Leeds United’s Marc Roca understands the obstacles he faced at Bayern Munich

Leeds United midfielder Marc Roca can look back fondly at his time at Bayern Munich and know that he learned a lot about himself as a player and a person.

One of those things that became apparent during his time in Bavaria was that he was not going to beat out Joshua Kimmich in the central midfield, so the Spaniard needed to leave.

“For me, it was an incredible period for developing. It was a good step in my life – not easy but I think I grew a lot. My German is OK and I had to learn it because from the start all the team meetings were in German,” Roca told The Athletic (as captured by @iMiaSanMia). “When I played, I had good performances and I showed to myself first, and to everybody, that I could play there with those players, that I was ready to play there. If the coach thinks other things, or prefers other players, I can accept it. For me, it was time to change, but I’m really grateful to (former coach Julian Nagelsmann) and the club. Joshua Kimmich was playing, I shared a position with him, and I have to accept he was a really important player at Bayern and for the German national team. Sometimes things are like this.”

Roca did the correct thing for his career and has had a successful move to Leeds United. The 26-year-old has played in 27 games across all competition this season and tallied one goal and two assists playing mostly as a defensive midfielder. There was virtually no shot that he would be getting anywhere near that playing time if he was still in Munich, so there is no doubt that Roca made the right move.

For Bayern Munich, that move could result in a little more cash as well:

Bayern secured bonus payments when Marc Roca was sold to Leeds United in summer 2022. At the time it was reported that Bayern would get €1.25m in back payments after Roca’s 25 season appearances. The Spaniard has now reached this mark in 2022/23.

In the end, everyone is winning from this transfer.