Zaragoza or nothing? Friend violates this Hoeneß law

Things are getting hectic again at FC Bayern on the last day of the winter transfer window. This is exactly what we wanted to avoid at all costs.

What Uli Hoeneß says is still the law at FC Bayern. And so, after the debacle that the honorary president had to witness as a member of the then-founded task force on Deadline Day in the summer, the club patron issued a new club policy. “Apart from exceptional cases, we should no longer be in the middle of the action on the last transfer day in the future,” said the 72-year-old in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “We used to laugh about this deadline day!”

On August 31st last year, however, people laughed at him and Bayern on Deadline Day. As a reminder: dream player João Palhinha, for whom the record champions were willing to transfer 65 million euros to FC Fulham, had already flown to Munich and had already successfully completed the medical check there.

Only to have to turn back again because his club couldn’t find a replacement for the defensive midfielder at such short notice and had the agreed deal fall through at the last second. All of the other planned last-minute transfers didn’t materialize in the end for various reasons, so no more defensive specialists came to Munich.

Head coach Thomas Tuchel is particularly suffering from the consequences of this debacle, as he has sometimes completely run out of defensive players in recent months. With the signings of central defender Eric Dier, who came from Tottenham Hotspur, and right-back Sacha Boey, who moved from Galatasaray to Munich for 30 million euros (plus bonuses) as a new winter record transfer, sporting director Christoph Freund has now corrected the summer’s omissions. Even before deadline day.

Nevertheless, Freund, who started his job at the record champions exactly one day after the transfer disaster on September 1st, and Bayern are once again heading for a hectic last day of the transfer window, which closes on Thursday at 6 p.m. – and thus have to comply with the new Hoeneß’s law break directly.

Bayern’s originally planned transfer activities with Dier and Boey had already been successfully completed. “That was actually the plan,” confirmed Freund on Tuesday when Boey was introduced. “But due to the current situation, it cannot be completely ruled out that something else will happen,” said the Austrian. The main reason for the rethinking of those responsible is the serious injury to winger Kingsley Coman, who tore the medial ligament in his knee on Saturday in Augsburg (3-1) and will therefore be out for months.

“I would certainly have said two or three days ago: the transfer window is closed,” said board boss Jan-Christian Dreesen on Sunday during his visit to the “Red Stars Attenhausen” fan club: “We’re looking at it now. ‘King’ will be out for several weeks “It’s painful and tedious.”

Joshua Kimmich (shoulder problems), Konrad Laimer (muscle and tendon injury in the calf), Dayot Upamecano (torn thigh fiber), Bouna Sarr (torn cruciate ligament in the left knee) and Tarek Buchmann (after torn muscle bundle and thigh) are currently missing from the defense due to injuries -OP). Min-jae Kim, who is still fighting for the title with South Korea at the Asian Cup, is also missing. After all, Noussair Mazraoui, who was eliminated with Morocco in the quarter-finals of the Africa Cup of Nations on Tuesday, is now expected back soon.

With Coman, there are now personnel concerns on the offensive. In order to get rid of this in the short term, the Munich team, as Freund confirmed, is primarily examining the option of bringing forward the move of Bryan Zaragoza, who has already been confirmed as a summer signing from FC Granada, by six months.