“There were hard times,” Jérôme Boateng says as his mind drifts back to Bayern Munich’s wobbles at the start of the season. “It’s like being a child. As a child if I had no confidence, if you don’t get trust from your friends, then you lose the joy of the game. That’s what happens now, even when I’m older.”
Boateng, one of the finest defenders of his generation, could feel the spark ebbing away. Bayern were on the slide under Niko Kovac, a coach struggling to connect with a champion squad, and time finally appeared to have caught up with the old guard. Thomas Müller and Manuel Neuer were under pressure and Boateng, aware that people were starting to view him as a fading force, wondered whether a change of scenery was req…