DREAMER
AMERICAN
Bayern Munich are nurturing the USA’s
next big talent. Ryan Baldireports...
W
hen 20-year-old
American centre-back
Chris Richards made his
Bayern Munich debut in
the Bundesliga champions’ penultimate
league game of the 2019-20 campaign,
the company he was keeping laid bare
the mammoth task ahead of him in the
coming seasons.
There was six minutes left of a 3-1
win over Freiburg at the Allianz Arena
when coach Hansi Flick threw the
United States U20 prodigy into the fray.
Lining up alongsideJerome Boateng,
Benjamin Pavard and Lucas Hernandez,
Richards was the only member of the
Bayern back four without a World Cup
winner’s medal.
Many of the American youngsters
thriving in Germany’s top flight at
present are doing so outside of
European football’s most intense glare;
their development is being eased along
at clubs they will view as springboards
to bigger things. That’s not the case for
Richards. Clubs don’t get any bigger
than Bayern, but the confident
Alabama-native is undaunted by the
prospect of fighting for a regular place
within the continent’s most talent-rich
line-up.
“I definitely feel like there is some
extra pressure on me when it comes towhat club I’m playing at,” Richards says.
“Bayernisoneofthebiggestclubsin
the world and traditionally one of the
best as well. People are already kind
of counting me out because I’m an
American playing at Bayern. They’re
like,“Oh,it’llneverhappen.”
“I’m not so infatuated with the big
names.Iwanttobeabletoshowpeople
that, even though I am at Bayern, I can
play just as well as any other player.
That’s my biggest motivation.”
Richards joined Bayern from FC
Dallas in 2018, initially on loan for a
year after a successful ten-day trial.
He’dneverplayedaseniorgameforthe
MLS side, but his performances at youth
level, both internationally and with his
club, convinced Bayern of his potential.
An official partnership between the two
clubs gives the German giants first
refusal on Dallas’ best young players;
several have trained with Bayern,
but Richards, thus far, is the only
one to be signed.
“Ibelieveitwasthespringof2018,”
Richards says, thinking back to when he
first learned of Bayern’s interest. “We
had this upcoming tournament called
the Dallas Cup, which is a pretty big
thing in the US. I remember hearing,
“Bayern are at the game. We don’t want
to put much pressure on you but they’llSPECIAL
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