The unlikely rise of Bayern Munich talent Frans Krätzig

Slowly but surely, Frans Krätzig has worked himself into Bayern Munich's first team. But the emergence of the young wing-back seemed unlikely until misfortune turned into fortune last summer.

Slowly but surely, young Frans Krätzig is playing his way onto this Bayern Munich team. On Wednesday, the 20-year-old played his sixth game for the first team after coming on in the 86th minute for Alphonso Davies in the 0-0 Champions League draw against Copenhagen. The four minutes plus five minutes of injury time marked Krätzig’s debut in the Champions League.

Altogether, Krätzig has now played 222 minutes spread across six first-team games for Bayern. For most players, the sporadic first-team minutes would be seen as a disappointment, but at Bayern, a club not exactly known for developing youth players, every opportunity with the first team is like a gift for a player developed at the Bayern Campus.

Then there is the fact that Krätzig wasn’t supposed to be there at all. Going back to last summer, Krätzig was an almost unknown talent playing for Bayern’s second team in the Regionalliga Bayern (fourth division), where he featured in 32 games in the 2022/23 season (two goals and three assists).