Leroy Sané replaced in Bayern Munich’s top game win

Dthe evening ended where it began. At the beginning of the top Bundesliga match between Bayer Leverkusen and FC Bayern, Leroy Sané was in the stands, and at the end, too. The Munich-based player did not spend the entire season there. In the meantime, Sané stood on the lawn. But after his substitution in the 32nd minute for the injured Kingsley Coman, coach Hansi Flick took the national player off the field in the 68th minute and replaced him with the 17-year-old Jamal Musiala. First in, then out after only 36 minutes – that’s not something that Sané liked.

And you could see that in Bayern’s king transfer, which came from Manchester City for around 50 million euros before this season. When he realized that he was being replaced, he snuck to the sidelines, hit his coach disappointed and disappeared into the cabin corridor, only to reappear in the stands, wrapped in a warm jacket. Visibly sad and frustrated, he sat in the empty row on seat 21 in the empty row with flip-flops and socks pushed down on a red, cool seat, his feet resting on the plastic shell in the front row.

In football, substitution and substitution in the same game is often referred to as the “maximum penalty”. What must have committed a player that he is not considered in the starting line-up by the coach, then is allowed to participate, but his mandate is withdrawn prematurely, even though the other players are much more tired? Nothing bad – at least Flick said after the 2: 1 of the Munich team, who pushed themselves to first place after the deficit through the dream goal of Patrik Schick (14th minute) with two goals from world footballer Robert Lewandowski before the short winter break.

“Why the maximum penalty?” Asked Flick in the press conference and justified his measure. “If we make a change, we have to do it sensibly. “There are few that I can change when I bring Jamal Musiala.” Thomas Müller, Serge Gnabry and Sané. Müller is indispensable, Gnabry has improved enormously in the second half. “So there was the Leroy option, which I had to take. He will cope with it, the individual has to stand back a little. He gets all of our support. Today we had to react like this because there was no other option. “

That sounded plausible and yet shows that the newcomer, who sat with downcast eyes and suffered quietly, has not yet achieved the status that both he and FC Bayern had hoped for. Munich had fought for Sané for a long time, the transfer was already close in the summer of 2019, then the former Bayern coach Pep Guardiola put him in again and it was precisely in this game that the cruciate ligament in his right knee tore. The change initially failed and was made up this summer. They liked the fact that the people of Munich had to pay significantly less.