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What did Christoph Freund do before he joined Bayern?
The Austrian, born in 1977, was a player himself until 2013, but never played higher than the second tier in his home country. In the last few years, he’s worked in Red Bull Salzburg’s management team, initially as team manager in 2006, then sports coordinator in 2012 and finally sporting director in 2015, succeeding Ralf Rangnick.
In the eight seasons before his move to Bayern Munich, the Red Bull outfit have been the dominant force in Austrian football, winning the championship eight times and the cup six times.
Why did Bayern need a new sporting director?
The position had become vacant because Freund’s predecessor, Hasan Salihamidzic, was fired in May, immediately after Bayern’s final game of the season — when they narrowly won the championship — along with CEO Oliver Kahn. The Munich team had experienced a largely unsatisfactory season. After the poorly handled coaching change from Julian Nagelsmann to Thomas Tuchel, the team were eliminated early in the German Cup against Freiburg and in the Champions League against Manchester City. In addition, Salihamidzic had failed to satisfactorily manage the succession of top goalscorer Robert Lewandowski. His “king transfer” Sadio Mané flopped.
What are Freund’s strengths?
The 46-year-old has a good eye for talent and is considered a skilled negotiator in transfer deals. During his time at Salzburg, future stars such as Erling Haaland, Karim Adeyemi, Dominik Szoboszlai and many other top talents arrived. Freund also earned RB Salzburg big transfer profits with many players who attracted attention with eye-catching performances in the Austrian league.
Haaland arrived from Norway for €8million ($8.7m), made just 22 competitive appearances for Salzburg and scored 28 goals, and was sold to Borussia Dortmund for €20million ($21.7m). Szoboszlai arrived within the Red Bull construct in 2018 for half a million euros ($540,000) from training team FC Liefering and was transferred on to RB Leipzig for €36million ($39m) after three years.
Another example is U.S. international Brenden Aaronson, who arrived at Salzburg from Philadelphia Union for €12.7million ($13.8m) in January 2021 and departed for Leeds for €32.8million ($35.6m) 18 months later.
Discovering and nurturing talent is not limited to players though. Many coaches who shone in Red Bull’s Austrian empire are also now employed as head coaches in the Bundesliga and other top leagues. RB Leipzig’s Marco Rose, Bo Svensson of Mainz and Bochum coach Thomas Letsch all currently ply their trade in Germany’s top flight.
What goals has he set himself at Bayern?
In addition to achieving the greatest possible sporting success, which is taken for granted at Bayern, Freund would like to focus more on youth again. After the era of homegrown stars such as Philipp Lahm, Bastian Schweinsteiger, Thomas Müller and others, talent graduating from the club’s academy has become a rarity. The last player to make it into the Bundesliga as a regular from the Bayern Campus, the club’s youth development center, was Jamal Musiala – and even he had been at Chelsea for eight years beforehand.
“The biggest challenge will be to develop young players into great players. There is still room for improvement and the Campus can become even more important,” the new sporting director was quoted as saying on Bayern’s website.
But Bayern fans can still look forward to more star signings like Harry Kane: “We want to bring a few players through from the Campus but we will also keep bringing in top players,” Freund promised. “The important thing is a mix of both.”
This article was translated from German.
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