Weekend Warm-up: How hard will it be for Bayern Munich to keep Jamal Musiala and is the team set up to be successful around him?; World Cup predictions; Throwing it back to The Lemonheads; & MORE!

Bayern Munich gem Jamal Musiala is one of the most sought-after talents in all of the Europe.

There is no longer any point in denying that.

With a contract that runs though 2026, however, it will not be easy for any club to pry him from the cold, dead hands of club sporting director Hasan “Brazzo” Salihamidžić.

Still...the vultures are circling.

Musiala has been Bayern Munich’s best player this season and was Germany’s best player during the team’s brief and disappointing stint at the World Cup in Qatar. Sensing that the interest level in Musiala is getting a lot more serious from some other major clubs, Salihamidžić and Bayern Munich’s brass are looking to lock down the youngster for even longer — and much earlier than anyone expected.

In March of 2021, Musiala inked a five-year extension, but now Bayern Munich wants to already extend that deal and make Musiala very rich.

Sounds like a good deal, right? It certainly should for the 19-year-old.

As we learned earlier this week, Bayern Munich’s current deal with Musiala is laced with incentive-based clauses that the youngster is quickly triggering. The club knows what it has in the gem and wants to lock him down long-term — especially because the likes of Liverpool and Manchester United are lurking.

According to a report from Fichajes, the two Premier League clubs, along with Real Madrid, are eager to bring in Musiala:

One of the teams that has been most interested in the signing of Jamal Musiala is undoubtedly Real Madrid, but the truth is that other clubs such as Manchester United or Liverpool are also very attentive to the situation of the young player. German. At the moment, Bayern is going to do everything possible to renew his contract and it seems that he has a good chance of getting it since the player is very happy with his importance under the orders of Julian Nagelsmann, who considers him the undisputed starter at only 19 years old.

Should Bayern Munich be worried? Maybe, but the club is being proactive. Aside of what many would consider to be premature talks for a contract extension (it’s never too early with a talent like Musiala if you ask me), manager Julian Nagelsmann has reportedly already made Musiala the starter at the No. 10 position, pushing club stalwart Thomas Müller into a playing time battle with Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting at striker.

It was a lack of being proactive that put Bayern Munich in this position, however. When Robert Lewandowski made his push out the door to leave for FC Barcelona, the club panicked, found the first big name it could get its hands on (Sadio Mané) and added him to the mix regardless of fit.

Of course, that had ramifications. Sure, Mané is a good guy, a great teammate, and a very good player, but his player profile at Bayern Munich was already filled. Musiala, Kingsley Coman, Serge Gnabry, Leroy Sané were already available to play wing. To cater to Mané — and to help divvy up playing time among that group + Thomas Müller, Nagelsmann experimented with a 4-2-2-2, which has allegedly been dumped in favor of a traditional 4-2-3-1. Some would consider that move a stall tactic to give Nagelsmann a chance to figure out exactly what he had on this roster. Others would say that the coach was just try to best utilize the weapons he had available.

Whatever the case, if it seems like a lot of scrambling, it surely has been just that.

For Musiala, though, things are settling out of need. The club cannot afford to risk alienating its finest young talent — even at the expense of its finest old talent.

Now, Nagelsmann’s player management and ingenuity will be put to the test. How does be best turn this roster that has no true, top-level No. 9, has no healthy Lucas Hernandez, and a locker room that has already been griping this season about playing time into a real Champions League contender.

The short answer: He can’t.

This season appears to be one of those that is best going to be used for figuring out who needs to stay and who needs to go from the roster. For Musiala, those developments will likely be key to what he decides to do with this future: Stick around and become a club legend...or take the money and run?

Either way, he won’t be wrong with whatever he decides, he’ll be reacting to the environment around him.

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Bavarian Podcast Works — Weekend Warm-up Podcast: Season 2, Episode 22

After a one-week hiatus (thanks to Schnitzel for running with a combination Weekend Warm-up Podcast/Postgame Show last week), I am here to talk all things Bayern Munich and Germany...and boy is there a lot to talk about.

With all of that said, let’s get down to it. Here is what we have on tap for this week’s loaded episode of the Weekend Warm-up:

• The aftermath of Germany’s flameout, who’s to blame, why the team failed, where to go from here.
• Other World Cup musings including Brazil’s incredible play, Spain’s failure, the rise to fame for Josko Gvardiol and Dayot Upamecano, and more.
• Bayern Munich’s rumored positional battles and what that means.
• The ridiculous Kingsley Coman for Christian Pulisic swap rumor.
• Bayern Munich’s decision to pass on Joao Felix.

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Song of the Week: “Mrs. Robinson” by The Lemonheads

When it comes to cover songs, this is an all-time great. The Lemonheads took this tune and turned it completely upside down into a song that became an early-90s smash that still gets play on alt rock stations to this day.

The genius of Evan Dando and his bandmates in picking this song to be the one that they morphed into a modern rock single was genius. If you are unfamiliar, The Lemonheads had several really quality songs in that time period and they were a big deal during the era.

For those of us who lived through it, you undoubtedly remember it (whether you like it or not is another question), but if you are young and somehow haven’t heard it, you will enjoy it (at least I think you will!):

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Predictions

It has been a pretty good World Cup as far as predictions go (though not great because I YOLO’d a few games hoping for a big score), but this round could be primed for upsets. Will going chalk work? Let’s see:

• Netherlands 1-2 Argentina: I think both of these teams are a tad overrated (particularly Argentina), but I think Lionel Messi’s bunch will do just enough to survive and advance.
• France 3-2 England: Clearly, this is the match of the round. The “King stay the King”, though, as England just has not shown enough for me to say they can dethrone France.
• Croatia 1-3 Brazil: I have already outed myself as rooting for Croatia, so this is painful, but Brazil looks too strong at this point. The only caveat I can throw in is that we have not seen what happens when things get tough for Brazil. Will they stick together or shred into pieces? If Croatia can get an early goal and muck the game up, we might find out a lot about Brazil’s mettle.
• Morocco 1-2 Portugal: This one is tough to call. Morocco has become the darling of the tourney, while Portugal has meshed way better in this tourney than I ever thought it would. I’ll go with the Portuguese to get through in a very tough match. Truthfully, I won’t be surprised if Morocco pulls off another upset.

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Prediction Records

• Last World Cup match day record: 7-1
• Last Bundesliga match day record: 4-5
• Overall Bundesliga record: 64-69
• DFL-Supercup record: 1-0
• DFB-Pokal record: 2-0
• Champions League record: 5-1
• World Cup overall record: 35-21
• WWU overall record: 107-91
• Guest predictions: 7-4