Professional sport is merciless. Even the greatest sporting achievements are worth nothing if the executives believe that this value could be a losing proposition in the future. There are many examples of this. The basketball players of the Chicago Bulls, for example, were the most spectacular and successful team in the 1990s before manager Jerry Krause started calculating. In his equation, he subtracted the ages of U-30 stars Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman and their salaries from the supposed prospect of success and the result was a clear minus in his head.
The computing days have also begun at the record German soccer champions FC Bayern Munich. And here, too, it is tricky. Robert Lewandowski is 33 years old and probably the best player currently on the planet. Thomas Müller is a year younger, athletically only a Mü worse than Lewandowski, but all the more identification. Both still have a contract until 2023 and both earn a lot of money with Munich and would like to do that longer than next year if there was a corresponding offer. The two constantly provide arguments for continued employment. Back in the Champions League on Tuesday. Opponents RB Salzburg broke them up 7-1 with a total of five goals and one assist, more or less in twos.
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So what to do? Collect something for both of them and save the expensive salaries and in return sign a few young players with great potential for value growth?
Now Bayern aren’t the Bulls and football isn’t basketball. But maybe a look back at US sports history will actually help the decision-makers around Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidzic. After the Chicago Bulls sold out in the late 1990s, manager Jerry Krause was able to clap his hands for a few years if he was in the black. But the Bulls should still not achieve anywhere near the success and radiance of that time. Krause never wanted to admit it to himself: but he had clearly miscalculated.
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