Fiete Arp unpacks about his time in Munich

Fiete Arp critically reviewed his time at Bayern Munich. Signed in 2019 at the age of 19 as a great storm hope for three million euros from Hamburger SV, Arp did not prevail in Munich.

“I also thought to myself, ‘Is it worth all that shit?’ It has very little to do with the players and the people I worked with. That just made me want to,” Arp reported on the “Einfach Fußball” podcast. “Only I couldn’t enjoy it because of the things that were around it. Then at some point I had my shitty performance because I thought to myself: ‘F***, was it maybe too early?’ Then you start thinking and you don’t play what you can play at all.”

After two years with only one competitive game, Arp first went on loan and then permanently to second division team Holstein Kiel in 2022, where he has scored four goals in 53 competitive games so far. “If I had had the calm and the feeling that I have here in Kiel, I probably could have performed very differently. But I got caught up in completely different things and couldn’t enjoy the time at all,” said Arp.

In Munich, media interest was very high: “Of course, thousands of other things are reported when you don’t have time to play. Everyone had a picture of me. In the end, it was no longer about me as a player, but about me as a person. It was hardly about the football player anymore. It was never about the people in the whole story anyway.”

Fiete Arp at FC Bayern: “Then you’re the money-hungry idiot”

However, Arp felt that he was in good hands in the FC Bayern team. “They all make their stupid jokes. Everyone has their own quirks, everyone is crazy in their own way. Sure, going in for the first time is extremely intimidating, just because you see the names on the wall,” said Arp. “But then you see that the way people treat each other is exactly the same. They’re just a little bit more successful and better at what they do.”

David Alaba and Jo Kimmich initially helped him the most with the integration. “I got to know Niki Süle best over the period. Thiago too. Back then, they were people who really tried to keep this team together and take on the new ones.”

Arp comes from the youth department of HSV, but was massively attacked at his home club after moving to Bayern: “Then you’re the money-hungry idiot who went from HSV to Bayern. I’m a huge HSV fan, then insult you there people all the time.”

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