Daily Schmankerl: Bild alleges paycut resentment at Bayern despite Müller statement, Coutinho and Firmino plot Liverpool reunion

COUT’ MOVE FOR KLOPP (The Sunday World)

[Editorial note: lol]

There’s this too:

[Editorial note: lol]

Bild alleges broad resentment over wages at Bayern (Bild)

Despite Thomas Müller’s video statement that the media deliberately misinterpreted his remark about the “paradoxical” nature of talking about transfers while wages were being cut, Bild has doubled-down on their story. The magazine wrote yesterday:

On the next day [Sunday] Bild officially followed up with Müller through the club, asking him three questions: “Would you prefer that Bayern not acquire any new players and instead pay the current players their full salary? Did the team have a say in the current salary cuts? What percent of your salary will you have to go without in June?”

Müller had a club spokesman communicate that he did not want to make further comments. But he stands by his statement. No word of a misinterpretation.

Bild further claims that “several players confirmed that the whole thing is big topic in the locker room. The upshot: sacrificing money for the Bayern associates goes without saying. But they don’t know for what the money is being used — for expensive transfers and cash bonuses?”

Finally, Bild also claims that there is some grumbling among the Bayern employees, as well. They are supposedly annoyed that the contracts of players like Manuel Neuer and Müller himself have been extended in the middle of the crisis, while associates’ pay raises of a few hundred euros have been put on ice.

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Convinced yet? Neither am I. Müller clearly has nothing more to say to Bild, and there is no reason to dispute his video statement about his original comment. Some fans or various reporters may not care about the DFB-Pokal, but players like Müller do very much, and I find his annoyance at the moment totally understandable.

I also don’t personally put much stock in Bild’s claims that “several” players or various unnamed associates are displeased by contract extensions and so on. It’s childish really: if you give me €1000 on the condition that I use it toward groceries, will you make me use specifically those ten €100 euro bills on groceries or can I put it in my bank account with the rest of my money?

I have almost no doubt in my mind that finance director Jan-Christian Dreesen has a spreadsheet on his work computer that can show what sums are being dedicated to employee salaries, the transfer war chest, and so on.

Bild also wants us to think that Müller is peeved because Bayern may spend big to sign a player who plays his position, Kai Havertz, but that is just muckraking nonsense. Müller wants to win, and he only ever gave the slightest hint of discontent this season when Niko Kovac shut him out of his starting lineup for weeks on end without justification.

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Marcel Reif: Müller was just thinking like my grandmother

Marcel Reif is 70 years old... but you get the point. The veteran journalist and soccer commentator cast a friendly glance at the controversy stirred up by Müller’s comment after the DFB-Pokal semifinal in his Sunday column.

Reif wrote,

His statements after the game against Frankfurt gave a brief glance in the “normal” world. A nine-figure sum has absolutely nothing to do with normal categories. For a brief moment, Müller thought like my grandmother: If you have the money, you can spend it. If not, then not.

But Reif, like all of us and Müller himself, knows that the soccer world, especially its transfer market, is not the “normal” world.

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Chris Richards self-critical but grateful

Bayern Munich II beat Waldhoff Mannheim 3-2 without help from Joshua Zirkzee, Kwasi Wriedt, and many other players. Our main man Chris Richards scored!

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Trapp wants to know what Goretzka is eating (SPORT1)

We are not the only people who noticed Leon Goretzka’s transformation into a muscular, goal-scoring monster over the break in the season. After Bayern defeated Eintracht Frankfurt in the DFB-Pokal, even opposing goalkeeper Kevin Trapp commented on Goretzka’s celebratory Instagram post, “What are you eating? Machine”:

Coming from Bochum, Goretzka must be packing on the pounds with a diet of currywurst, unless he has converted to Bavarian ways and switched to Weißwurst and Leberkäs.

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FC Köln’s Kingsley Ehizebue in awe of Bayern’s players (SPORT1)

Dutch-Nigerian defender Kingsley Ehizebue, who oddly enough was born in Munich, is enjoying his first season in the Bundesliga at 1. FC Köln. In an interview with Voetbal International, he shared, among other things, his admiration for the players of Bayern Munich.

“Everything they do looks so simple, so easy. But it is so incredibly good,” he said. Bayern demolished Köln 4-0 and 4-1 in their encounters this season.

“At Bayern, you think ten steps ahead. I don’t know what they are doing in Munich, but they are like robots,” he said.

Playing in the Bundesliga has been a learning experience for Ehizibue, who transferred to Köln from PEC Zwolle last summer. “In the Erededivise, you can make a mistake and correct it or still get by. Here everything is much deadlier.”

Besides Bayern’s bots, Ehizibue praised Jadon Sancho as “really very good” and Timo Werner as especially dangerous adversaries.

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Christian Streich makes the New York Times (NYT)

Just days ago, SC Freiburg extended the contract of legendary coach Christian Streich, who remains the longest-tenured head coach in the Bundesliga (head coach since Dec. 2011, on the staff since 1995).

Freiburg president Fritz Keller (also DFB president) said (Bundesliga.com), “Christian is able to produce the best possible opportunities with our club. He lives the values of our society and represents them credibly on and off the pitch. That is why we gladly continue our successful partnership.”

Now the New York Times has dedicated a feature sports article to the “Philosopher of the Black Forest”:

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Toby Alderweireld not ready to replace statue of King Leopold II (Daily Mail)

People all over the world have been questioning statues honoring men implicated in the history of slavery and oppression, from Confederate generals in the United States to British slave traders and now even the Leopold II, King of Belgium (reg. 1865-1909).

It was as the “Sovereign of the Congo Free State” — irony was also dead in the late 19th century — that Leopold has now drawn public outrage. Incredibly, Leopold laid claim to the Congo in Central Africa as a private enterprise that the European powers authorized on the condition that he improve the lives of the native inhabitants (wikipedia).

Instead, Leopold inaugurated a reign of terror “characterised by murder, torture, and atrocities, resulting from notorious systematic brutality” as he extracted a huge personal fortune in ivory and later rubber from the region. It is estimated that 10-15 million Africans died under Leopold’s regime. A taste of his methods:

Failure to meet rubber collection quotas was punishable by death. Meanwhile, the Force Publique were required to provide the hand of their victims as proof when they had shot and killed someone, as it was believed that they would otherwise use the munitions...for hunting. As a consequence, the rubber quotas were in part paid off in chopped-off hands.

A petition has been making the rounds that a statue of Leopold in Antwerp, should be replaced with one of native son Toby Alderweireld and over 1,000 people have signed it.

Alderweireld said, “‘I don’t think I will ever deserve a statue but I think it’s good to look at the history and learn from it. I don’t know if it is good to take down the statue and I’m not going to get involved in that, but I do think it is good to look back at the history and learn from it.”