Conor Kelly from the Final Third believes the signing of Mario Gotze is a masterstroke and could prove to be Pep Guardiola’s Messi in Munich.
This morning Bavaria will be abuzz after Bayern Munich’s decisive 4-0 victory over Barcelona. Bayern fans will be celebrating in the knowledge that they will be favourites for a European Cup triumph and will surely be the team to best over the next few years. Yesterday, news surfaced in German tabloid Bild that Bayern had completed the €37 million signing of Mario Götze from rivals Borussia Dortmund. This morning, Dortmund have confirmed it. The ramifications for both clubs and European football cannot be underestimated.
This transfer can be seen as Bayern restoring the natural order of things in German football. Jurgen Klopp has built a Dortmund team from the ground up. He has promoted young players and bought wisely. They won back-to-back Bundesliga titles in 2011 and 2012, finishing ahead of Bayern. Now that team will potentially be ripped apart. Robert Lewandowski has refused to sign a contract extension beyond 2014, so he will likely be sold in the summer. Now Götze will also be leaving. Dortmund will struggle to replace him, but Klopp and Dortmund will have a strategy in place to replace him. A club that was on the brink of going out of business in the early 2000′s, is now run with terrific efficiency. Selling their best players (Kagawa last summer included) does not send a good message about a club’s ambitions, but in Klopp they have a manager who can turn water into wine.
For Bayern, it is another case of them stripping one of their main rivals of their best player. Over the past five years, this has never been more evident. They signed Mario Gómez from Stuttgart in 2009, Manuel Neuer from Schalke in 2011 and Dante from Borussia Mönchengladbach last summer. Every time a rival club challenges Bayern’s dominance, they are swept aside. This, of course, is not Bayern’s fault. They have consistently made a profit (the last 20 years) and can rightly flex their financial muscle.
When Pep Guardiola takes charge of Bayern in the summer, he will inherit a magnificent squad. Whether they win this season’s Champions League or not, it is obvious that they will be top-level contenders for years to come. Guardiola’s Barcelona played a heavily possession based style. Many of the players in that squad are capable of adapting to that style. Götze, however, may be the final piece to the puzzle. He has shown his ability and quality at Dortmund for three years now. Only 20, the potential is limitless for the German international. They question now is can he be Guardiola’s German Messi? He will surely not score the volume of goals, but his creative play will be invaluable to Bayern. He is certainly well capable.
Sport Is Everything & The Final Third. Conor Kelly