Vidal Move to Bayern Confirmed
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As Bayern Munich completed their preseason tour in China, club president Karl-Heinz Rummenigge confirmed today that Chilean star Arturo Vidal will be joining the club pending a physical.
“I can confirm that there is an agreement between the two parties (Bayern Munich and Juventus). He still needs a medical but if everything goes as planned, he should be training with us next week.”
Transitioning to the German Bundesliga should be no problem for Vidal, after having played for 4 seasons at Bayer Leverkusen. In his time there, he helped guide the team to a German Cup Final appearance in 2009 and a 2nd-placed finish and a round of 16 berth in the Europa League in 2010-2011, his final season with the club. He also finished that season by being named to the Bundesliga Team of the Season.
A transfer to Serie A giants Juventus followed in the summer of 2011, and he was instrumental in their success over the past 4 seasons as Juventus racked up 4 straight Scudetto titles, 2 Supercoppa Italiana titles, and 1 Coppa Italia title between 2011 and 2015.
In addition, Vidal was named Serie A Player of the Year for the 2012-2013 season and was also named to the Serie A Team of the Year twice.
Vidal, who began his career at Colo Colo in Chile before making his first move to Germany, has earned a reputation as an aggressive box-to-box player who contributes a fair share of goals from his midfield position, and his signing will help manager Pep Guardiola address the vacancy in Bayern’s midfield created by the departure of Bastian Schweinsteiger.
With fellow new signing Douglas Costa in the picture as well, Bayern will look to continue their dominance of the Bundesliga, having finished no lower than 4th over the past 10 years and winning the title the last 3 seasons.
Meanwhile, Juventus are rumored to be interested in signing young German Julian Draxler as they rebuild their midfield following the departures of Vidal and Andrea Pirlo.