For a membership like Bayern Munich, growing a footballer is about way more than producing a technically gifted participant. On the Bayern Campus, the method includes footballing capability, bodily growth, character, training and, maybe most significantly, creating an identification with the membership. Throughout a go to to Germany, NDTV spoke to the membership’s head of academy, Jochen Sauer, about how expertise growth, type of play, and philosophy pave the best way for rising stars like Lennart Karl, Aleksander Pavlovic and Josip Stanisic to seal promotion to a extremely aggressive first workforce like Bayern Munich.
Similar to the primary workforce, dominant soccer, possession, clear positional profiles and the expectation to win stay central to the Campus’ philosophy, however the academy insists that younger gamers should additionally perceive what it means to be a part of the Bayern household. In a 3-part interview with NDTV, Sauer defined the considering behind the membership’s youth-development mannequin, the qualities it appears to be like for in younger gamers, and the way the Campus works with the primary workforce.
Whereas the rise of teenage attacker Lennart Karl has been one in all Bayern Campus’ most up-to-date success tales, there’s additionally the case of Kenan Yildiz, who left the academy to hitch Juventus in Italy and now has a market worth of round 100 million euros. The Bayern academy chief defined how such circumstances are two sides of the identical coin.
Through the years, Bayern have produced many one-club gamers. Philipp Lahm and Thomas Muller are unarguably the newest examples. Although Bastian Schweinsteiger went on to play for Manchester United on the finish of his profession, his transfer is seen by many as a final hurrah greater than a critical profession resolution. On the Bayern academy, there’s a fixed effort to construct the identical ethos within the gamers which had been most lately present in Muller, who left the membership final summer time.
Q. What precisely is the FC Bayern manner of soccer, and what are the core ideas each participant has to comply with?
Jochen Sauer: If you wish to be an expert soccer participant, you want the technical and bodily talents to play on the prime stage. That’s one thing all good academies have in widespread.
However if you wish to attain the best stage, the character of a participant can be necessary. Younger gamers shouldn’t focus solely on soccer. Their education and studying basically additionally assist them study in soccer and, particularly, develop their character and character.
So we attempt to mix these three most important matters. However what comes on prime at Bayern Munich is “Mia san Mia”. Everyone has their very own definition of it, however at Bayern it’s about id and identification with the membership.
We attempt to give gamers a way of what “Mia san Mia” means, what the Bayern household is and what’s particular about Bayern Munich in comparison with different golf equipment. What in the end helps a participant grow to be a Bayern Munich participant is dedication to the membership.
Q. How necessary is that identification with Bayern?
Jochen Sauer: This can be very necessary. Creating dedication and identification with a membership is greater than necessary. We wish gamers to grasp what the Bayern household is and what they want as Bayern Munich gamers to be a part of that household.
That’s one thing we worth very extremely in comparison with all the opposite expertise gamers want. When you take a look at gamers reminiscent of Bastian Schweinsteiger or Philipp Lahm, they had been so deeply linked with “Mia san Mia” that they by no means felt they wished to vary golf equipment.
I feel Thomas Muller is one other instance. He’s now experiencing a brand new world in MLS, however I feel he would by no means have modified golf equipment inside Europe. That dedication to Bayern Munich is one thing we attempt to develop in our gamers.
Q. How carefully is the Bayern Campus’ taking part in philosophy aligned with the primary workforce?
Jochen Sauer: I might reply that with sure and no. We have to make sure that Bayern Munich’s ideas are within the DNA of our younger gamers. However that does not imply we modify our curriculum each time the first-team coach adjustments.
What stands for Bayern Munich are ideas which have lasted for the final 30 to 35 years. We need to play dominant soccer, we need to have the ball, we need to play as a workforce and we now have very clear participant profiles.
We all the time play with wingers and a central striker. Harry Kane is the striker now; earlier than him it was Lewandowski, Mario Gomez, Luca Toni and others. The profiles stay comparable even when coaches change.
In fact, with Vincent Kompany, some particulars are totally different from Louis van Gaal or Hansi Flick. However we now have to make it possible for when a participant comes from the Campus to the primary workforce, there are particular mechanisms that he already is aware of and that he understands what to do in his place.
Q. What qualities do you search for in younger gamers?
Jochen Sauer: It is vitally tough to establish on the age of 10, 11 or 12 which participant will in the end make it. Quite a bit occurs within the bodily growth of a younger participant, in addition to technically.
We wish gamers who present us some fundamentals that make us consider that, if we do an excellent job growing them, they will attain the best skilled stage.
We search for gamers who already present dedication to the sport and have enjoyable with the sport. If a younger participant already sees soccer solely as one thing he desires to do as a result of he desires to grow to be an expert, that’s in all probability not what we’re in search of.
We wish gamers who see soccer as a sport, who take pleasure in it and have dedication to it. In addition they have to grasp the sport: the goal is to attain targets, and you’ll rating targets provided that you play as a workforce.
You may have a participant with extraordinarily excessive particular person qualities at 11, but when he does not perceive that soccer is a workforce sport, will probably be tough for him to achieve success at Bayern Munich.
Q. How do you stability successful titles and growing gamers?
Jochen Sauer: Each features are necessary. I might not be proper if I stated it’s only about particular person growth and that successful belongs to the primary workforce.
FC Bayern Munich is all about successful video games and successful titles. If we do not train gamers that they should win video games and deal with the stress of successful throughout their youth, they won’t be able to deal with that stress within the first workforce.
So it’s a stability. However we are attempting to make the gamers higher. The consequence of getting gamers who get higher and higher is that we grow to be profitable and win video games.
The main focus of the coaches is to make each participant higher. The consequence of getting higher gamers is successful titles and successful video games.
Q. What made gamers like Lennart Karl, Aleksandar Pavlovic and Josip Stanisic prepared for the primary workforce?
Jochen Sauer: There may be not one attribute that makes a participant a Bayern Munich participant. The paths of these three gamers had been very totally different.
Lennart Karl was a part of the primary workforce final summer time, and no person anticipated that he might have such an impression. He was thrown in due to accidents, and he carried out. It needed to do with high quality, being on the proper time and the proper place, and likewise psychological features. You could not see any stress on him in his first two or three video games.
Josip Stanisic had a unique path. He was not even a beginning participant in our second workforce once we performed within the third division. However he was very affected person. He believed he might make it at Bayern Munich, waited for his likelihood, after which took it.
What all three had in widespread was a desperation to be Bayern Munich gamers. They did not merely need to grow to be professionals someplace. Their largest dream was to grow to be professionals at Bayern Munich.
That perception, exhausting work, self-discipline, and dedication are what they have to be profitable right here.
Q. How carefully do you’re employed with Vincent Kompany and the primary workforce?
Jochen Sauer: There may be very shut communication. We now have the sporting division and other people right here who know the gamers in nice element, and there are common conferences with members of the first-team teaching workers.
They talk about the event of particular person gamers. The advantage of the first-team teaching workers is that they love seeing younger gamers. Each time they’ve the chance to combine them into coaching, they do it.
Nearly each participant will get an opportunity to point out himself within the first workforce. Then it’s as much as the participant to make an impression, present his qualities, and impress the coach.
We all know the primary workforce’s squad planning and whether or not there’s a want in sure positions. However the cooperation is superb. We need to current gamers who can prepare with the primary workforce, and the first-team coaches need to see them.
It’s an ongoing course of. Some gamers are extra nervous than others after they first prepare with the senior workforce, whereas gamers like Lennart Karl can present their qualities instantly. Total, there is superb communication and cooperation between the youth division and the primary workforce.
Q. Bayern have additionally misplaced gamers who went on to grow to be stars elsewhere. What was your response to seeing Kenan Yildiz succeed at Juventus?
Jochen Sauer: I have been in soccer for nearly 30 years, and I do know there are all the time conditions which can be very tough to deal with, particularly in expertise growth.
Seeing a participant like Kenan Yildiz grow to be profitable at Juventus and have a market worth of just about €100 million, you generally ask your self, “Why has this occurred?”
However truthfully, you can’t keep away from these conditions.
At the moment, we had a scenario the place we had been in all probability too profitable in that age group. We had 5 – 6 excellent skills from the 2005 age group.
There was Arijon Ibrahimovic, Paul Wanner, Mathys Tel, whom we purchased from Rennes, and Kenan Yildiz. They had been throughout the identical age, performed comparable positions and had comparable qualities.
Q. So why could not Bayern give Yildiz the pathway he wished?
Jochen Sauer: At the moment, Julian Nagelsmann requested us: “There isn’t a likelihood that I can combine 4 17-year-old gamers into the primary workforce in comparable positions. That is merely unimaginable, and we now have to decide.”
Internally, we felt that Paul Wanner and Arijon Ibrahimovic had been in all probability 10 per cent additional forward than Kenan Yildiz and wanted to get the possibility first.
Then a suggestion got here for Kenan from Juventus. They may inform him that he might come to Juventus, prepare with the primary workforce and play with the second workforce. We had provided that sort of alternative to 2 different gamers, however we could not provide it to him.
From his private perspective, I feel it was the proper resolution to vary golf equipment. At the moment, it was the proper resolution. In all probability 12 months later, it will have been a unique resolution.
However these items occur on a regular basis. In reality, they occur extra usually if you find yourself doing good work, as a result of then you’ve gotten 5 – 6 excellent gamers in all ages group.
Ask Chelsea about Jamal Musiala. At the moment, they determined that he wasn’t ok at 16, and we might get the participant.
Generally, if we take a look at Angelo Stiller, Kenan Yildiz, Malik Tillman, Joshua Zirkzee or Chris Richards, more often than not it was a scenario the place we had too many good gamers and needed to make choices.
As the pinnacle of the academy, I all the time say that that is in all probability a consequence of the higher work we’re doing right here. Then I’m not indignant anymore after I take into consideration these gamers and their conditions.
Q. How tough is it to inform a younger participant that he could not make the Bayern first workforce?
Jochen Sauer: You can not evaluate one participant with one other or one participant’s profession path with one other. Each scenario is totally different, and you must talk about each resolution on the idea of the person participant.
5 years in the past, we principally had solely two choices: maintain the participant for the primary workforce or let him go. We had no different possibility.
Now, with our Purple & Gold community and the atmosphere of golf equipment we work and cooperate with, we are able to provide gamers totally different pathways.
Generally these pathways may even lead the participant again to Bayern. Arijon Ibrahimovic is an instance. He went by sure mortgage spells and is now a part of the primary workforce.
When you can speak overtly and on to a participant and provide him totally different pathways, it turns into simpler for him to resolve what’s greatest for him to grow to be an expert and probably return to Bayern Munich two or three years later.
Q. Uli Hoeness has referred to as for Bayern to present extra alternatives to academy gamers. What does that imply to you?
Jochen Sauer: It particularly helps our gamers. If any individual like Uli Hoeness believes that we now have high quality right here, that offers the gamers confidence that they will make it.
It additionally helps the coaches on the Campus as a result of they really feel that the membership’s management believes they’re doing an excellent job.
Each time a participant will get an opportunity to coach with the primary workforce and makes it, like Lennart Karl, there may be extra belief from the first-team administration and training workers that we now have sufficient high quality to combine younger gamers.
You do not essentially all the time have to switch a participant for some huge cash.
Vincent Kompany additionally performs an necessary position. He is without doubt one of the uncommon coaches who’s courageous sufficient to place younger gamers into the workforce.
That can be a part of his DNA as a participant. He grew up at Anderlecht in an academy system the place there was all the time a have to combine younger gamers. As a coach at Anderlecht, he did the identical.
Q. At what stage do brokers grow to be concerned within the careers of younger gamers?
Jochen Sauer: Sadly, brokers have gotten concerned earlier and earlier. There was a scenario the place a 16- or 17-year-old in all probability had an agent. These days, there are just a few gamers left who’re 12 or 13 with out some sort of adviser or agent round them.
Generally the advisers or managers are even the dad and mom, which might be the worst case as a result of they aren’t all the time goal.
The involvement additionally depends upon the agent. Some are extra concerned in contractual issues, whereas others perceive the soccer aspect and profession pathway.
In a scenario like Lennart Karl’s, when Michael Ballack was a participant on the highest stage, in case you are discussing the participant’s profession pathway, you contain such an agent earlier.
For gamers beginning at 16, I might say 99 per cent have an agent or at the very least their dad and mom concerned in discussions about growth and subsequent steps.
Q. What was the scenario with Lennart Karl?
Jochen Sauer: Final yr in March, I watched an Underneath-17 sport with Michael Ballack, and we mentioned Lennart’s subsequent steps. We had been speaking about integrating him into the Underneath-19s and probably sending him on mortgage to a better league than the fourth division as a result of we felt he wasn’t getting the proper stage of competitors.
It was a really constructive dialogue. However three or 4 weeks later, we had been discussing integrating him into the primary workforce!
Even Michael Ballack by no means anticipated that Lennart might grow to be a first-team participant six weeks after we had mentioned probably loaning him to a third-division workforce.
That exhibits how rapidly issues can change in soccer. It’s an ongoing dialogue.
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