Arturo Vidal has swapped Turin for Munich in the search for a Champions League winner’s medal. DW’s Ross Dunbar looks at how his arrival could mark a change in the team’s playing style under Pep Guardiola.
How times have changed: “This is the sort of player I wouldn’t have at Bayern,” said Bayern Munich’s chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in 2011.
Four years later, a temperamental Vidal has commanded the club’s third highest transfer fee – just a few euros behind deals for Javi Martinez and Mario Götze – and has signed a four-year-deal.
But ‘the sort of player’ Bayern have signed in 2015 could be the missing piece of the jigsaw for Pep Guardiola who wants to secure European success in the final year of his three-year stint in Munich.
Vidal’s arrival for around 35 million euros stands in contrast to the club’s other signings this summer – the Chilean is proven quality with 69 caps, even winning the Copa America this summer.
The 28-year-old has built up a wealth of experience since leaving Bayer Leverkusen in 2011, winning four consecutive Italian championships with Juventus and reaching the Champions League final last season.
Guardiola has long been an admirer of Chile’s high-pressing, fluid football under Marcelo Bielsa, and now present coach Jorge Sampaoli who led the nation to its first Copa America title earlier this year. Sampaoli is a self-announced ‘Bielsista’ – a term that is given to somebody who shares the principles of former coach Bielsa, namely high-pressing and lots of interchanging positions.
Vidal has a high-energy, destructive game, but also likes to pop up in the box. Sporting director Matthias Sammer was right to note Vidal’s flexibility as one part of his skill set. If Guardiola is indeed looking to model his side around that of Chile’s national team, then Vidal could be more suited to a wing-back position.
But in his four years at Juventus, Vidal was the box-to-box destroyer of a three-man midfield that included the peerless Andrea Pirlo. The Chilean offers a more direct option and is essentially the player to shake things up in attack.
“And then there are the ones who cause chaos… They can create absolutely everything and the head coach can’t control that. You cannot limit that …. You need both. They are a part of the game,” Pep Guardiola said in an interview with football website Squawka last year.
Perhaps this ‘chaos’ player is exactly what Bayern need for greater success.
What do you think of Vidal’s move to Bayern Munich? What will he bring? And does he boost Bayern’s chances in Europe? Join the discussion below.
