Joao Cancelo has been an employee of FC Bayern for 63 days. However, there can be no question of love at first sight. The player still hasn’t fully arrived in Munich. And the club has not yet found the optimal role for its latest star addition. Doubts about future cooperation are growing.
Bayern have played eleven competitive games since Joao Cancelo arrived in Munich. The winter newcomer was used in ten of them. For the starting eleven, however, it was only enough for the Portuguese six times. Only once – in the Bundesliga game against Augsburg (5:3) – was he on the pitch for both the starting and final whistle.
The first interim conclusion is correspondingly sobering: After only 492 of 990 possible minutes of use, there is no question that the club and the player had imagined the cooperation differently. Apparently they also see it that way internally at Bayern Munich.
Despite a flaming Salihamidzic appeal after the top game against BVB, the future of the full-back on Säbener Straße is in doubt on the record champions’ executive floor.
As the “kicker” reports, the club’s attitude has both sporting and atmospheric reasons. Those responsible are aware that the full-back is a “powder keg”, writes the newspaper. Means: If the 28-year-old doesn’t get the playing time he wants, he causes “disagreement”.
For this reason, according to the “kicker”, a permanent transfer of the ManCity loan player is currently also excluded. Even if the English top club were to move away from the fixed transfer fee of 70 million euros and give FC Bayern a price reduction, a deal is “a long way off” today, writes the “kicker”.
This could probably only change if the Portuguese played a more sporting role, which in turn only new coach Thomas Tuchel could take care of. It is not clear whether he will rely on Cancelo in the future or, as against BVB, on the familiar forces. But there will be an answer in the next three weeks at the latest, when the Munich team go into the very hot weeks of the season.