The World Cup winner has been linked with a move to the German champions, but their new coach has kept quiet about a possible summer move <\/p>\n
Niko Kovac refused to comment on transfer speculation linking Bayern Munich with\u00a0World Cup-winning defender Benjamin Pavard, but he does expect to be able to call upon the services of James Rodriguez next season.<\/p>\n
Pavard, 22, played all but one of France’s matches en route to winning the World Cup, even scoring one of the goals of the tournament with a stunning volley in the thrilling 4-3 last-16 win over Argentina.<\/p>\n
Usually a centre-back with Stuttgart last season, Pavard excelled at right-back in Russia and would therefore add useful versatility to Bayern’s defence, with strong reports claiming the player has already signed a pre-contract agreement for 2019, when a \u20ac35 million (\u00a331m\/$41m) release clause is reportedly due to come into effect.<\/p>\n
Article continues below<\/span> <\/p>\n Juve on alert: Exiled Icardi may have already played his final game for Inter Sarri vindicated for dropping Kepa as Chelsea & Pedro impress in Spurs win Magnificent Mane takes centre stage as league leaders Liverpool put on a five-star show Lukaku sends reminder that his Man Utd career is far from over <\/p>\n Kovac insists he knows nothing of such rumours,\u00a0though he did not hide his admiration for the defender.<\/p>\n “I cannot say anything about it,” the Bayern head coach\u00a0told reporters in a news conference on Thursday.<\/p>\n “You’ll have to contact Brazzo [sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic]. I can confirm that he is a really good player.<\/p>\n “We have a team of 22 players and it will be a difficult task to keep everybody happy. We do not talk about another one.”<\/p>\n Bayern were without first-choice goalkeeper Manuel Neuer for most of last season due to a broken foot and, although Sven Ulreich performed admirably in his stead, Kovac appeared to dash his hopes of retaining his spot in goal for next term.<\/p>\n “Sven did a really good job, hardly anyone thought he could \u2013 he proved he was right to be here,” Kovac said.<\/p>\n “I know I can count on him, but Neuer is a world-class goalkeeper. I know who the number one is and who the number two is, but I also know that number two is a number one.”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The World Cup winner has been linked with a move to the German champions, but their new coach has kept quiet about a possible summer move Niko Kovac refused to comment on transfer speculation linking Bayern Munich with\u00a0World Cup-winning defender Benjamin Pavard, but he does expect to be able to call upon the services of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Editors' Picks<\/h3>\n