“I’d probably do it the same way again”: Bayern flop looks back on controversial transfer to Bayern Munich

Sinan Kurt does not see his much-discussed move from Borussia Mönchengladbach to Bayern Munich in 2014 as a mistake.

"I would probably do it that way again and again," he told the Bild newspaper. Shortly after his 18th birthday, Kurt moved from the Foals to Bayern Munich for a transfer fee of three million euros, but he did not settle there.

"There is no way of saying how things would have turned out if I had stayed in Gladbach anyway. Nobody knows what would have happened then," the now 30-year-old pointed out. Back then, the move to Munich drew huge media interest, something Kurt now struggles to understand: "It was really blown up by the media. Everything was made a bit worse than it was in the end," he said.

Bayern's year-and-a-half gamble did not work out, and the German record champions sold him to Hertha BSC for only 500,000 euros. He spent three years in Berlin before trying his luck in Austria, Slovakia and Turkey. "I now have my own football school and still play football for fun," Kurt reported.

What would Sinan Kurt do differently?

Now, Kurt would offer some advice to his 18-year-old self: "I would tell him that he should take the whole thing even more seriously than I did back then. Not just rely on his talent, but show more mentality," he said.

On 25 April 2015, Sinan Kurt made his only Bundesliga appearance for Bayern Munich in the 1-0 win against Hertha BSC, coming on after the break. For the Berliners, he then played five more minutes in Germany's top flight across two brief appearances for the capital club.