After a chaotic quest, Bayern have finally found their new coach, Belgian Vincent Kompany, 38, who is entrusted with the dual mission of regaining the national title and aiming for the Champions League final at home.
Former Belgian international defender, Vincent Kompany has signed a three-season contract until June 30, 2027 with Bayern Munich, a club where over the last two decades only the Spaniard Pep Guardiola has stayed for three full seasons (2013/16) on the bench.
“I can’t wait to tackle the most basic things: working with the players, building a team. If the foundations are good, success will follow”, he said in a press release released by the club. He will be officially presented to the press on Thursday.
Having passed through Hamburg at the start of his playing career from 2006 to 2008, Kompany speaks German perfectly, which has often been a decisive criterion in the choice of Munich leaders.
Quadruple English champion under the colors of Manchester City (in 2012, 2014, 2018 and 2019), where he played from 2008 to 2019 and was captain from 2013, Kompany very quickly switched to a coaching career in his training Belgian club, Anderlecht, even taking on the double role of coach-player in 2019/20.
– Guardiola’s influence
With the Citizens, he learned as a player from the best coaches, Roberto Mancini, Manuel Pellegrini and Pep Guardiola.
“Vinny, I have a feeling that sooner or later he will come here. I don’t know when, but he will come. He has the right tools. He is already a great manager, look what he achieved last season with Burnley”Guardiola had also said at the end of January, after City’s victory against Burnley in the Premier League, in some way inducting him as his successor.
According to Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, former vice-president then chairman of the board of directors of Bayern and current member of the Supervisory Board, Guardiola also played a role in Munich’s choice of Kompany.
“He influenced me a lot because he was the one who broke down the game so much that I was able to understand it completely. With his absolute clarity, he was the trigger for me to understand football in my own way”Kompany explained.
After his time on the Anderlecht bench, Kompany returned to English stadiums in the summer of 2022, at the helm of Burnley, with whom he topped the Championship (the 2nd division) last season, failing however to maintain the club in the Premier League this season.
– Parallel with Xabi Alonso
An end to the career of players under Guardiola, a quick start on the bench with second-tier clubs, and a first experience in a top club in the Bundesliga: the parallels with the career of Xabi Alonso, who became The autumn 2022 coach of Leverkusen and champion this season, are numerous, even if the pressure promises to be much greater for the Belgian on the side of Säbener Strasse, the headquarters of Bayern.
His mission at Bayern (six times winner of the Champions League) promises to be perilous, while the Munich residents are experiencing in 2024 their first year since 2011 without winning a single trophy (3rd in the Bundesliga, eliminations in the round of 16 of the Cup and in the semi-finals of the Champions League).
At the end of February, its leaders decided to part ways with Thomas Tuchel at the end of the season, and therefore to reduce the contract of the technician who arrived at the end of March 2023 by twelve months.
The club suffered several setbacks in its quest for a successor, between Xabi Alonso who preferred to stay at Leverkusen, Julian Nagelsmann who extended his lease at the head of the German selection until the 2026 World Cup, and Ralf Rangnick, who has decided to concentrate on his task as Austria coach until 2026.
Faced with these multiple failures, Bayern had discussed with Tuchel, but the two parties were unable to find an agreement to continue the adventure together.
