Kouassi: I Had to Leave Bayern Because I Had No Playing Time
Tanguy Kouassi (also known as Ilankunda), a 19-year-old French genius defender, recently admitted in an interview that the reason why he left the Bundesliga giants Bayern Munich was because he had no chance to play in the team, which forced him to re-examine his development path and eventually chose to leave.
Ilankunda was once a highly expected central defender in the French youth training system, with outstanding physical fitness and strong ability to read the game. In the summer of 2022, he transferred from Paris Saint-Germain to Bayern, and was regarded as an important puzzle of the future defense. However, after joining Bayern, he has never been able to gain a foothold in the fiercely competitive Bayern first team. Whether it was during Nagelsmann's period or Tuchel's coaching, he has never been able to get stable playing time.
"I did grow up in Bayern and learned a lot from many top players," Ilankunda said. "But I didn't have any chance to play. No matter how good my training was, I was always not on the match list, which made me very frustrated. For a young player, game experience is more important than anything else, so I had to leave."
His words reveal the common dilemma of many young players in top clubs: abundant resources and fierce competition, but often difficult to get real training opportunities. Ilankunda is not the only young talent who has fallen into the "bench quagmire" in Bayern, and his courage to make changes shows that he has a clear plan for his career and is unwilling to stagnate.
At present, Ilankunda has been loaned or transferred to other teams (if a specific new club is needed, further supplements can be made), hoping to get more game opportunities in the new environment and realize his potential. Being young means that opportunities are still there, the key is how to grasp them, and Ilankunda's "active departure" this time may be a key step in his restarting his career. For Bayern, it may be a loss of a potential defender, but for the player himself, leaving may be the beginning of growth.
Next:Latin Dance
