On Saturday, in FC Bayern’s narrow 1-0 victory over FC St. Pauli, Leon Goretzka was in Munich’s starting line-up. With Joshua Kimmich he formed the double six in the center of FC Bayern. What had been the absolute regulars in the record champions’ midfield for years is suddenly a big surprise. Since this summer, Leon Goretzka, who has always been an absolute top performer since his arrival in 2018, is suddenly no longer in demand.
From being eliminated to the starting eleven – Goretzka continues to fight
The Munich team tried to get rid of the 29-year-old in the summer. Sometimes in internal conversations, sometimes in public hints, sometimes in very explicit public statements in which people talked about internal conversations. But Leon Goretzka stayed – and he stayed calm. No big public statements, no bad moods in training. Just hard work and the hope of being able to convince the new coach Vincent Kompany.
Kompany, known to be a fan of fighter types, was quickly impressed. While Goretzka wasn’t even in the squad in the first games of the season, he was soon on the bench, collecting his first minutes as a substitute central defender – and continued to stay calm. He collected short appearances and praise from the coach. “Leon is important for us, and he will be important too,” said Kompany and was proven right. Because high-flyer Aleksandar Pavlovic broke his collarbone, a sudden need arose in the midfield center. And instead of Konrad Laimer or Raphael Guerreiro, the FC Bayern coach chose Goretzka as Palhinha’s replacement.
Müller: Goretzka “deserved the effort”
Eight minutes against VfB Stuttgart, 30 minutes against FC Barcelona, 29 minutes against VfL Bochum, 21 minutes against Union Berlin. In Hamburg he started on the pitch for the first time this season. It wasn’t a particularly good game from Goretzka, who took on the more offensive role alongside Kimmich. Goretzka didn’t have a particularly good game, played cautiously and didn’t exactly have the best passing rate (86 percent), but the game was still extremely important for the 57-time national player.
His teammates sought out and trusted him. Goretzka, as has already been shown in many interviews, can rely on the support of his teammates. Whether Pavlovic, who extensively celebrated Goretzka’s goal in the Champions League against Zagreb, Manuel Neuer and Kimmich, who publicly promoted the qualities of their colleague. After the St. Pauli game, it was Thomas Müller who praised him: “He’s a fighter. You have to be ready to fight for every second of playing time at FC Bayern. When the time comes, you have to be there. It Of course it’s nice to see that Leon has earned the effort.”
Friend praises Goretzka’s character
And there was also praise from the official side: “If we didn’t need him, he wouldn’t play. Leon is a player for FC Bayern Munich. He’s doing really well and was important again today,” said sports director Christoph Freund Maybe even happy now that a sale in the summer didn’t work out. “We spoke to him in the summer and told him that it would be difficult because the squad is the way it is. He said he wanted to face the competition. He performed well. Of course that says says a lot about a person, a character,” said Freund.
Kompany gives hope: “We will continue to do this in the future”
And Kompany also looked back on the transfer summer and then publicly praised his protégé: “I don’t think we need to talk about it. That was just the way it was. But afterwards we always saw that he continued to work and deserved this chance.” Kompany justified the deployment as “a logical decision for a team that needed a bit of freshness.”
And then Kompany added the sentence that Goretzka would probably be most pleased about: “We will continue to do it that way in the future.” The door at FC Bayern, from which his employer tried to show him the way out in the summer, is still open for Goretzka – and Goretzka is on the threshold. He is currently on the way back in, as an important part of the team who has lost his status but is already fighting to regain it. Or just to help where it is needed. The 29-year-old proves that he is a real team player. There is usually always a need for these. Also at FC Bayern.
