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Since getting booed by his own fans in the first half of Bayern Munich’s 3-2 hinrunde win over FC Koln, Leroy Sane has been a completely revitalized player for both club and country. In his first season at the club, he failed to live up to expectations, but he’s put all of that behind him and has been a key player for Julian Nagelsmann in Bayern’s attack. He’s tallied 13 goals and 13 assists from 34 appearances across all competitions and only recently had been benched by Nagelsmann for what he claimed were purely tactical reasons.
Despite getting benched for Bayern’s last two Bundesliga matches and the club having gone through a bit of a weak patch, Sane is still confident his side has what it takes to win their tenth straight Bundesliga title and make a good run in the Champions League. In a recent interview, when he was asked about Bayern winning a record-breaking 10th Bundesliga title, Sane said he’s confident “because we are ready and hungry. We do our thing because we know what we can do. We want to show that we are the best team in Germany.” (Bild)
Sane, like the rest of Bayern’s squad, wants to be part of Bundesliga history since no one has ever won 10 league titles in a row in Germany. It’s extra motivation for this season, especially after Bayern went through a bit of a rough patch with the VfL Bochum loss, the draw to RB Salzburg, the poor first half against SpVgg Greuther Fürth, and the underwhelming 1-1 draw with Bayer Leverkusen. “This is something special. You can write history, then you have your place in the books. That was a little wake-up call to know: Now it’s really starting! We had a bit of a weaker spell but now we know we have to be there — and we will be,” he explained.
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After breezing through the group stages of the competition, Bayern had arguably their weakest performance of the Champions League in the first leg of the round of 16 against RB Salzburg. A last gasp effort from Kingsley Coman saw them escape Austria level on aggregate 1-1, but they very easily could’ve lost. Despite a shaky first leg, Sane still feels Bayern has what it takes to compete with all of the clubs left in the competition. “We have a very strong team, the quality is very high, we’ve shown that many times this season. We train hard to get even better. In the important games we have to use our great potential! We certainly won’t underestimate them [Salzburg], we know their strengths. But we’re the favorites, we’ll be 100 percent focused and we’ll do everything we can to get through to the next round. We have to be there from the first minute and show that we want to win. We have our fans behind us. We have to dominate the game, play to our strengths and of course score the necessary goals,” he said.
At this stage, Sane sees Premier League giants Liverpool and Manchester City as favorites to go on and win the Champions League, but he has bold ambitions of winning it with Bayern and trying to win the World Cup with Germany. “Since I haven’t won the World Cup or the Champions League so far: Both! I want to get as many titles as possible,” he stressed.
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