Bayern Munich's Missed Chance on Barcola and Gordon
Bayern Munich’s summer rebuild under Vincent Kompany could have looked very different. Behind the scenes, the German champions pushed hard for two of Europe’s most coveted wide players: Bradley Barcola and Anthony Gordon. In the end, the numbers on the table were so extreme that Bayern simply stepped aside.
Liverpool and Barcelona did not.
Barcola, long admired across the continent, made a seismic £123 million move to Anfield, effectively walking into the void left by Mohamed Salah after the Egyptian’s glittering nine-year stay on Merseyside. Gordon, meanwhile, left Newcastle for Barcelona in a £69m deal, another Premier League star swept away by La Liga’s pulling power.
Inside Bayern, there was frustration, but also realism.
Max Eberl, speaking to Sport Bild, laid out just how long he had been tracking Barcola. “To be honest, I already know Bradley from my time at Leipzig. I wanted to bring him to Leipzig,” the sporting director said, lifting the lid on a pursuit that predates his arrival in Munich.
Those early conversations mattered. “We sat down together and discussed it back then,” Eberl added. “That’s how I developed a closer relationship with Bradley. So there was always interest there. Of course, we also looked into him at Bayern.”
The interest was genuine. The price was brutal.
Liverpool’s £123m outlay effectively ended Bayern’s hopes. Eberl did not try to disguise it. “When you hear about sums like that, it was too much for us,” he admitted. “With Luis Diaz, we made a decision that was also costly, but on a different scale than Bradley.”
The same story played out on the other flank. Bayern had turned their gaze to Gordon as a solution for the left wing. “It’s no secret that we were interested in Anthony Gordon for the left wing,” Eberl conceded. “We decided we were not doing that because he was simply too expensive.”
While Bayern drew a financial line, Liverpool did the opposite. They identified Barcola as the man to carry their attack into the post-Salah era and treated him as their absolute priority. The winger, a two-time Champions League winner with Paris Saint-Germain, wanted the move. That desire helped Liverpool fend off serious interest from Arsenal and close a deal that instantly placed Barcola among the club’s elite signings.
The France international now sits as the second-most expensive player in Liverpool’s history, behind only club-record arrival Alexander Isak. It is a statement fee, and a statement of intent.
Bayern’s failure to land either Barcola or Gordon forced a sharp change of course. Instead of a marquee winger, the summer in Munich became about recalibration and balance. Ismael Saibari and Nathaniel Brown arrived, but the headline news was the exodus designed to steady the finances.
- Joao Palhinha
- Alexander Nubel
- Daniel Peretz
- Noel Aseko
- Jonah Kusi-Asare
- Maurice Krattenmacher
- Lovro Zvornarek
all left the Allianz Arena, a clear signal that Bayern were not prepared to chase the Premier League’s financial arms race at any cost.
In England, Barcola has already begun to justify the gamble.
Andoni Iraola eased him in, handing the 24-year-old his debut as a 60th-minute substitute for fellow new signing Victor Munoz in a controlled 2-0 win away at Ipswich. It was a glimpse rather than a full unveiling, but the raw pace and direct running were there.
The real test came under the Anfield lights.
Handed his first start in a 2-1 Champions League victory over Diego Simeone’s Atletico Madrid, Barcola produced the kind of sharp, aggressive display Liverpool fans crave from a wide forward. He drifted into pockets, drove at defenders, and gave hints of the chaos he can bring once fully settled.
The intensity did catch up with him. Cramp forced his withdrawal shortly after Alexis Mac Allister struck the decisive second-half goal. Iraola now faces a familiar early-season puzzle: how to build his new attack around a blockbuster signing without overloading him in the process.
Bayern chose prudence over spectacle. Liverpool chose to spend. Barcola is already on the pitch, already under the glare, already carrying the weight of Salah’s shadow.
If he handles that, the price tag will stop being the story.
