We had already heard about Hansi Flick’s desire to bring Timo Werner and Kai Havertz to Bayern Munich last summer — and even about Flick’s off-the-radar phone calls in an effort to convince the duo to move to Bavaria.
While that effort ultimately went for naught, there were a few other names that Flick allegedly submitted as requests to the front office at some point over the last year-and-a-half.
Goal journalist Ronan Murphy captured a report from Bild, which listed out three names that might surprise you:
Hansi Flick was interested in bringing Emre Can, Arne Maier, or Max Meyer to Bayern Munich, according to Bild. #FC Bayern
— Ronan Murphy (@swearimnotpaul) April 23, 2021
–
Let’s take a quick look at these players — though we do not know exactly when Flick made the requests:
- Emre Can: It is probably safe to assume that this request was made in January of 2020 during the winter transfer window when Can moved from Juventus to Borussia Dortmund on a loan assignment. At the time, this could have made a lot of sense for Bayern Munich. Can can fill many roles including as a defensive midfielder, center-back, or even an outside-back. The rationale behind the move is at least solid in helping give the squad more depth at multiple positions.
- Arne Maier: This is an interesting one. Heralded as one of Germany’s best young midfielders at one point, Maier has sort of fallen off of the map. In October of 2020, Maier moved to Arminia Bielefeld from Hertha Berlin on a loan assignment. It can likely be assumed that this was the timeframe where Flick made his request — which again at least offered some sound rationale. An inexpensive option to bring in on-loan, this might have been Flick’s counterproposal to the news that Bayern Munich was thinking of signing Marc Roca.
- Max Meyer: This one is a little easier to figure out. Meyer was wasting away for Crystal Palace’s reserve team and ultimately was released from his contract in January of 2021 when he signed with 1. FC Köln. A free transfer, Meyer might have been worth a flier for Bayern Munich, who knew at that point that some in-house options (Roca, Tiago Dantas) probably were not going to work out, leaving Flick with older (Javi Martinez), inexperienced (Jamal Musiala), or injury-prone (Corentin Tolisso) alternatives to support the midfield unit. Again, the thought-process was at least sound.
In the end, Flick got none of those players and it is impossible to speculate how bringing in any of those three would have affected the squad. One thing is for sure, though, when it comes to transfer requests, Flick probably should have had the Rolling Stones cued up frequently just to remind himself, “You can’t always get what you want.”
–
