Daily Schmankerl: Sané rethinking Bayern Munich, Thomas Müller won’t rule out leaving, “Bling-Bling” in Leipzig, and more!

Leroy Sané: new agent, who dis? (Bild)

Leroy Sané, according to Bild, haz a sad. Bayern Munich has not (and presumably will not) break the bank to sign him from Manchester City this January before the winter transfer window closes. Now, Bild claims, he doubts whether he wants to transfer to Bayern at all.

I will translate the two sentences in Bild’s story that claim to tell us anything we do not already know:

According to the information of Bild and Welt, however, the national player is doubting whether he wants to come to Munich at all.

For the player himself, in contrast, bringing him (to Munich) despite that [i.e., despite his injury] would have been proof of [Bayern’s] confidence in him. Now he has started mulling things over...

Falk put it this way in English on Twitter:

Ten days earlier, of course, Falk was singing a very different tune — namely, “Bye Bye Beckham, Buy Buy Bayern”:

Ah, but Sané was hoping for a winter transfer, you say, and now — ten days later — it has not happened. But Bild was already telling us the same thing then:

Nothing has changed about Sané’s intention of transferring to Bayern. On the contrary: Ramadani is known for boxing his players way out of clubs. This was the reason why Boateng also went to him, who has wanted to leave the German Rekordmeister already for some time.

Sané actually wanted to transfer to Bayern in the winter. That, however, hasn’t worked out.

Thomas Müller won’t rule out leaving Bayern Munich (Bild)

Another report with more smoke than fire. Bild says,

According to Sport Bild’s information, Müller still will not rule out leaving FC Bayern in the summer despite his contract until 2021. The Bayern bosses are aware of this.

... The topic is also still not off the table in the summer. Clubs from Italy and England are interested in him.

From (northern) Italy, of course, Müller could drive home over the weekend like Giovanni Trapattoni in the opposite direction, while he’d make a mint in the Premier League. But all of this talk is probably nonsense. The club supposedly plans to conduct talks with Müller in March.

Lynn Williams gets assist with one shoe (USWNT)

Sure, everyone expected the US Women to thrash Haiti. That’s how it goes. But no one guessed that Lynn Williams would assist Christen Press for the opening goal with just one shoe! It really happened:

It reminds me of the time when Austrian Michael Gregoritsch — then with Hamburg — found himself with a scoring opportunity after losing a shoe. “I thought, I’d go down in history,” he said, if he could have scored. Alas, he didn’t.

RB Leipzig look like g’scherte after flying in a barber from London (Bild)

RB Leipzig stumbled massively in their mission to destroy win the Bundesliga this past weekend. The LawnBallers capitulated to Eintracht Frankfurt 0-2 and thus let Bayern creep to within a point of catching them. Julian Nagelsmann was highly critical of his players after the game.

One of the amusing aspects of the defeat was what happened at the team hotel in Frankfurt beforehand: without coordinating with the club, the players had a famous British barber, Sheldon Edwards, flown in from London to give nine of them haircuts. “Who?” you wonder. The answer: Ampadu, Schick, Haidara, Adams, Upamecano, Lookman, Mukiele, Nkunku und Poulsen. With the exception of Schick — you do you, Patrik! — that is virtually all the people of color on Leipzig’s first team. But Edwards is a specialist — and is also the barber of Jadon Sancho, Antonio Rüdiger, and Raheem Sterling, among others.

Be that as it may, it’s not a great idea, and definitely not a great look before an embarrassing loss, to spend time having your hair done by a barber you had flown into (conveniently) to Frankfurt Airport.

Now, stop me if you’ve heard this one before — but Alfred Draxler, Bild’s senior soccer commentator, has the perfect headline: “With Bling-Bling you won’t catch Bayern.” Ah, of course. See, for Alfred, it’s perfectly fine when “young millionaires” take private jets “to go shopping in Milan or Paris, keep several luxury cars in their garage, and live a bling-bling life round the clock.” That’s their business, says Alfred, and that’s ok, he says.

But it’s not ok before a match, and Draxler quotes Ralf Rangnick, who would have bet a lot of money that someone other than Leipzig would have done such a thing. “Honestly, I’m at a loss about it,” Rangnick said. “It’s only a very small step from a barber in the team hotel to a gold steak.” Gasp — the ghost of Steakgate!

We all know how that story ends. As for “bling-bling,” I wish this subtly racist German label would get the press it deserves: none at all.

FC Pinzgau taking shots with its new kit