Eberl hailed Goretzka as a “great figure at FC Bayern”. Freund added: “He is a model professional, a truly exceptional character. A role model for footballers and for people in general \u2013 proving that you must keep going and believe in yourself when the going gets tough.”
\nDuring eight seasons at FC Bayern, Goretzka enjoyed plenty of success.<\/p>\n
As an undisputed first-team regular and a midfield powerhouse, he was central to the 2020 sextuple-winning squad.
\nAfterwards, however, he was often labelled an overpaid player earmarked for sale\u2014a symbol of Munich’s bloated wage structure. In summer 2024, Bayern tried to push him out; Kompany even left him out of matchday squads. Yet Goretzka stayed, worked on undeterred, and eventually reclaimed minutes after rivals got injured.<\/p>\n
“He’s weathered some difficult times. That’s always been a defining trait for him,” noted Jonathan Tah. “When you thought it was over, he just carried on and fought his way back time and again. I find that quite special.”
\nThis summer, however, Goretzka had no choice. His contract expired, and Bayern did not offer an extension.<\/p>\n
So what now? Goretzka is reportedly on the verge of signing for AC Milan. “I really haven’t made up my mind yet,” he said. During a Sky interview, Lothar Matth\u00e4us endorsed a switch to Italy but jokingly urged him to join his old club, Inter, on the blue side of Milan. Goretzka, flashing a grin, shot back: “Then I’ll get into trouble with the S\u00fcdkurve.” Only Bochum blue is welcome there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eberl hailed Goretzka as a “great figure at FC Bayern”. Freund added: “He is a model professional, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[14532,14537,2664,85,46,105],"class_list":["post-445844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-bayern-munich","tag-bundesliga","tag-features","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}