Vincent Kompany to miss ‘weeks, not days’ after collapsing in training, Bayern say
Vincent Kompany will be sidelined for "weeks, not days" after collapsing on the training pitch on Friday and being admitted to hospital for treatment of a virus, Bayern Munich said on Saturday; assistant coach Aaron Danks will take charge of Sunday’s Bundesliga match at Freiburg.
Bayern’s sporting director, Max Eberl, told a Saturday press conference that Kompany remained in hospital in a stable condition and that examinations were ongoing to establish the nature of his illness. Eberl said the club would not impose a timetable for Kompany’s return: “Vinnie will be given all the time he needs. We’re not starting to put together any timeframes. We need to firstly figure out what it is and then we’ll discuss calmly what recovery time is to be. We won’t be talking about days, but weeks. We need to all be clear on that.”
Danks said he had a brief exchange with Kompany on Friday and that the conversation focused solely on the coach’s wellbeing rather than football matters. “I explained to him that we wouldn’t be having no football conversations. It was just checking in on his health and making sure he’s OK.”
On his role preparing the first team in Kompany’s absence, Danks added: “All the football operations are in our hands and we’ll work together as a team to keep the club moving forward.”
Bayern postponed their second team’s fixture on Friday following Kompany’s collapse but chose not to seek a delay to the senior side’s Bundesliga trip to Freiburg on Sunday, Eberl said. “I think the greatest joy for Vinnie would be for us to play well tomorrow and, ideally, get a positive result,” Eberl said. “That would probably be one of the best things we could do to help him recover.”
Danks also confirmed that Germany captain Joshua Kimmich, who has been on bereavement leave since Tuesday, would miss Sunday’s match.
Kompany had returned to the dugout for Wednesday’s home Champions League 2-2 draw with Arsenal despite missing the pre-match press conference because of the virus; after that game he described his reaction to trying to push through the illness: “I caught a pretty nasty virus last week, and of course I didn’t listen to my body – and then at some point my body just said: ‘Enough is enough!’”
Bayern begin the weekend as defending champions and sit top of the Bundesliga table, level on 14 points with Borussia Dortmund and one point ahead of Freiburg and Leverkusen; their next Champions League fixture is on 3 November in Spain against Atlético Madrid.