Bundesliga club Austria Klagenfurt have been welcoming three U-19 talents to their training sessions since Monday: Nigerians Daniel Francis and Treasure Odunze and Canadian Muslim Umar, who have been given the opportunity to prove themselves as part of the “FC Bayern World Squad” at the Carinthian Bundesliga club as part of the partnership with FC Bayern Munich.
Bundesliga club Austria Klagenfurt has been welcoming prominent visitors since Monday. Klaus Augenthaler, 1990 World Champion, is currently visiting the Carinthian Bundesliga club together with three U-19 talents from the “FC Bayern World Squad”, where the three young professionals Daniel Francis, Treasure Odunze and Muslim Umar are being trained by head coach Peter Pacult as part of the partnership between Klagenfurt and FC Bayern Munich.
2600 applicants from all over the world
The “FC Bayern World Squad” is a worldwide project that was launched by the German record champion together with partner Volkswagen last year and is now entering its second round after enormous popularity. Here, international U-19 talents get a chance to get one step closer to their dream of becoming professional footballers. In 2021, a total of 654 players from 64 different nations applied for one of the coveted squad places in more than 1,200 videos, which were scrutinised by former Bayern captain Augenthaler and international Bayern youth coach Christopher Loch.
In the second round, there were as many as 2,600 applicants from all over the world, who were reduced to a 20-man squad of players from 17 nations after a screening process by Augenthaler and ex-Bayern professional Zé Roberto. With the two Nigerians Francis and Odunze as well as the Canadian Umar, three of these talents will now be able to prove their abilities with the sixth-placed team in the Bundesliga last season.
Klagenfurt have already had very good experiences with young players from Munich in the past with the highly successful loan of Alex Timossi Andersson, and this season the Carinthians’ current squad also includes a young professional on loan from the German record champions in the form of Chinese young goalkeeper Shaoziyang Liu.
