The Daily Bee (August 4, 2020): Breaking News: Uli Hoeness Continues to Exist

Good morning, Fear the Wall.

Are you actually having a good morning? Maybe you woke up feeling particularly rested, or you treated yourself to a doughnut for breakfast, or you went for a refreshing run before the sun came up? If so, I apologize for promptly ruining your morning by talking about this lovely gentleman.

Uli Hoeness: “Something Something Winning Mentality, Bayern Good, Dortmund Bad”

I don’t even know why this guy is in the news. I could’ve sworn he retired last year, but hey, at least he’s giving me something to write about. In an interview with FAZ, Uli Hoeness gave his typical spiel about how Dortmund selling players like Ousmane Dembélé and Jadon Sancho is wrong, and how BVB should simply keep star players by, instilling in them a winning mentality, or... something like that.

How can a player absorb the DNA of a club one hundred percent if he feels that he is an object for sale?

Firstly, I don’t really care whether Sancho has the “DNA of the club”, as long as he keeps scoring goals and assists at a ridiculous rate. Secondly, while it does suck that he’s going to be moving on from BVB, I’m sure Dortmund will put his mammoth transfer fee to good use. How do you think Dortmund were able to afford Thorgan Hazard, Emre Can, Axel Witzel, Mats Hummels, Raphael Guerreiro, and Julian Brandt, all quality players who are clearly in it for the long haul? It was because of transfer fees from Christian Pulisic and Ousmane Dembélé. Borussia Dortmund don’t have the same financial and cultural clout that Bayern have, so they need another way to compete, and this is their strategy. It’s not an ideal strategy for winning the league, but it’s the best strategy that Dortmund could realistically pursue.

I don’t really understand why Hoeness felt the need to take a pot shot at BVB. Bayern just won the domestic double and are about to compete for the Champions League, so you’d think he’d have something else to talk about. Even if we’re charitable, and we assume that he was directly asked about this by the interviewer, couldn’t he have just given some diplomatic answer about how Bayern “are trying to focus on the competitions in front of us” or something? To that, you might say that Uli Hoeness has never been one to be diplomatic, and you’d be right. In that case, why would he say something so... dense?

Bayern were reportedly interested in signing Jude Bellingham before the young Englishman signed for BVB. Did they expect him to make a career at Bayern? Did they really think that he wouldn’t be jetting off to England in a few years? Bayern reportedly tried to sign Sancho back in 2017 (before, according to Hoeness, they were “hijacked” by BVB, even though Bayern also apparently never wanted him anyway). Did they think back then that Sancho wouldn’t want to leave Munich for England in a few years? If they weren’t thinking that, then what were they smoking?

Anyway, Michael Zorc responded to this statement, and I kind of wish he hadn’t. At this point, Hoeness is just some loudmouth on the sidelines, and it would behoove BVB to ignore him. According to Bayern fans on Twitter, Hoeness handed BVB a “massive L”, so Zorc should just quit while he still has his dignity.

The Daily Buzz

Quantitatively speaking, how much worse was your day made by being reminded that Hoeness exists? 5%? 10%?