Bayern Munich II Spotlight, Part 3: Three burning questions for the 2022/23 season

This is the third and final part of my Bayern Munich II season preview. The first two parts covered Bayern II’s previous season, and the squad changes since then. With that now out of the way, it’s time we looked at the three big questions facing Bayern II this upcoming season as the club again pushes for promotion.

Can the attack keep up its production?

113 goals. Last season, Bayern II scored 113 goals. It is fair to say that Bayern II’s attack was incredibly good. But now, six of the eight attackers Bayern II started the season with are gone. Only Lucas Copado and Emilian Metu remain; they’re joined by Yusuf Kabadayi and Mamin Sanyang, freshly promoted from the youth ranks.

Going from eight down to four already decreases the squad depth significantly. On top of that, the question will be if these players can maintain last year’s quality.

Kabadayi, Copado and Sanyang are hardly slouches and good players in their own right, and Metu proved to be a capable back up last season. Still, it remains to be seen if that will be enough to keep the attack firing at all cylinders.

How will the new center-backs acquit themselves?

It’s always interesting to see how a completely new group of center backs adjusts after the departure of the entirety of the old guard. With the previous center backs (Arrey-Mbi, Lawrence and Feldhahn), the defense seemed mostly stable and worked together well, at least.

Things seem to be set up the same for the current defense. Of the current CBs, three (Liam Morrison, Justin Janitzek and Roman Reinelt) have all played together in the U-19 squad before getting promoted, and should be very familiar with each other. Antonio Tikvić is a completely new signing from Türkgücü München. So far, he has acquitted himself well in preseason.

Still, cohesion means little if individual errors are not prevented. That’s going to be the big challenge facing the center-backs this season. Silly individual errors cost last year’s group over and over again as Bayern II shipped 50 goals in 2021/22.

Will the team achieve promotion to the 3. Liga this time?

The biggest and most important question of the lot. It’s a massive disappointment for the entire club that Bayern II is not in the third division of German football — a far superior and more intense testing ground for young players than the fourth-tier Regionalliga level.

Bayern has recently signaled that the club wants to rely more on youth development in order to avoid the increasingly absurd transfer fees to which the footballing world has become. Those young players cannot develop without a suitably competitive environment.

Oh, and SC Freiburg II and Borussia Dortmund II are in the 3. Liga. It has to be embarrassing for the German Rekordmeister to be behind these two clubs in this respect.

All this is to say that Bayern II must push for promotion this season. So, can they do it? It’s easy to look at last season’s table and say yes. After all, Bayern II finished second — 18 points clear of 3rd place.

With first-place SpVgg Bayreuth now promoted to the 3. Liga, Bayern II should be clear favorites to win the league. However, the team has gone through massive changes, and a reproduction of last season’s form is far from guaranteed. Additionally, even with a league win, Bayern II will have to go through a play-off in order to secure promotion.

So, achieving promotion will be tough. But it is entirely feasible. And the entire club will hope that this year’s Bayern II squad will be able to make it happen.