When FC Bayern announced the contract extension with Leon Goretzka until 2026 on Thursday when there was no training, this news came as about as surprising as a championship title for Munich. For a long time it had become clear that the German national player sees his future with the German industry leader. Goretzka had emphasized this several times. Nevertheless, it took some time before everything was negotiated, which he called “recognition” at the press conference, although it was not about “squeezing out the last euro”, as Goretzka put it. Appropriately, shortly before the home game on Saturday against his hometown club VfL Bochum, completion was announced.
“It is always crucial for the development and the success of the club that we bind the top performers to us in the long term,” said CEO Oliver Kahn and interpreted Goretzka’s signature as a sign of conviction “that we will continue to be as successful in the future as we are we were in the past “. Sports director Hasan Salihamidzic described Goretzka as the “face of our club” and “source of energy”. The extension after Joshua Kimmich’s until 2025 is “a sign internally and externally throughout Europe that we want to keep this team together and that we have plans for the next few years”. The two midfielders are “the heart and soul of our team”. Until at least 2023, FC Bayern will be driven by a central axis from goalkeeper Manuel Neuer to Kimmich and Goretzka to Thomas Müller and Robert Lewandowski. Of the current regular players, only Niklas Süle has a working paper that ends after this season.
“I don’t think you can find this combination of friendship and the ability to win titles anywhere else”
Despite the newly rich competition from Paris and England, they firmly believe that FC Bayern will be able to experience similar years of success in the future as in 2020 when they won six titles. “That has to be repeated,” said Salihamidzic. Goretzka also sees good chances for this, also because of those players who have known each other since their youth. In addition to him and Kimmich, this also includes Serge Gnabry and Süle, who are all also 26 years old. “We have a very extraordinary team together here at FC Bayern, also shaped by my year, the 95-year-old,” said Goretzka. There are also many other players in their mid-twenties as well as Neuer, 35, Müller, 32, and Lewandowski, 33, as experienced regulars. “I don’t think you can find this combination of friendship and the ability to win titles anywhere else in Europe,” said Goretzka. He was also convinced that coach Julian Nagelsmann, 34, would “bring the team to a new level”.
They absolutely wanted to keep Goretzka as the club’s figurehead, as a “personality” and “opinion maker”, as President Herbert Hainer called him. Goretzka has been committed to society for years, such as the “WeKickCorona” donation initiative that he launched in 2020 with Kimmich. That also contributes to its importance. Goretzka is one of the few professionals who position themselves politically and contribute socially on their own initiative. One example of this was his statements in 2019 after racist hostility against his colleagues Leroy Sané and Ilkay Gündogan during the German national team’s game against Serbia in Wolfsburg. “I’m a child of the Ruhr area. When you ask about your nationality, you answer with Schalke, Dortmund or Bochum,” he said.
Against his Bochum team it is now in the league, four days after the sovereign 3-0 opening win in the Champions League at FC Barcelona. Goretzka had played for VfL for twelve years and then for five years at FC Schalke before joining FC Bayern in 2018 for a free transfer. At that time he was also accompanied by doubts. But already in his first season he established himself as an important part of the team with 30 league appearances in which he scored eight goals and five assists. Meanwhile, Goretzka with his constancy is one of the undisputed regulars. This is one of the reasons why they see him as a pillar of the future, and the latest signing of Marcel Sabitzer, 27, does not change anything, who, like Goretzka, prefers to finish eighth. Nagelsmann has already announced that he will rotate against the promoted Bochum. But there are players who really want to play, he said, “I won’t take the game away from them”. That should have applied to Goretzka, Bayern’s second Bochum team after Hermann Gerland. Like the former, long-time assistant coach, Goretzka is always drawn back to his homeland. VfL was once his “absolute oasis of well-being”, he said on Thursday and spoke of “love for the club”. And there, in Bochum, he is still “Leon, the buddy and not Leon, the professional”. Now you see each other again in Munich, in your personal friendly against VfL.
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