Meet Jochen Sauer, Bayern Munich's Director of Youth Development and a vital cog of their talent factory
Jochen Sauer might not be a household name in the world of football, but his impact at Bayern Munich since being appointed Director of youth development in the summer of 2017 cannot be overstated. Having worked with the likes of Red Bull Salzburg, VfL Wolfsburg and Hertha BSC, he's been responsible for several young players bursting onto the scene and eventually making their first team debuts in the top-flight, with Jamal Musiala, Josip Stanisic and Aleksandar Pavlovic making their marks in recent years.
As the managing director of Red&Gold Football, which is a joint-venture between Bayern Munich and Los Angeles Football Club (LAFC) to promote young talents across the world, Sauer has used his expertise in the field to nurture budding footballers, with ex-Bayern Munich striker Roy Makaay also playing a key role in this project.
The 51-year-old is very much the go-to man at the FC Bayern Munich Campus and had some refreshing views on youth development, modern football and the future of the game, as he sat down with Sportskeeda and a handful of other publications across south-east Asia in Munich for a candid chat.
Read further for excerpts from the wide-ranging interview.
Q: What does Mia San Mia mean and how do you ensure players follow the club's philosophy?
Jochen Sauer: If you compare the youth development of Bayern Munich to other top clubs in Europe, the difference is we are trying to develop youngsters not only on the sporting and athletic side. There's another important aspect which is schooling and education. We have to develop these players as personalities and characters! We are not the parents of these kids so we don't want to teach them life, but we want to teach them what it means to play for Bayern Munich
The slogan Mia San Mia is difficult to explain in English, but it means 'We are who we are, we are special". We teach young players to be convinced about their strengths and give them the strength to beat anyone. At the same time, Bayern Munich was built by personalities like Franz Beckenbauer, Karl-Heinze Rummenigge and Uli Hoeness - it's a very traditional, familiar and regional club.
We are trying to give our players the feeling that they are a part of the family - they can live here with a positive atmosphere as they'd have at home. They also have to be grounded as people and sportsmen while also being respectful to other teams.
It's not like we only want to have players from Munich and Bavaria as we are an international club. It's important to have players from all across the world come here and feel like they are at home.
Q: How is the graduation rate from academy football to the first team so high at Bayern Munich?
Jochen Sauer: You can explain this through the kind of football we play. I was also part of the Red Bull Group which is known for its high intensity of football. Similarly, at Bayern Munich, we want to have fun on the pitch and play football. What helps the players love the game is that they are more adaptive to other styles if they go abroad.
Maybe the other reason is we try to develop every single player in the academy to bring him to the Allianz Arena. This is not very realistic, but we are happy if we can bring 1-2 into the first team every second or third year.
The quality of the players who have developed here is high. The reason why we do it better than other clubs - we focus on giving players the opportunity to go on loan. As soon as they play at a high level for the Under-19s, if he isn't ready for the first team, our primary goal is to give him playing minutes at some other club.
If you look at the number of times Harry Kane was loaned out - I think it was four times or five. I think he only got the impact when he was around 25 - that is something we want to push and force to help players reach their highest level.
Q: Football coaches have come out and said recently that young kids these days are taught football in a very specific way that removes the element of fun from the beautiful game. How do you find the right balance?
Jochen Sauer: We try to use the little time we have to do everything with the ball. We want to train only with the ball. Even if there is a session with athletic aspects - we want them to have the ball. We try to manage training in such a way that we do games as much as possible. It's difficult because if you only have 2-3 hours and we need to focus on everything like data and athletic training, it's hard to use the time just to have fun and play football.
Q: When players go out on loan, what's Bayern Munich's role while they are away and how do you monitor their progress?
Jochen Sauer: We have about 25 players on loan this season and we have a loan management department of four people who are totally responsible. Those employees are mostly former coaches, analysts, or players - they watch every single game of every single player out on loan. Their job from Monday to Friday is to talk to the players, see how they feel, and find out if they need any support, amongst other things.
We also tell them how we think they performed over the weekend and this is very important in terms of their development.
Q: How does scouting take place for players outside Germany? Do you work with agents and talent academies?
Jochen Sauer: This is one of the reasons why we started the Red&Gold project. For a club like Bayern, it is impossible to scout across players from around the world. For the past 15-20 years, our main focus was in Europe as it was difficult to have our scouts across outside the continent. Twenty years ago, if we signed a player from Brazil, it would have been someone who already played in Europe and we probably bought him from another club.
The fight for special talent is large in Europe, so we have to focus on other continents as well. With the Red&Gold project, we have a large overview of the North American market - we bought a club in the Uruguayan first division and they do the scouting for us. For example, if there is a top talent in Brazil, it's easier to send someone from Uruguay as opposed to Europe, so this is how it works.
Sometimes, we get recommendations from former players. Alexander Baumjohann called me and told me about a really interesting player in Australia, while Ze Roberto and Giovane Elber help us out from Brazil. We try to use our network with former players to our advantage.