Bayern Munich are interested in the transfer of Real Sociedad’s Martín Zubimendi

Real Sociedad has been building an impressive reputation over the past few seasons and is battling in a tough Champions League group containing Inter Milan, RB Salzburg, and SL Benfica.

Bayern Munich has seemingly taken notice of their level and has made one of their standout players, Martín Zubimendi, a transfer target (as per @iMiaSanMia via @altobelli13, @cfbayern).

Zubimendi is a 24-year-old defensive midfielder who in addition to playing his club football for Real Sociedad, has two international appearances for Spain. According to statistics from FBREF Zubimendi’s biggest strengths compared to other midfielders in the top 5 leagues are his passing completion percentage, interceptions, clearances, and aerial duels won, sitting in the 72nd, 72nd, 78th, and 78th percentiles respectively. This means that among midfielders in the top 5 leagues, only 22% of midfielders are better than him at winning aerial duels, for example.

To help put this data into perspective, Fulham’s João Palhinha is only in the 47th percentile for pass completion percentage among midfielders in the top 5 leagues but is in the 92nd, 86th, and 85th percentiles for interceptions, clearances, and aerial duels won. Bayern’s own Joshua Kimmich finds himself in the 70th, 65th, 36th, and 8th percentiles for those same respective categories.

It’s worth noting that these particular statistics have been hand-picked based on Zubimendi’s strengths, which aren’t necessarily the same areas in which Palhinha or Kimmich excel. It’s also important to keep in mind that the way Bayern plays is likely to affect these sorts of statistics, and it’s impossible to know exactly how either Zubimendi or Palhinha would perform for Bayern.

If sporting director Christoph Freund decides he wants to pull the trigger on the Spanish midfielder it would reportedly cost Bayern 60 million euros to match his release clause as per @iMiaSanMia (via @kerry_hau).