Thursday, January 06, 2022
Flown in from Spain
FC Bayern promotes Ibrahimovic to the professional squad
Bayern are missing more than a dozen professionals for the second half of the Bundesliga season. The record champions have to find creative ways to make their squad competitive. According to reports, two 16-year-olds are being brought back from Spain because of this.
Anyone with a bit of experience in amateur football shouldn’t be too unfamiliar with this scenario. Shortly before the game, the rejections pile up, the squad is noticeably shrinking and at some point the question inevitably arises: who will actually play for us? At about this point, FC Bayern also seems to have arrived. The Bundesliga autumn champions are before the start of the second half of the season tomorrow, Friday (8.30 p.m. / Sat1, DAZN and in the live ticker at ntv.de) Badly decimated because nine professionals tested positive for the corona virus on their return from the short winter break and are therefore definitely canceled at least for this game. What apparently drives the Munich to extraordinary measures in order to still put together a competitive team.
The methods are obviously very similar to those that are also used in the lower classes: second teams and youth teams to find out who is available and who can help out in exceptional cases. As Sport1 now reports, FC Bayern is even ready to fly in two 16-year-olds. Because the young players Arijon Ibrahimovic and Paul Wanner are currently with the German U17 team at the training camp in Spain, but should now have the chance of an unexpected professional debut. The record champions have spared “no expense or effort”, writes Sport1, in order to bring the duo from Andalusia back to the Bavarian capital.
According to the report, the explanation for the great effort is an obvious one: On the one hand, Ibrahimovic and Wanner are regularly tested negative for Corona due to their trip with the German Football Association, on the other hand they are already back in training at all. Because neither the regional league team nor the U19 FC Bayern have returned from the winter break. In addition, coach Julian Nagelsmann already knows the two offensives and is convinced of their talent. Sports director Hasan Salihamidzic and technical director Marco Neppe “even believe they can make the leap to the very top,” according to Sport1.
FC Bayern can expect up to 14 failures
The Munich team is missing nine professionals just because of positive corona tests (Kingsley Coman, Alphonso Davies, Lucas Hernández, Tanguy Nianzou, Manuel Neuer, Omar Richards, Leroy Sané, Corentin Tolisso, Dayot Upamecano), also Josip Stanisic (muscle injury), Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting and Bouna Sarr (both Africa Cup) are not available, and the use of Leon Goretzka and Niklas Süle is also questionable due to injuries. Gladbach’s sports director Max Eberl confirmed yesterday, Wednesday, an initiative by FC Bayern to cancel and postpone the start of the second half of the Bundesliga at short notice.
Paragraph 2 of the DFL’s rules of play states under point 3 (“Dismissal due to illness of players”) that applications for cancellation are to be rejected if: a team “has more than 15 licensed players and / or amateurs eligible to play in the licensed team / Contract Players “are available. Of these, at least nine must be licensed players, including a goalkeeper. Amateur and contract players who are eligible to play in the licensed team can take the remaining squad seats. Injured or banned players, however, are considered “available” because they are typical of sports. Should Goretzka and Süle be absent due to an injury, this does not reduce the number of players at FC Bayern, even if the player can of course still not play.