The Bundesliga season is over and Bayern’s 22nd championship title is in the bag. However, for Germany’s record title-winners the season is far from over. In the TV show Doppelpass the club’s chief executive Karl-Heinz Rummenigge discussed the critical contribution of coach Louis van Gaal, planning for the coming season’s squad, and why he remains optimistic that Franck Ribéry will play in the Champions League final as well as stay with Bayern in the longer term. fcbayern.de has highlighted Rummenigge’s most important comments.
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge on...
...Louis van Gaal:
“He’s done a fantastic job. He needed three or four months to build up a harmonious working relationship with the team. Right from the start Van Gaal has been a highly likeable man. He has a natural authority and doesn’t need to throw his weight around. He has a completely clear plan and its entirely his own. He has his own strong views and is not always comfortable to deal with. When you discuss transfers with him, he has his own clear views. We may not always agree with them, but we have now developed a fruitful way of working that combines these differing views for the good of the club. Louis understands this club too. He says he has never coached a club like Bayern Munich and he finds it great how the fan base and the organisational administration fit together. Van Gaal is a fanatic about discipline who requires everything to be perfect. That’s why we get on so well together.
...Van Gaal’s youth policy:
“Louis van Gaal’s philosophy is also to give young players the chance to stake their claim. An example is the departure of Lucio. We were criticised for letting him go. But Van Gaal announced after the first week of training camp that he had great confidence in Holger Badstuber. He would be his choice. On this assumption he asked us to find a solution for Lucio. The solution was obvious, because Lucio had only a year left on his contract and after this season he would have been able to leave on a free transfer. Anyway, we got a lot of money for him. In addition, he was among our top-earning players. That decision was viewed fairly critically, but it has been put into perspective by Holger Badstuber’s good season. Today Louis van Gaal is praised for this decision.”
...the composition of the squad:
“We have developed a twin-track policy at Bayern. We have Ribéry, Robben, Van Bommel or from our own ranks players like Lahm or Schweinsteiger, who have established themselves here, and then we have young players like Badstuber, Müller and Contento, who have come through the ranks. We have always looked enviously at Barcelona’s system and that is now in operation at Bayern too.”
...the German Cup final versus Werder Bremen:
“We know it will be quite a difficult game. It will be down to a question of form on the day. We know that Werder Bremen is very well equipped in attack with Mesut Özil, Marko Marin and our friend Claudio Pizarro. We will have to stand up to that. We also have something to offer going forward, and I hope that at the end of the day it will be enough to win us the Double.”
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