Bayern Munich Faces Injury Crisis After Telekom Cup

Bayern count the cost as injuries pile up in brutal Telekom Cup outing

Friendlies are supposed to ease a team into a new season, not rip holes in the starting XI. For Bayern Munich, the Telekom Cup against RB Leipzig turned into exactly that: a warning flare before a ball has even been kicked in the 2026/27 campaign.

Within 10 minutes, the tone was set. Konrad Laimer went into a challenge with David Raum and came off worse, forced to leave the pitch far earlier than anyone had planned. A pre-season run-out instantly became an exercise in damage control.

The setbacks didn’t stop there. As the heat cranked up and the game wore on, Min-jae Kim was the next to go. He exited during the second hydration break around the 66-minute mark, another key pillar of Vincent Kompany’s first team walking down the tunnel instead of seeing out valuable minutes on the pitch.

Then came the most worrying scene of the day. Jamal Musiala had just delivered Bayern’s third goal, a bright moment in a draining contest, when he appeared to collapse from heat exhaustion only four minutes later. Medical staff rushed on. A stretcher was almost required. For a club already anxious about fitness levels, seeing one of its most gifted players struggling in such fashion cut through any feel-good pre-season optimism.

Even the final whistle brought no real relief. Sacha Boey, who had made it through the match, cramped up after full time. It summed up the afternoon: bodies stretched, legs heavy, and Bayern counting knocks instead of positives.

All of this lands on Kompany’s desk at the worst possible time. The Franz Beckenbauer Supercup is just a week away. Before that, there is still a friendly against Heidenheim on the schedule, another fixture that was meant to fine-tune combinations and sharpen rhythm. Instead, every team sheet now comes with a risk assessment.

Laimer, Kim, Musiala, Boey — all first-team players, all central to Bayern’s plans. Losing any of them for a significant spell would reshape Kompany’s early-season blueprint. Losing several at once would do far more than that.

Pre-season is about preparation, not panic. But after a bruising afternoon against Leipzig, Bayern walk away with more questions than answers and a head coach who can only hope the medical reports in the coming days don’t turn this warning flare into a full-blown alarm.