All about the next opponent: interview with Bayern fans Jojo and Laura | OneFootball

The inter­na­tio­nal break is over, and VfB Stutt­gart is hea­ding straight to Munich. Bay­ern fans Jojo and Lau­ra tell us how things are going with the record cham­pi­ons.

Rund um den Brust­ring: How is your sea­son going so far?

Jojo: So far, pret­ty decent. We’re still deal­ing with inju­ries, and the last three games were some­what dis­ap­poin­ting, but you can defi­ni­te­ly see the game plan, and from here, things can only go uphill.

Lau­ra: The sea­son is still way too young to assess pro­per­ly, but we had a gre­at start in the Bun­des­li­ga. The 1–0 loss against Aston Vil­la in the Cham­pi­ons League wasn’t ide­al, of cour­se, but we have all the stats on our side. All in all, I think we can be satis­fied. Espe­ci­al­ly against Lever­ku­sen, we pro­ved our qua­li­ty and were cle­ar­ly the only team play­ing for the win.

What’s your goal for the sea­son? Will only a treb­le be enough, as always, or would you be satis­fied with less after last sea­son wit­hout a title?

Jojo: It’s the “Fina­le Dahoam” (final at home). Any­thing less than a treb­le is not­hing.

Lau­ra: I think a club like FC Bay­ern must always have the treb­le as the ulti­ma­te goal. Espe­ci­al­ly with the “Fina­le Dahoam” high on the list, and the Bun­des­li­ga title should also come back to Munich. Per­so­nal­ly, I wat­ched last season’s much-pre­dic­ted “Bay­ern down­fall” with a smi­le – a title­l­ess sea­son is not the end, and the play­ers are pro­ba­b­ly even hung­rier now.

What’s your assess­ment of Vin­cent Kom­pa­ny?

Jojo: Very com­pe­tent, even on a per­so­nal level. His approach fits per­fect­ly into Bayern’s once-feared DNA. If they can fix the minor defen­si­ve issues, things couldn’t go bet­ter.

Lau­ra: Very posi­ti­ve. It seems like all the play­ers are buy­ing into his idea, and he seems to con­nect well with ever­yo­ne, sel­ling his phi­lo­so­phy effec­tively. His mul­ti­l­in­gua­lism cer­tain­ly helps with such an inter­na­tio­nal team. So far, he seems very calm, and suc­cess is pro­ving him right. Bay­ern is back to play­ing pos­ses­si­on foot­ball, which suits them well. But the real test will be how he hand­les losing a few games. I’m curious to see if his stub­born­ness will get in the way or if he will hand­le it con­fi­dent­ly.

What do you think of the new sig­ning and for­mer VfB play­er Hiro­ki Ito? Do you think he has a chan­ce to estab­lish hims­elf with you long-term?

Jojo: Ito wasn’t signed wit­hout reason, espe­ci­al­ly for his ball-play­ing skills. I’m curious to see how things go once he’s fit again.

Lau­ra: Ito is an out­stan­ding left-back who­se main talent lies in defen­se. The ques­ti­on is how he will fit into the back four sin­ce Alphon­so Davies and Upa­me­ca­no are curr­ent­ly very solid. He got inju­red befo­re the sea­son star­ted and hasn’t play­ed a minu­te yet, so we’ll see how well he inte­gra­tes into the team once he’s fit again. Due to a lack of alter­na­ti­ves, he’ll sure­ly get some minu­tes – whe­ther he’ll beco­me a regu­lar is yet to be seen.

What do you think of Bay­ern talent Frans Krät­zig, who’s curr­ent­ly on loan at VfB?

Jojo: I haven’t seen enough of him, eit­her with us or with you. But I’d be hap­py for him to suc­ceed – he’s a genui­ne­ly nice guy.

Lau­ra: Frans is a gre­at play­er, and I’m glad he’s get­ting game time at VfB! He seems to have embra­ced the left-back posi­ti­on well and has a strong com­pe­ti­tor in Maxi Mit­tel­städt. I actual­ly see him as more of an attack­ing play­er (dream goal with Bay­ern against Liver­pool), but I think he still needs to figu­re that out for hims­elf. Frans grew up at Bay­ern, and with more expe­ri­ence, I can see him beco­ming a can­di­da­te for our first team. Eit­her way, I think he’ll make his way in the Bun­des­li­ga.

Nübel is also on loan from Bay­ern. Do you think he can dethro­ne Manu­el Neu­er next year, or is his future out­side Alli­anz Are­na?

Jojo: If Neu­er real­ly reti­res, the spot will be per­fect for Nübel. But only he can deci­de if he wants to come back or try his luck else­whe­re.

Lau­ra: I think Nübel is curr­ent­ly the best Ger­man goal­kee­per under 30, which makes him an opti­on for Bay­ern. Whe­ther the loan spell and Neuer’s reti­re­ment line up remains to be seen. Nübel is show­ing how strong he is at VfB, but I’m not sure if he’s miss­ing that final 5% of talent to con­sis­t­ent­ly deli­ver top per­for­man­ces at Cham­pi­ons League level.

What are your strengths and weak­ne­s­ses? How would you descri­be Bayern’s foot­ball?

Jojo: Our strength is defi­ni­te­ly that we con­trol the game against even the stron­gest oppon­ents and impo­se our DNA on it. That’s the old Bay­ern. Weak­ne­s­ses are still in finis­hing and coun­ter-defen­se.

Lau­ra: The strengths are par­ti­cu­lar­ly in pos­ses­si­on foot­ball, which suits most Bay­ern play­ers, and in the pres­sing. Our weak­ne­s­ses are main­ly at the back – after his long inju­ry break from the ski­ing acci­dent, Manu­el Neu­er hasn’t retur­ned to his old form, and age is cat­ching up with him. We need to estab­lish a new No. 1 soon and not wait too long. Min­jae Kim strug­gles to main­tain a high level con­sis­t­ent­ly, and Davies seems to have found his form again. The long-term solu­ti­on for the full-back posi­ti­on, whe­re Guer­rei­ro and Lai­mer are curr­ent­ly alter­na­ting, is also uncer­tain. I’m hop­eful for Sta­ni­sic, who will hop­eful­ly be fit soon. All in all, we’re play­ing incre­di­bly domi­nant foot­ball at the moment, as all the tac­ti­cal data shows. It’s real­ly fun to watch Bay­ern work their magic.

Stutt­gart won 3–1 in the last encoun­ter. What does VfB need to do to repeat that?

Jojo: Bay­ern will defi­ni­te­ly domi­na­te the game. But Enzo Mil­lot could do what Omar Mar­moush did last time, if things go wrong.

Lau­ra: VfB won’t have much pos­ses­si­on. Your chan­ce lies in crea­ting quick tran­si­ti­ons and finis­hing your chan­ces well. You’d need to bypass the mid­field quick­ly and then exploit the defen­se, which is curr­ent­ly not set up opti­mal­ly.

What’s your pre­dic­tion and fee­ling for the game?

Jojo: 3–1 Bay­ern. We’ll con­trol the game, espe­ci­al­ly with your defen­se wea­k­en­ed by trans­fers. But Mil­lot will pro­ba­b­ly slip through once.

Lau­ra: I’m loo­king for­ward to a gre­at match. My pre­dic­tion: 3–1 – may­be with a nice Oli­se dou­ble?

Thank you!

Note: This inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man via ChatGPT

Pic­tu­re: © Alex­an­der Hassenstein/Getty Images