Lennart Karl played his way into the spotlight during his Champions League debut in the starting lineup—but this came as no surprise to his coach.
At home, Lennart Karl has “a wall” where he hangs items such as the jersey he wore during his professional debut at the Club World Cup and the one he wore during his first Bundesliga appearance. As of today, there will also be a silver metal ball, which the 17-year-old FC Bayern youngster earned as the official “Man of the Match” in Wednesday evening’s 4-0 win over Bruges. In his Champions League starting debut, by the way.
It’s a “really crazy story” that Karl is currently writing in Munich, but Christoph Freund isn’t really surprised. “You see it every day in training,” explains Bayern’s sporting director. “He plays with the team, is simply a really good footballer and has an outstanding finish.”
The overwhelmed Belgians felt this after just four minutes, when number 10 Karl got the ball in midfield, left four opponents standing and scored a spectacular goal from 20 meters to make it 1-0. Or, in the words of the carefree teenager: “Very good first touch, the shot was perfect.”
Karl is cheeky and down-to-earth at the same time, as demonstrated not only by his very courageous, entertaining and, above all, good performance against Bruges, but also by the way he presented himself in the interview afterwards. In front of the camera, the youngest German Champions League goalscorer of all time said very mature things like “keep working hard.”
Kompany and Freund fell into each other’s arms
Later, when DAZN and Co. were no longer watching in the mixed zone and a huge crowd had formed around this youngster, he stuck to his script, which, since his first steps with the Bayern pros, has sounded almost like the lyrics of a German rap song: “I don’t know if I should be afraid of my opponents now. I don’t need to be afraid of my opponents. That’s why I’m just going to do my thing.“
At FC Bayern, they always smile when the name Karl is mentioned, and Lennart usually becomes ”Lenny.” The way Vincent Kompany, the entire coaching team, and sporting director Freund embraced each other when celebrating the first goal spoke volumes. “Because it was still a surprise to many that he was in the starting lineup,” says Freund. “Not for the coaches, though. We talked beforehand and had a feeling that Lenny would score his first goal today. Because he always finishes so well in training.”
And when the coaching team told Lenny, “I’m going to score a goal, I just went for it.” . What else? “The guys really respect him because he’s just a good soccer player,” explains Freund with a permanent grin. “Then he scores a goal like that… it’s a really nice story.”
Now he has to keep “working hard,” because one goal in the Champions League is not the end. “He works under a great coach who will keep him grounded,” assures teammate Harry Kane, who even dedicated his obligatory post-match social media post to the ‘fantastic’ Lenny. “He has many good qualities to become a top player,” says Kane.
These include modesty (“In my opinion, he’s very down-to-earth, so we don’t have to worry about that” – Manuel Neuer), but also the boldness and cheekiness that produces such wonderful and unusual phrases as “I’ll do my thing” or “I don’t need to be afraid.”
Karl also got goosebumps on Wednesday when the Champions League anthem rang out and he was allowed to hum along on the pitch for the first time. “I always had that as a spectator up above,” back when veterans like Sadio Mané and Matthijs de Ligt were still playing for Bayern. “It’s a dream to be down there, of course.”