Thomas Tuchel raves over Bayern Munich’s staunch center-back group

Bayern Munich manager Thomas Tuchel has some pretty good options at center-back in Matthijs de Ligt, Dayot Upamecano, and Kim Min-jae.

Unfortunately for that trio, only two of them can start at a time in the coach’s 4-2-3-1, which could make things complicated, depending on how Tuchel manages each player.

“They’re all playing at a very high level. Kim has the potential to become a real leader. He comes every day with a new sentence in German. He has what it takes to become a very dominant player for us. Upa was available all pre-season, Matthijs is coming out of an injury. Our wish is to find a solid back four without many changes,” said Tuchel (as captured by @iMiaSanMia).

The only puzzling part of that statement was what Tuchel meant by “back four.”

Typically, when referencing a back four, it would assumed that the coach was talking about the starting left-back, two starting center-backs, and the starting right-back. In this case, however, it could be ascertained that the manager was speaking about having four good center-backs on his roster.

If it was the former, it sounds like Tuchel is not planning much rotation, which would seem odd. If it was the latter, it sounds like Bayern Munich needs one more center-back to finish off the depth chart now that Josip Stanišić is off on a loan to Bayer Leverkusen and Benjamin Pavard is likely skipping town as well.

What is your Champagne XI defensive pairing at center-back for Bayern Munich?