Joins for €13m
Bryan Zaragoza will join Bayern Munich from Granada ahead of the 2024/25 season. After plenty of speculations on Tuesday, Bayern Munich confirmed the transfer on Wednesday. The Spanish national team winger will sign a five-year contract that will kick in on July 1, 2024 and runs until 2029. Although Zaragoza had an exit clause worth €15 million, Bayern will pay less. According to a report by Germany’s Bild, Bayern were able to negotiate the fee down to €13m. Bayern beat out RB Leipzig, who were hoping to sign Zaragoza as a replacement for Emil Forsberg. Bayern, in fact, have a good history when it comes to Spanish players. Zaragoza will become the eighth player in Bayern’s club history.
“Bryan Zaragoza is a very fast and extremely agile winger who can play on both wings,” Bayern sporting director Christoph Freund said in a club statement. “He is unpredictable, a goal threat, and very good in one-v-one situations. He has already made his debut for the Spanish national team this year and has a lot of potential. Bryan is one of the hotshots in Spain and has been on our radar for a long time. He will expand our attacking options.”
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The speed with which Bayern Munich signed Zaragoza this week is only surprising at first glance. With new sporting director Freund in charge, the Bundesliga giants have the goal to sign outstanding players before they become global top stars. In many ways, this follows a strategy Freund followed at his previous club Red Bull Salzburg. And Zaragoza perfectly fits into that target group. After already scoring five goals and two assists in 14 LaLiga games this season his market value increased from €1.5m to €8m. There is a good chance the market value increase will increase further when Transfermarkt updates LaLiga later this month.
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But what sort of player is Zaragoza? “Zaragoza is one of the surprises of LaLiga,” Transfermarkt Content Manager Spain Iván Fuente said. “He is Granada’s offensive leader with 5 goals and 2 assists. He has even been called up to the national team despite his team’s poor performance, which makes it more difficult to shine in LaLiga. Although most often used as a right winger, Zaragoza can also play on the other wing and in the middle. He is a fast player and unpredictable player in one-v-one situations. He is a good dribbler.”
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Those impressions are backed up by the stats on Wyscout. Zaragoza leads LaLiga with 135 one-v-one dribbles, and he is third in the league with 9.65 dribbles per 90 minutes. One major advantage for Zaragoza is his low center of gravity, which, according to Fuente, makes it difficult to bring him down in duels. But what about weaknesses? “His weakness could be his lack of experience,” Fuente said. “He also still lacks stamina; Zaragoza’s brilliance depends on his speed and freshness.”
Indeed, Zaragoza has also been described as a typical street footballer who, at times, still seems a bit raw. But that, too is part of Bayern’s new transfer strategy. The club wants to ensure that big transfers like Harry Kane will remain the exception. Instead, the model is to sign players like Alphonso Davies or Mathys Tel, who were signed for relatively low fees but have since increased their market values significantly. The hope is that the same will happen with Zaragoza.
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