Holger Seitz, head of the youth department at FC Bayern, sees FCB “in a very good position” when it comes to promoting talent. The fact that Jamal Musiala was able to take off with the professionals despite his early recognizable talent surprised him.
“We all believed that he would make the breakthrough with us and be in a position to be one of the first eleven at FC Bayern. Jamal is an absolutely exceptional talent. But I’ll be honest: That I couldn’t have foreseen that he would get along so quickly in the Bundesliga and even the Champions League,” explained Seitz in an interview web.de.
In 2020, Musiala played two games with the Bayern amateurs under Seitz before going to the pros. With Alphonso Davies, another top performer in the first team played a few games for the second substitution, Seitz described the Canadian as “really good guys with a very good character! He is very grounded, extremely down-to-earth and works very intensively on himself. Of course he also has one high footballing quality.”
When Davies came to Munich at the age of 18, it was primarily about “acclimatizing on and off the field and getting to know the game idea of FC Bayern Munich with a lot of ball possession. That integration on and off the football field was very important to him In my opinion, the fact that he succeeded quickly also has something to do with his entire career.” Seitz played on the fact that Davies and his family had already emigrated from Ghana to Canada.
FC Bayern: Second team “absolutely necessary”
Seitz described the second team as “absolutely necessary” to introduce young players to men’s football. “It’s two completely different tasks, playing with the U19s in the junior Bundesliga and with the second team in the regional league. In the regional league, our young players meet ripped off and experienced men’s soccer players from teams like SpVgg Unterhaching or the Würzburg Kickers.” In addition to the completely different duel, Seitz also cited the pressure of playing away games in front of opposing fans as an argument.
With the second team, which is currently 22 points behind leader Unterhaching in sixth place in the regional league, promotion is the medium-term goal again. “However, the way there is important to us. We don’t want to buy promotion by bringing in too many external and experienced players. With Timo Kern we only have one experienced player in the team. All the other players are very young.” The aim now is for the youngsters to “get used to the higher pace and the higher level of athleticism”.
Seitz is critical of the fact that many tasks are taken away from young players on the Bayern campus and personal development is neglected: “As a young coach, you tend to offer the players the best possible conditions so that they can concentrate fully on football and keep evolving. Today I don’t think that’s the right path. Less is sometimes more.”
