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After Saturday's Champions League victory over Borussia Dortmund, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge sat down with Bayern Munich's official website and conducted an interview. While you can read the entire thing here, let's take a look at one really important part of the interview.
Talking of the future, Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, Claudio Pizarro and Daniel van Buyten are out of contract in June. Have you held talks with these players?
Tymo has told us he's going to leave. He's going to tell us his destination after the cup final. We've arranged with Daniel and Claudio to sit down and talk after the cup final.
Franck Ribery has let it be known he could imagine signing another contract extension.
Frank has informed us he'd be delighted to sign an extension, and is also thinking of finishing his career at Bayern. I've always said the door is open, and he only has to walk through it. He's been here six years, which shows how happy he is with us. We have a good partnership with him, and we know all about his quality. There's no reason why we shouldn't extend his contract.
Whoa. I get it. He's talking about four players, and it's a lot to absorb right away. Let's break it down.
Anatoliy Tymoshchuk
Tymo has told us he's going to leave. He's going to tell us his destination after the cup final.
Sad news on the Tymoshchuk front with the Ukrainian set to leave the club. He's been an admirable player over the last few seasons. Stepping into the last season's Champions League Final against Chelsea and playing centerback for the suspended Holger Badstuber was very impressive considering it's not his natural position.
Where is Tymo heading? Reports suggest he is headed back to Zenit Saint Petersburg.
Claudio Pizarro and Daniel Van Buyten
We've arranged with Daniel and Claudio to sit down and talk after the cup final.
Both players are already in their mid-30s and seem quite content to be role players on championship-winning teams. At their age, there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Both were huge contributors to Bayern in this campaign and will likely do the same next season. I expect we'll see both sign one year extensions in the near future.
Franck Ribery
Frank has informed us he'd be delighted to sign an extension, and is also thinking of finishing his career at Bayern. I've always said the door is open, and he only has to walk through it. He's been here six years, which shows how happy he is with us. We have a good partnership with him, and we know all about his quality. There's no reason why we shouldn't extend his contract.
Ribery has been excellent in his six seasons in Munich. While his performance in the Final against BVB on Saturday wasn't his best, the argument can be easily made that Ribery is the Bundesliga's player of the season (edit: Ribery was just named the Bundesliga player of the season). There's been a lot of speculation that Ribery (and Arjen Robben, for that matter) doesn't fit into Pep Guardiola's "style". We don't know what that "style" will be at Bayern, so you can't really make that kind of judgment yet. It appears Ribery is close to signing a two year extension that will keep him in Munich until 2017 when he'll be 34 years old. ESPN has several good quotes from Ribery's appearance on RMC.
"[The contract extension] is in the pipeline. I hope that after the DFB Cup final, I can extend again. I think I'll soon have a meeting with the board. In any case, I want to continue. I want to finish my career here. I've been here six years, I feel good, I'm enjoying myself, I'm in my bubble. My wife and children are very happy too. I don't see myself quitting Bayern. If I could do ten years here, that would be magnificent."