Hiroki Ito

Left Back - Bayern Munich
20 Jun 2027
Sunday
Process

Marked for Hiroki Ito

42 Edition

The Bayern Munich Courier

17 May 2027
From our football correspondent Upbeat

Boardroom

Bayern Munich have won it

This is the season the town will measure the next twenty against. The trophy travels home with the squad, and the route through the streets was agreed days ago.

Squad

Harry Kane in a row with a teammate

It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Bayern Munich this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.

Loan watch

Daniel Peretz’s loan is measured in nothing happening

18 clean sheets from 34 appearances at Southampton. That is the whole of a goalkeeper’s job done properly, and it is being done a long way from the club that owns him.

Squad

Joshua Kimmich falls out with a teammate over standards

The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.

The dugout

When it matters, Harry Kane plays

It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.

Market

The Dayot Upamecano story refuses to die

It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Dayot Upamecano signs something — a contract at Bayern Munich or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.

The dugout

The manager makes Jonas Urbig a promise

Nothing in writing and nothing in public: a word about playing time, given face to face at Bayern Munich. The team sheets over the next month will show whether it was worth having.

Squad

Good reports on Michael Olise

The word out of the training ground is that he has been the sharpest man there all week. It is the quietest story a paper carries and it usually runs the week before somebody's run in the side begins.

The dugout

Hiroki Ito keeps his manager's vote

The message was aimed at the stands as much as the dressing room: Hiroki Ito plays, and the argument is closed until the manager decides otherwise.

In brief

Back issues
26 Edition

The Bayern Munich Courier

25 Jan 2027
From our football correspondent Triumph

Market

Kasper Høgh arrives at Bayern Munich in a $28.7M statement of intent

There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Bayern Munich have paid $28.7M for Kasper Høgh, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.

Transfer targets

Too dear: Bayern Munich walk away from Christian Eriksen

$32.8M was the most the club would pay and VfL Wolfsburg were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.

Market

Business is business: Ismael Saibari goes

Bayer Leverkusen paid $38.9M and Bayern Munich took it, which is the whole story in one sentence. The longer version involves a wage budget and will be told all season.

Match

Nobody wants to play Bayern Munich right now

8 wins in a row changes how opponents warm up: quieter, more glances across. Runs end, everybody knows that — but nobody in this dressing room is planning for it.

Match

Bayern Munich tear Köln apart

Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 4‑0 against Köln, and it could have been more.

Transfer targets

Door shut on Paul Nebel

Bayern Munich asked and Mainz 05 said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.

Player ratings

Michael Olise scores twice — 8.52

Two goals and a mark of 8.52 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.

Match

Bayern Munich keep winning on the road

7 away wins in a row. Travelling support is the truest kind, and this season it is being repaid in the only currency that counts.

Market

Hiroki Ito puts it in writing

“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Bayern Munich, and it is not being withdrawn.

In brief

7 Edition

The Bayern Munich Courier

14 Sep 2026
From our football correspondent Triumph

Match

No mercy from Bayern Munich

Hamburger SV will want this one forgotten quickly: 4‑1, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Bayern Munich were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.

Transfer targets

Maximilian Mittelstädt stays at VfB Stuttgart as time runs out

A deal that was a phone call from completion at lunchtime was dead by midnight. Bayern Munich will try again when the window opens; VfB Stuttgart may not be selling by then.

Player ratings

Both of them Jamal Musiala's — 8.65

2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.65, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.

Market

Hiroki Ito hands in a written request

“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Bayern Munich can pretend not to have heard.

Match

Bayern Munich cannot stop winning

3 wins on the spin now, and the question has changed from whether the run ends to who ends it. Confidence like this cannot be bought; it has to be earned exactly this way.

Player ratings

Nobody could get near Ismael Saibari

Successful dribbles: 22. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.

Squad

Dayot Upamecano falls out with a teammate over standards

The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.

Player ratings

Ninety minutes of Tim Kleindienst at his very best

Marked 8.15. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Bayern Munich.

Player ratings

One of those days for Dayot Upamecano

There is a version of this player everybody suspected was in there, and on this evidence it is. 8.04, and no argument anywhere in the ground.

In brief