Bayern could well leave the U-17 and U-19 squads be while promoting some top talents in the U-23s such as star midfielders Jonathan Asp Jensen and Guido Della Rovere, left-back Julien Yanda and more.
That will all be up to Kompany.
