Sadio Mané departs Liverpool for Bayern Munich

Mané’s trading one red kit for another

Sadio Mané’s move to Bayern Munich is officially done, with the Senegal forward making his move away from Liverpool complete on Wednesday.

Bayern are reported to have paid somewhere around $35 million for Mané, with the 30 year old bolstering an attack that may lose Robert Lewandowski this summer.

“Obviously it is strange – really, really strange – to no longer be a Liverpool player after six years spent at Anfield,” said Mané in a statement to Liverpool’s club site. “But of course I had a great time, an unbelievable time.”

In a statement on Bayern’s site, CEO and club legend Oliver Kahn praised Mané’s track record. “With his outstanding performances and his great successes at the highest international level over many years, there are very few players like him in the world,” said Kahn. “We’re sure that Sadio Mané will delight our fans in the coming years with his spectacular style of play. He’s ambitious and eager to win more titles.”

In his time at Liverpool, Mané was prolific, scoring 120 goals and adding 48 assists in 269 total appearances with the Reds. He was a regular for Liverpool sides that won a Premier League title, the FA Cup, the League Cup, and the UEFA Champions League. He also won the Golden Boot in the Premier League in 2018-19, and was the 2019 African Footballer of the Year.

How does Mané impact Bayern?

Lewandowski’s reported determination to force a move to Barcelona leaves an obvious hole in Bayern’s attack. Mané did spend most of his final weeks at Liverpool playing as a center forward, but his playing style is much different from Lewandowski’s, so it’s not simply a one-for-one.

However, with Bayern, there’s a deep supply of wide forwards as well, with Leroy Sané, Serge Gnabry, and Kingsley Coman all making over 30 appearances for the club last year. Thomas Müller was second on the entire team in minutes played, largely in the hole underneath Lewandowski, while 19-year-old attacking midfielder Jamal Musiala is also a player of growing importance.

The fact that Sané can play several positions complicates things, but in a good way. Julian Nagelsmann has the option of Sané leading the line in a different fashion from Lewandowski if the Poland striker does in fact move on, adding more speed to allow Bayern to make games more transition-oriented, but playing most of his minutes on the left remains a major possibility.