With how much he has accomplished in such a short period of time, it already feels like ages ago that Jamal Musiala made his breakthrough into the Bayern Munich senior squad along with the German national team. He has gone on to tally a total of 42 goals from 127 appearances and the club’s front office is planning on making him the face of the club with the new contract they are prepping to offer him since his current contract is set to expire this summer. He is, quite arguably, Bayern’s most important player and the club is ready to make him one of the highest paid players in the squad to reflect that sentiment.
Former Bayern midfielder and auxiliary center back Javi Martínez recently spoke about Musiala’s breakthrough into the senior squad in an interview with MARCA (transcribed via @iMiaSanMia). The former Spain international spent nine well-decorated seasons with the Rekordmeister, and at the time of his transfer from Athletic Bilbao, he was the club’s most expensive transfer ever, but that margin has since been broken more than once.
Even from his earliest interactions with Musiala in training sessions, Martínez could tell that the the youngster was a special, one-of-a-kind talent. “From the first training session with us, you could already see that he was special. When he came to the first team, he weighed 20 kilos [laughs]. It was even a bit awkward to tackle him because we thought we were going to hurt him as he weighed so little. But as soon as he got the ball, you could see that he was special, that you couldn’t take it away from him, that he was very fast, that he had big qualities,” he explained in his interview with MARCA.
Musiala technically made his first appearance for the first team in the 2019/20 Sextuple season under Hansi Flick, but it was not until the season after that he really started to gain some minutes. In that season, Musiala made a total of 39 appearances across all competitions, tallying seven goals and one assist. Even though his stats were not yet setting the world afire, Martínez recalled being able to see how quickly he was developing at the time.
Photo by Gaston Szermann/DeFodi Images via Getty Images
“His development has surprised everyone. We saw big potential, but I think his development has been even bigger, and I think he has no limits. He will be among the 10 best players in the world for many years,” the current Qatar SC midfielder enthused.
You would be hard pressed to find anyone with any footballing sense to argue against the assumption that Musiala will become one of the world’s best players for years to come and the evidence is on display to suggest that will certainly be a reality. So far this season, he has followed up on a solid EURO 2024 with Germany with 14 goals and 6 assists from 22 appearances across all competitions thus far.
Looking for a discussion on Bayern Munich’s second half chances for success, along with how all of the contract negotiations could impact the team, plus an update on Florian Wirtz? Awesome, then join Samrin and Chuck for the Bavarian Podcast Works Show on Patreon, Spotify, or below:
Be sure to stay tuned to Bavarian Podcast Works for all of your up to date coverage on Bayern Munich and Germany. Check us out on Patreon and follow us on Twitter @BavarianFBWorks, @BavarianPodcast @TheBarrelBlog, @BFWCyler, @IredahlMarcus, @2012nonexistent, @TommyAdams71 and more.
