With a week to go before the Bundesliga resumes for 2024, Bayern take on Basel in a friendly match on Saturday (kick-off at 15:30 CET, live coverage on fcbayern.com and in the FC Bayern app with our text commentary and free web radio). Here’s all you need to know ahead of the game in Switzerland.
Check out the photos from the first week of training this year:
State of play
Bayern have had five intense training sessions in the space of four days since returning to Säbener Straße on 2 January. Thomas Tuchel’s team don’t have a whole lot of time to prepare before the first and only friendly ahead of the return to competitive action. The Bundesliga champions want to take the momentum from the three wins before the winter break into their practice match in Basel so they can go into the first proper game of the year full of confidence. That comes six days after the trip to Switzerland, as Bayern restart the domestic campaign at home to Hoffenheim on Friday, 12 January. “We’re looking good, working a lot and intensely in training. We’ve got good power. We’ve now got the one friendly match and then a week of training. I’m sure we’ll be ready to start,“ said Kingsley Coman in an interview before leaving for Basel.
Read more from Coman in his interview here:
Coach Tuchel will use the game to adapt his team for a number of changes in the squad as play resumes this year. Minjae Kim and Noussair Mazraoui are both away with their national teams at the Asian Cup and Africa Cup of Nations respectively. Bouna Sarr (cruciate ligament) and Serge Gnabry (muscular) are also both sidelined. Konrad Laimer has only been training individually due to a slight knee complaint.
Opponents Basel
Basel have a bit more time before they return to competitive action in Switzerland. The 20-time domestic champions resume their campaign on 21 January away at Zürich, following a second friendly against second division Aarau on 10 January. They are currently battling relegation in the Swiss Super League, sitting second bottom. However, things have improved since Fabio Celestini took over, winning four out of seven league games (D1, L2) after a poor start to the campaign that saw Basel earn only five points from their opening 11 fixtures.
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