Hoeness: Alphonso Davies “will be world-class”

Alphonso Davies delivered an outstanding performance for Bayern Munich against Borussia Dortmund in Saturday’s Klassiker. The Canadian started at left-back, squaring off against BVB star Jadon Sancho and a red-hot Achraf Hakimi. With a little help from his friends, he kept both at bay — Sancho was so thoroughly cowed that Lucien Favre took him off after only 36 minutes. Davies performance not only caught the eye of fans: teammates and Bayern’s managers all were impressed.

Sport1 collected their praise for the youngster: the highest of all? None other than Uli Hoeneß himself. “He will be world-class!” Hoeneß said after his final match as Bayern’s president.

Interim coach Hansi Flick elaborated on Davies’ qualities:

He is fast, has enormous speed. We saw that today. It is not so easy to play against Hakimi or Sancho, but he kept both of them under control really very well; neither got away from him.

Davies won 74 percent of his duels, made 37 (!) sprints, and maintained a passing accuracy of 92 percent.

Leon Goretzka was thoroughly impressed by Davies energy and tenacity. He told Sport1,

He played a fantastic game. We all knew that the potential is there. He is an absolute machine! We can definitely look forward to more such performances in the future.

None other than Franck Ribéry was on hand at the Allianz Arena to witness Davies’ spectacular game on his former hunting grounds. Ribéry was delighted for him:

He did great and played fantastically. I’m happy for him. He’s still young, inexperienced. When you play against Dortmund, you have a lot of pressure. He did everything well. But the whole team played well.

Sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic, who was instrumental in bringing Davies to Munich, was obviously pleased by his protege. He said,

Phonzie already showed in January that he can play here. It’s not surprising that he delivers such a world-class performance after five games, but it’s good for all of us that such a young man plays so dominantly.

He has immense qualities, but he can still improve. He still has a lot of work to do in himself. We’re watching out very carefully that he stays grounded. That’s the most important thing.

Given everything we know about Davies’ attitude, that should not be a problem.