🤯 Tour de France or what? Ex-Bayern star reportedly clashed with Kovac | OneFootball

🤯 Tour de France or what? Ex-Bayern star reportedly clashed with Kovac | OneFootball

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·23 maggio 2026

🤯 Tour de France or what? Ex-Bayern star reportedly clashed with Kovac

Immagine dell'articolo:🤯 Tour de France or what? Ex-Bayern star reportedly clashed with Kovac

There seemed to have been quite a bit of bad blood between former Bayern star James Rodríguez and current BVB coach Niko Kovac during their time together at the German record champions. 

In his own ‘Netflix’ documentary, the Colombian spoke pretty openly about it.


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Kovac became coach in James’ second year in Munich. Looking back, the now 34-year-old felt he was not exactly one of the coach’s favorites. 

The biggest annoyance for the superstar: all the fitness training sessions. James reveals: “He wanted the players to spend 30 minutes on the bike after training." 

Immagine dell'articolo:🤯 Tour de France or what? Ex-Bayern star reportedly clashed with Kovac

📸 Alexander Hassenstein - 2018 Getty Images

James said he reacted with quite a bit of surprise: “What am I training for then? Am I riding in the Tour de France or what? I’m a football player."

They also seemed unable to see eye to eye on the subject of learning German. He said he “couldn’t stick with” the language classes. He was “always falling asleep” and told Kovac that he didn’t want to learn. 

Yikes, it really sounds like the two football figures did not have a good time together. 

What do you think? Is constantly riding a bike as a professional footballer really that pointless? Or do you lean more toward Kovac’s philosophy? Feel free to write it in the comments. 

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇩🇪 here.


📸 Ellen Schmidt - 2026 Getty Images

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