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I was already getting excited about this transfer window, what with Victor Wanyama already here and Vincent Janssen almost certainly signing soon. And then this dropped tonight: according to German daily Bild, German international attacking midfielder and legitimate superstar Mario Götze has announced that he’s almost certainly leaving Bayern Munich this summer, and the front runners to sign him are Borussia Dortmund and Tottenham Hotspur.
WHAT.
There’s not much in the article, but let’s take a look at what’s actually there.
BILD erfuhr: Im Nationelf-Kreis plauderte Götze aus, dass er München doch verlassen werde. Fragt sich nur, in welche Richtung.
Spur Nummer 1: Der BVB! Eine Rückkehr nach Dortmund ist immer noch drin, auch wenn das Thema derzeit nicht allzu heiß ist.
Spur Nummer 2: Die heißere! Es soll in den vergangenen Tagen Kontakte mit Tottenham Hotspur gegeben haben. Die Londoner spielen als Liga-Dritter in der Champions League.
I don’t speak German, so I reached out to our friends at Fear the Wall, SBN’s Dortmund blog, and Gilles Hoffmann came through with a direct translation.
Götze told some people in the national team that he will leave Munich. The only question is, where will he go?
Option number 1: BVB! A comeback to Dortmund is still possible even if the trail isn't very hot right now.
Option number 2: The more likely option. In the last few days Tottenham has been in contact (with Götze). The London-based club play in the Champions League as the third placed team in the EPL.
Götze is 24 years old, and is in almost every sense of the word, fantastic. His contract at Bayern Munich expires in 2017, and he’s been refusing to sign an extension with the German champions. Bayern seem ready to cut bait on him and cash in for him this summer instead of letting him walk on a free next summer, because you don’t let a player like Götze leave on a free.
I’ll be honest, the first draft of this article was two parts fanboi and one part actual reporting. There were a lot of Es in my SQUEEEEEE. But can you blame me? Mario Götze is a player whom you break the bank for. You demolish your wage structure to land him. You make every effort possible to sign him because he’s the kind of player who can propel a club like Tottenham to the next level. Oh, he’s also an attacking midfielder, and didn’t Spurs suggest that they were on the hunt for another attacking mid?
Looking at the actual Bild report, there’s not much there there. All it says is that Spurs have been in contact with Götze, or more likely, his representatives. There’s no evidence that he’s receptive to the idea. There’s no indication that he would prefer Tottenham over Dortmund. Even so, I would not classify this as batcountry. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, but based on the source and the language used, this isn’t a story out of the Sun. I think there’s some truth here.
However there are some huge obstacles. For starters, even if Bayern are ready to dump him he’s still going to be incredibly expensive. Transfermarkt lists him as worth £35m, but that seems low. Bayern bought him from Dortmund back in 2013 for £31.5. Even if Bayern only wants to break even on the deal, that’s still a lot of cheddar.
Secondly, there’s the matter of his wages. Nobody’s really sure what Götze earns at Bayern: the numbers range from £115k/wk to £150k/wk. All that we can say for certain is that it’s a lot. Right now, Hugo Lloris is the club’s highest earner at around £100k/wk and if Harry Kane signs his new contract, he’ll be making around that number too. A Götze signing would probably blow those figures out of the water unless he decides to take a pay cut to play in London.
If you have a chance, even a small one, of signing Mario Götze, you go for it. There’s a lot going against this rumor, but that’s the beauty of the transfer window. Sometimes you get something like this out of left field. A few years ago, I actively crapped on a rumor that said Spurs were going to sign Rafael van der Vaart. I didn’t think that would happen either.
We’re probably not going to sign Mario Götze. But seriously, you guys. What if we signed Mario Götze?!