Bayern Munich’s Hasan Salihamidžić talks about his preference for getting transfers done early

A common criticism of Bayern Munich’s transfer policy lately — and by extension a criticism of its sporting director, Hasan Salihamidžić — is that too much business is being left until late in the transfer window.

However, according to Brazzo, this is not his preferred way of doing things and has simply been done out of necessity in recent years.

In an interview with Sport Bild, as captured by @iMiaSanMia, Bayern’s sporting director confessed that “it was never my wish to make late transfers. I’m a fan of doing business early. But due to the pandemic, that was complicated in the past few years.”

2020 in particular saw a flurry of late-window activity, with five player transfers not occurring until all the way into October of the pandemic-extended window: Marc Roca, Bouna Sarr, Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, and loans for Tiago Dantas and Douglas Costa all were not completed until October 5th. The following year, Marcel Sabitzer did not complete his move until August 30th. This, coupled with long periods of quiet on the transfer-front left some fans feeling like these signings were the transfer-equivalent of a student starting on their semester’s final project the night before it was due.

This summer, however, things have been different! Three major signings — Ryan Gravenberch, Noussair Mazraoui, and Sadio Mané — have all been completed before the end of June. Further, all three have seemingly been “first-choice” signings: players for whom the club quickly identified as desired targets and worked urgently to secure their signings early on - and according to Brazzo, that’s just how he likes it.

Still, with the fate of players like Robert Lewandowski and Serge Gnabry still up in the air - and rumors swirling about other potential targets like RB Leipzig’s Konrad Laimer or VfB Stuttgart’s Sasa Kalajdžić - we may see more transfer activity yet!