Fink: Bayern should not sign Cristiano Ronaldo

Cristiano Ronaldo is still a top player, but Bayern Munich should not bring him to the Allianz Arena. That is according to former Bayern player Thorsten Fink, who wants the Bundesliga champions to be a “great team” rather than a “team of greats”.

Ronaldo has been linked with a move away from Manchester United after reportedly telling the club he wants to leave in search of Champions League football. However, Bayern CEO Oliver Kahn appeared to dampen suggestions the club would look to bring in the 37-year-old, who scored 24 goals in 38 games in all competitions for United last season, saying recently a move for the Portugal star “does not necessarily fit with our ideas”.

Fink concurred with Kahn’s assertion, telling Stats Perform: “Cristiano was and still is a top player, [but] you have to look at how he fits your system and how he blends into the structure of the team. Does a player with his magnitude fit this club and this team? Would others suffer from that? This is what you have to think about. I am sure they talked about this at Bayern. It is about the system you play, the charisma and magnitude that Cristiano Ronaldo has. You either are a ‘team of greats’ or you are a ‘great team’, and I think for Bayern it is important to be a great team and not have great individual players who, in the end, don’t have that character to win things.”

New arrivals in Munich

Fink played for Bayern between 1997 and 2003, winning four Bundesliga titles, three DFB-Pokals and the Champions League in 2000-01, and he has been impressed by the business his former club has done in the transfer window. Although Bayern sold Robert Lewandowski to Barcelona, they added Sadio Mané from Liverpool, as well as Ryan Gravenberch and Noussair Mazraoui from Ajax, while another former Ajax man Matthijs de Ligt completed a big money move from Juventus on Tuesday.

“I’m always surprised at what Bayern manages to achieve again and again,” Fink added. “One year you think ‘now everyone’s saying Bayern will not win a title’ or something. I’ve heard it from people again. But when you see who they’ve brought in, I have to say ‘chapeau’ to them for bringing players of such class over from England. That actually shows how interesting our league is. And you have to say hats off to Bayern. Only Bayern can bring players like that to our country who enhance our league. And that’s why I’m really happy that Mané has come and that De Ligt has also come. I can’t wait to see what Bayern can achieve.”