11 months ago, we reported how the Bayern Munich supporters were already growing concerned about a seldom-seen Spaniard who had only joined the club a few weeks earlier.
Marc Roca, a £13 million summer signing from Espanyol, had played just one minute of Bundesliga football at the time.
But the overall feeling was that, while things hadn’t exactly gone to plan in Bavaria, no one should be getting carried away just yet.
Adapting to life in a new league, at a new club, in a new country is difficult enough, especially when you’re swapping an Espanyol side relegated from La Liga in 2019/20 for a Bayern team who had conquered the continent that very same season, defeating PSG in the Champions League final.
Flash forward to October 2021, however, and it is painfully clear that the Bayern fans were right to express their concern.
Roca, quite obviously, is not going to belatedly adapt to life at a European superclub, a la Fabinho at Liverpool or Jorginho at Chelsea. Instead, a more pertinent comparison may be Donny Van de Beek; a gifted central midfielder who looks about as lost as a Nine Inch Nails fan at a BTS gig.
Is Marc Roca destined for disaster at Bayern Munich?
According to Spanish publication La Razon in August 2020, Mikel Arteta had hoped to lure Roca to Arsenal before Bayern came calling.
The report went as far as to name the Spain U21 international, who had also been linked with Aston Villa, Sheffield United and Burnley, as Arteta’s ‘dream’ signing; a disciplined, highly-intelligent deep-lying midfielder in the Sergio Busquets mould.
It is worth pointing out that Thomas Partey only moved to North London after his fellow La Liga export chose Munich over London; that is how highly Roca was regarded as recently as last year.
How times have changed in this oh-so fickle world of top-level football.
11 months on, Roca’s tally of Bundesliga starts has increased from zero to two.
What’s more, he has made the matchday squad just once since Julian Nagelsmann replaced the clearly unimpressed Hansi Flick in the Allianz dugout, failing to add to his measly six league appearances under the former RB Leipzig boss.
With Joshua Kimmich, Loen Goretzka, Jamal Musiala, Corentin Tolisso and now Marcel Sabitzer ahead of him in Nagelsmann’s pecking order, things appear unlikely to change any time soon.
Roca’s agent told Spox back in May that the midfielder had no plans to give up on his Bayern dream after just one year in Germany.
You have to wonder, if he could turn back the clock, whether Roca would do things differently now.
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