Douglas Costa preemptively squashes beef with Uli Hoeness

Uli Hoeness and Douglas Costa did not see eye-to-eye with one another during the Brazilian’s first tenure at Bayern Munich from 2015-2017 before he left for Juventus. Hoeness was still president of Bayern at the time and he felt that Costa did not possess the right attitude to be a Bayern player and he once even described the winger as a “mercenary.”

Per a new report from kicker, though, Costa said he’s prepared to keep the past in the past during his official unveiling as a Bayern player earlier this week. He joined the club on a one year loan from Juventus and joined Bouna Sarr, Marc Roca, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, and Tiago Dantas as deadline day signings for Bayern.

During his first official press conference being re-introduced as a Bayern player, Costa said that whatever disputes he and Hoeness had are merely a thing of the past.

“I think I’ve matured in Italy. But otherwise I haven’t changed. We haven’t spoken yet, but I don’t live in the past,” Costa said. “What happened is over. I think this issue is over. I want to give the best of myself and to get fully involved in the team.”

Hoeness is now no longer on Bayern’s executive board, but he is still consulted for certain decisions the club makes. He’s more in the background now than he was during Costa’s first spell at Bayern, but that doesn’t mean issues between the two can’t arise again, though that hopefully doesn’t happen. Time will tell how Costa’s attitude is around the club, but he seems ready to make an immediate impact. He’ll more than likely get the chance to do so in Bayern’s first round DFB-Pokal match against Oberliga side FC Düren.

Hansi Flick has already made it clear that he’s going to make a lot of squad rotations due to the packed schedule coming up. Just two days after the Pokal match, Bayern travel to take on Arminia Bielefeld in the Bundesliga and then have their opening group stage match of the Champions League against Atletico Madrid at the Allianz Arena.