With the 2022/23 Bundesliga season creeping ever closer, we’re about to see a flurry of transfer activity and the top clubs are battling to bring in the best goal scorers available, while some top strikers could well be on the way out of the German league.
It appears that champions Bayern Munich have struck first with the signing of Sadio Mane nearing completion. The Senegalese striker is due to have his medical and is set to be unveiled to the Bayern fans on Wednesday, having penned a £35-M deal to take him from Liverpool to Bavaria.
Since arriving at Anfield from Southampton, Mane has scored 120 goals in 269 appearances and has been part of a fearsome front three alongside Mohamed Salah and Roberto Firmino and latterly Diogo Jota – picking up Premier League, Champions League, FA Cup, and League Cup winners medals along the way.
At Bayern, he is more likely to play as a lone striker ahead of a No. 10 and with two wide-men or he may even be pushed out wide, depending on who else comes through the door.
Wherever he plays, Mane will be a hit with the Bayern fans as his lighting pace and fantastic array of shooting is sure to reap hefty dividends in a side which already scores for fun.
Former Bayern and Germany midfield legend Lothar Matthaus believes Mane will be a sensation in Germany, saying: “The signing of Sadio Mane is fantastic – not just for FC Bayern, but for the entire league. The fact that such a great footballer will play in our league is just class. He has provided goals and assists with Liverpool in a way and with regularity that few other players in the world have been able to match.”
That’s some welcome.
We’ve been following this story here at SBOTOP and I suspect the pre-season Bundesliga 2022 betting odds just got a little shorter on the prospect of the title returning to Bavaria.
Haller set for Dortmund switch
The fixtures for the 2022/22 season are out and Borussia Dortmund have a tough assignment on the opening weekend when Champions League qualifiers Bayer Leverkusen are the visitors to the Signal Iduna Park.
BVB will have to kick-off without their former star striker Erling Haaland, but bosses at the club hope they will have the big Norwegian’s replacement in, ready for pre-season training.
Die Schwarzgelben are reported to have agreed personal terms with Ajax forward Sebastien Haller to bring him to Dortmund. The club has tabled an offer of €33-M plus add- ons to sign the former Eintracht striker who, at 27 years of age, is the right profile of player to lead the line.
Ajax are holding out for a fee in the region of €40-M to make Haller BVB’s most expensive signing of all time. And it would be money well-spent on a player who is banging in form.
He scored 11 goals in the 2021/22 Champions League, bettered only by Karim Benzema and Robert Lewandowski and ahead of the likes of Salah, Kylian Mbappe, and Cristiano Ronaldo.
Haller is among the finest strikers in Europe. But if he moves to BVB, he has big shoes to fill.
Stuttgart striker attracting interest
BVB have also been tracking VFB Stuttgart striker Sasa Kalajdzic, who looks set to move on after impressing a number of top clubs over the past two campaigns.
The 24-year-old Austria international has scored 23 goals in 54 games for VFB and, at 6’7”, he is a giant of a player, strong in the air, and likened to former England striker Peter Crouch as a fine target man.
If Dortmund are ready to make a bid, they will be in competition with a host of English clubs, including Tottenham, Chelsea, Manchester United, and Leicester City, and even Bayern Munich are reported to be keeping tabs on the player.
Lewi saga rumbles on
The biggest Bundesliga 2022 news of the summer has been Robert Lewandowski’s announcement that he is ready to leave Bayern Munich, his subsequent fallout with the club, and the protracted negotiations to engineer a move to Barcelona.
The 2021 FIFA Player of the Year has seemingly been on his way to Barcelona since the last ball was kicked in the 2021/22 campaign, but there is no big announcement on the cards just yet.
And that has prompted journalists at the French news outlet Foot Mercato to make a cheeky suggestion that, if Barca can’t meet the €50-M asking price, then maybe Paris Saint-Germain will step in.
Following a furious row with Ligue 1 over the conduct of Kylian Mbappe in turning down Real Madrid, Lewi moving to Paris would be the last thing La Liga bosses would want to see.
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