Bayern Munich travel to third-placed Freiburg on Sunday without six players and their head coach, after a Saturday of bad news confirmed that Vincent Kompany will be out for weeks and Manuel Neuer, Min-jae Kim and Aleksandar Pavlovic have joined an already brutal absentee list.
It is the worst possible preparation for a top-of-the-table Bundesliga clash at the Europa-Park Stadion. Freiburg have made a strong start to the season and sit third, while Borussia Dortmund's win on Saturday has turned the pressure up on the champions. Bayern still have Harry Kane, Michael Olise and Serge Gnabry to call on — but almost everything behind that front line has been stripped away in the space of a week.
Kompany out for weeks, Danks in charge
The most serious absence remains the man in the dugout. Kompany is still in hospital after his collapse while watching the reserve team train, and at Saturday's press conference sporting director Max Eberl, via Yardbarker, was blunt about the timeline: "Vinnie will be given all the time he needs; we won't set any time frames. We have to find out what and how. But we're talking about weeks, and that must be clear to all of us." Eberl confirmed Kompany's condition is stable, though he will remain in hospital for several more days of tests after a severe viral infection.
Assistant coach Aaron Danks, who arrived at Bayern alongside Kompany in 2024, will take charge at Freiburg. Danks has spoken to Kompany in hospital but stressed there were no football conversations — only a check on his health. The football operations, he said, are in the staff's hands until their boss is well enough to return.
Neuer and Kim the latest names on the list
Saturday brought two more blows. Bayern announced that Neuer will miss the Freiburg game with persistent tendon irritation in his foot — the same problem that kept the 40-year-old out of last weekend's 6-1 win over RB Leipzig before he returned for the 2-2 Champions League draw with Arsenal. Jonas Urbig, the 23-year-old being groomed as his successor, will deputise again.
Then, as LiveScore reported, Danks confirmed Kim is also out. The centre-back suffered a muscle strain against Arsenal and was forced off at half-time, leaving Dayot Upamecano and Jonathan Tah as the likely pairing. Pavlovic is also expected to miss out with calf problems reported by Sky Sport Germany, while Diaz faces four to six weeks out with a muscle bundle tear, Jamal Musiala is still in recovery training after his thigh muscle fibre tear, and Joshua Kimmich remains with his family following the death of his father. "He is still with his family and is going through a difficult time. He will be given all the time he needs," Danks said of Kimmich.
So what? A defining week on a skeleton squad
The timing could hardly be worse. After Freiburg, Bayern travel to Magdeburg in the DFB Cup on Wednesday, and then comes the small matter of Borussia Dortmund next Saturday — a game Kompany, on Eberl's own timeline, will almost certainly still be missing. Musiala could return by the end of October, which would help, but Diaz, Kim and Neuer have no such clear date.
That leaves the season resting, for now, on Kane's shoulders and on the depth Bayern spent so heavily to build. Win at Freiburg with a patched-up side and the crisis narrative dies down; drop points against a team that has started this well, with Dortmund looming, and a medical emergency becomes a title-race problem very quickly.
Beyond the Final Whistle: Bayern are right to protect Kompany for weeks rather than rush him back — no match is worth a coach's health — but Eberl's honesty tells its own story: this is now a squad running on its reserves at exactly the moment the season tightens. If Kane and Olise drag a depleted Bayern through Freiburg, it may end up as the most valuable win of their season. Can Danks and this skeleton side hold top spot until Kompany returns?
