When Alexander Nübel switched from Schalke 04 to FC Bayern two years ago, he did so as a potential successor to Manuel Neuer. But will it really come to that? Not clear. Although the Munich team is relying on the keeper who is currently on loan, his camp is skeptical about the future with the record champions.
At FC Schalke 04, goalkeeper Alexander Nübel is becoming a man who is predicted to have a great future between the posts. No surprise, then, that arouses the interest of FC Bayern – and strike Munich. Two years ago he moved to Säbener Straße, where he was to be set up to succeed Manuel Neuer. But things turned out differently. Coach Hansi Flick fully trusted his captain and apparently refused the youngster promised assignments. Because Neuer extended his contract with the record champions again, Nübel pulled the ripcord after the first season and was loaned to AS Monaco, where he is a regular keeper for the second year and delivers good performances.
But what does the future hold? Neuer’s working paper ends, as of now, in the summer of 2024. Will Nübel’s time with the record champions follow? At least that’s the plan of the Bayern bosses. Nübel is “very important in our future planning,” emphasized Hasan Salihamidži?, the particularly busy and successful sports director this summer, with a view to the second half of the 2020s in “kicker”. Because his loan contract in the Principality expires at the end of this season, further planning is now beginning. According to the “Kicker”, there will be talks in winter about extending the working paper, which is currently dated to 2025.
The most important point here: what will happen from the summer of 2023 when Nübel returns from Monaco, but Neuer is still there? For the keeper’s agent, the situation is clear: “The constellation Neuer – Nübel will no longer exist with Alex,” adviser Stefan Backs told the “kicker”. Nübel feels “honoured” by the planned extension, Backs continued. But the 25-year-old is “also skeptical because of the past”. It is probably about the allegedly guaranteed games by Salihamidži?, which were not implemented by ex-coach Flick. One is “curious to see how the talks will go,” Backs said.
At the end of last year, Nübel spoke about his time at Bayern and defended the change for himself, although he was actually only allowed to play four unimportant games. The 25-year-old did not want to talk about a lost year. “This year at Bayern was progress for me. I’ve developed quite a bit, which is very important for a goalkeeper because personal maturity means a lot,” he told “Kicker” at the time. For his return to Munich in November 2021, Nübel could imagine a model like Marc-André ter Stegen initially used at FC Barcelona. Since the keeper had played in the Champions League, while Claudio Bravo was used in the league. “There are several models, but anything other than getting more games is definitely out of the question for me.”
