Bayern are losing their German identity-Hitzfeld

and it begins

Former Bayern Munich coach Ottmar Hitzfeld has warned the Bundesliga champions not to lose their German identity.

The Bavarians have acquired the services of a number of Spanish-speaking players since the arrival of Pep Guardiola at the Allianz Arena, with Arturo Vidal set to join the likes of Xabi Alonso, Thiago Alcantara, Juan Bernat and Javi Martinez.

In addition, they have lost club icon Bastian Schweinsteiger to Manchester United, while Mario Gotze is being linked with a move to Juventus, and Hitzfeld has voiced his concerns over the recent developments.

"Bayern should be wary and make sure German remains the No.1 language in the team - and not Spanish," Hitzfeld was quoted as saying by Kicker.

"This appears to be a new trend at Bayern. FCB previously always had the goal of signing the best German players.

"Mario Gotze is the perfect example of a German player who was made for Bayern. This fantastic player should challenge himself and convince Guardiola that he should be an undisputed starter."

Bayern have also brought in Brazil international Douglas Costa, German youngster Joshua Kimmich and shot stopper Sven Ulreich this summer.

Agent pep

I don't even think that it's an inherent problem that there's a lot of Spanish players there. The problem I see is that it's not the good Spanish players, Pep seems to sign them just so he doesn't need to learn more German. Who the hell would've signed Bernat at Bayern?

Do i have to post the team Hitzfeld had lol?

Makes Pep look like a honorary German lmao.

Xenophobia.. so inventive

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Do i have to post the team Hitzfeld had lol?

Makes Pep look like a honorary German lmao.

loooool 7 non german starters in that cl final

It's not really xenophobic, it's just that Bayern have advertised themselves as a very grounded, and regional, bavarian club. Just seems odd. Like if Löw was hired by Barca and sacked the talented Catalans to bring in medium tier Germans.

Of course quality is something we can always discuss. Who are the players you don't like btw?
I just don't like this "german identity"-stuff like it's important to have more players of one specific nationality. There are obvious reasons why german clubs would have mostly german players but it's not like it's bad if they have less of them.

I don't particularly disagree with it but Hitzfeld comes off as very hypocritical considering the team he had while Bayern manager.

Well yeah, but with Hitzfeld it's not as if Bayern had the option to easily get lots of German talent. This current Bayern had a German core, and could've stayed predominantly German. I don't think that you have to go all out and keep the team all-German against all sanity, but if you have excellent German players I just don't see the point in ostracizing them in favor of foreign players.

But it's the same with other clubs. I just am sitll of the opinion that football clubs should still represent a regional identity. I've never seen something like the "Galacticos" as something to aspire to.
There's a reason Bundesliga clubs are fan owned. And local identity is part of it.

And I don't think it's that hard to see the difference between that, and blind nationalism.

Also Hitzfeld isn't criticizing Pep, he's going after the entire club, which is a lot less hypocritical.

Regarding the players I have "problems" with:
Thiago I think is nice, but I think Bayern should've done everything to keep a midfield of Schweinsteiger and Kroos, with Schweinsteigers injury keep Gustavo, and wait for Javi to get better. I just see Thiago as a rotational player with a lot of talent who gets a lot more first team action than he would if he wasn't the teacher's pet.
Bernat is nice, but should not start at Bayern.

On the other hand, I might end up eating my words once all the players are actually fit. Maybe I'm wrong about Pep. Last season saw so many injuries, it's hard to make any assumption as to how Pep selects his squad.

Anyway, TL;DR:
Bayern advertise themselves as having a strong regional identity. They should either stop saying "Mia san mia", or stop converting to the Barca Rejects Allstars.

Bayern Munich are interested in Barcelona B winger Adama (19), who has a 15M buyout fee. [rac1]

linetty wrote:Bayern Munich are interested in Barcelona B winger Adama (19), who has a 15M buyout fee. [rac1]

Uncle Hoe from his prison cell: "I don't like black players. I'm not a racist. But I don't like them."

Wait, this is actually serious? RAC1 seems to be reporting it.

Guardiola has personally told Adama he want him at Bayern. No formal bid yet. Barcelona open to listen to offers, permanent or loan. [rac1]

Great Leader Sprucenuce wrote:Do i have to post the team Hitzfeld had lol?

Makes Pep look like a honorary German lmao.

Even Jupp had only 5 Germans in the 2013 CL Final, all tho if Kroos wasn't injured it would've been 6. Tho he did have 8 in the 2012 final.

I've been saying Pep was more van Gaal than Cruyff for a long time. This reminds me of when van Gaal went to Barcelona and tried to turn Barcelona into Ajax 2.0

Pepito

is this really new ?
i remember Lizarazu saying that he never bothered learning german because everybody in Bayern spoke spanish .

Others were saying he was learning German in Oct 2012, even his brother said his German teacher went with him everywhere in NY I believe in one of those bio books of his

Pep should react to this by selling Muller, imo.

jibers wrote:I've been saying Pep was more van Gaal than Cruyff for a long time. This reminds me of when van Gaal went to Barcelona and tried to turn Barcelona into Ajax 2.0

Pepito

you wish

but

I split off the buy-out clauses discussion. Here you go: http://www.goallegacy.net/t38053-low-buy-out-clauses-for-young-players

Can't believe Pep has to answer this nonsense about German identity at Bayern.
Even if this is just an offshoot of it, there's a full flegded German nationalism revival on the march on all front these days, I could puke all *bleep* day long

Agree. This has to stop asap.

Lahm back to rb is great news for Bayern.

Hapless_Hans wrote:Can't believe Pep has to answer this nonsense about German identity at Bayern.
Even if this is just an offshoot of it, there's a full flegded German nationalism revival on the march on all front these days, I could puke all *bleep* day long

Well they are called "Bayern München" not "Internazionale Munich de Futbol. Soccer. Helas."
Not saying it's a great way of thinking, but while other clubs just happen to be stationed in this town or the other, Bayern have always been big on the Lederhosen and the white-and-blue...

Yes. And we still are.
That's why we take photographs of our Brazilian, Italian, Ukrainian, French, Basque, English-Canadian, Scottish, Polish, Japanese, Spanish or Peruvian players in Lederhosen.
That's more than enough folklore ffs.

Also, with Müller, Lahm, Badstuber, and until recently Schweinsteiger, Götze too, rarely has there been a more Bavarian, even Münchner, core in our team before, at least in the last 30 years.
Or do you reckon Thomas Linke, Effe, Jancker, Zickler, Ballack, Jerry Jeremies, are in any way more Bavarian than Giovane Elber or Juan Bernat? Even Matthäus is a Franke ffs.

Idiotic discussion. Everyone participating should be ashamed of themselves, the German media first and foremost.

Yeah I don't get how the question is posed either.
I'm only concerned with Pep preferring the Spaniards because they're his countrymen. I don't think he's marginalizing ze Germans any more than any other Bayern coach did.

And the identity crap is a red herring anyway. I still think he gives the likes of Thiago and Bernat better treatment, though. But as I've said before, I might easily be proven incorrect on that assumption once everyone's fit.

tbf, Hitzfeld was talking about the language, and camps, in the dressing room, in future subjunctive ("Bayern have to watch out that..").
Of course, the corresponding thread title on here didn't reflect that.

He's not wrong, but then one thing that works well as never before at Bayern now is the dressing room lol.
I don't want to know what it was like under Hitzfeld, or Trap.

I don't buy for a second Pep doesn't get along with Kroos, Schweini, or Müller.
On the contrary, I think their personal relationship was/is excellent, and it has been remarkable how continuously Pep has worked with the team that was there.
No high profile bust ups or oustings like other high profile coaches like to have.

That he uses, or rates, them differently than other coaches footballwise is another matter.
But even then, Kroos played most of all players last season, Schweini only didn't play when he was injured, let's not forget he was injured A LOT, Müller is seen as a striker, not midfielder, by Pep, so he's maybe used a TINY little bit more sparingly.

The whole discussion follows a narrative which comes from outside of the club, which doesn't stand factual scrutiny (similar to your 'agent Pep' narrative, Viva) and which is very annoying.

Maybe these posts can be moved to the identity thread.

With factual scrutiny, I for example mean that according to all the information I read Bernat is a Reschke/Sammer signing. Months before we signed him I read they had singled him out via scouting, not sure at all Pep was a driving force behind signing him.

And Bernat performed great all season. Noone in their right mind would want Contento to have stayed instead.
Even though Diego Contento, being at Bayern since 7 years old, of course was our Arch-Bavarian, despite being of Napolitan descent
That Bernat was out of his depth against Barca, as was Thiago, is another matter.
But really, it wouldn't hurt to take a good look at what measure and expectation one wants to apply to 21 year old new signing, if you're going to slate him as a player for that, with all the notable absences in that match, at that level. Also taking into account what he was up against.
Still, Bernat and Thiago let us down in that match, but you win together, and lose together ffs.


As for Thiago, you use him as a stand in for your Pep hate, viva.

There's no doubt a player of Thiago's quality deserves to play as much as possible, I couldn't be more excited to have a player like that playing for us and looking forward like crazy to his first hopefully intact season.
Everything points to his teammates feeling the same. They love it to have him, he's a sight for sore eyes.
In case you haven't noticed, Bayern's stadium fans love him too. The chants on his injury return were quite something, for a player who's had only played so few games at the club.