The roller-coaster coaching career of Vincent Kompany took its biggest twist yet over the summer when mighty German side Bayern Munich came calling with a surprise swoop for the Belgian.
Kompany had just overseen Burnley's relegation from the English Premier League with the club finishing second bottom, eight points from safety, having managed just five wins all season.
It was a disastrous campaign riddled with defensive mistakes and missed opportunities at the other end of the pitch that resulted in a young and inexperienced side making an instant return to the Championship.
In 2022/23, Kompany led Burnley to the second-tier title in his first season in charge, breaking the 100-point barrier playing an exciting brand of attacking football, a philosophy that he refused to compromise in the top flight, which would ultimately lead to their downfall.
The team's defensive frailties were particularly exposed against the leading sides; the Clarets lost all 12 games against the division’s top six. “I'm not here sulking and feeling sorry for us but if you take every game, every season as a learning experience, this is a step we need to get into our game,” Kompany said after their final game.
“Today the Premier League is over but tomorrow we start day one of doing everything we can to get back to the Premier League.”
Yet within a few weeks, Kompany was gone. The 38 year old signed a three-year deal to replace Thomas Tuchel at Bayern after the two clubs agreed a compensation package reported to be around £10 million.
“Vincent is the type of coach who fits in very well with FC Bayern's playing philosophy and identity,” said Bayern sporting director Christoph Freund after the appointment. “His teams want the ball, and want to play dominant and high-intensity football.”
Kompany was no stranger to the Bundesliga having spent two years playing for Hamburg before moving to Manchester City in 2008, where the defender was the captain and heartbeat of a team that became the dominant force in English football.
After leaving City, his first coaching role saw him take over at boyhood club Anderlecht – first as a player-coach before retiring to focus solely on management in a spell that saw the Belgian club finish eighth, fourth and third – before returning to England with Burnley.
Now he was joining a very different beast in the six-time European champions who had just seen their run of 11 consecutive titles brought to an end by Xabi Alonso's invincibles at Bayer Leverkusen and finished trophyless for the first time since 2012.
Alonso had turned down the Bayern job – Hansi Flick, Ralf Rangnick and Zinedine Zidane were others – during a farcical search that finally ended in the unlikely choice of Kompany.
“I grew up on the streets of Brussels, in Anderlecht’s academy. You have to be a team, I want my players to have courage, I want us to be aggressive,” Kompany said at his unveiling. “I want us to play like that, that's also my character. We want to keep that up for entire games.”
Striker Harry Kane, speaking after Bayern's 4-0 German Cup win over second-division Ulm in their opening match, said his first impressions of Kompany had been “really good”.
“I like him a lot. He has brought in a good fresh energy,” said the England captain, who scored 44 goals in his debut season at Bayern. “The way he wants to play with a lot of possession and high pressure, a lot of attacks to try to score many goals … that really suits us. I believe that we will understand his ideas better week by week and improve steadily.”
That understanding seems to be growing; Bayern are top of the table having won four out of four, scoring 16 goals, as well thrashing Dinamo Zagreb 9-2 in the Uefa Champions League.
“If you play against Bayern, it has to represent an almost impossible mission,” Kompany said in an interview with Uefa.com before the Zagreb game. “I'm not saying it’s going to happen straight away, I’m not saying that’s where we are right now, but when I played against the very best Bayern teams, they could give you that feeling.
“For us, it’s the goal to come back as quickly as possible to give that feeling to many opponents.”
And it has been an impossible mission for opponents in their last three matches that have seen Bayern come out on top 20-3 on aggregate.
Kane has continued where he left off last season with 10 goals in six games, including four against Zagreb that took him to 33 in the Champions League making him the highest-scoring Englishman in Europe’s premier competition.
Michael Olise, signed in the summer from Crystal Palace, has hit the ground running with three goals and two assists, including a man-of-the-match display in Saturday’s 5-0 win at Werder Bremen that saw Kompany hail the 22-year-old winger as a “special talent”.
Such is the strength in depth of Bayern's squad, the likes of Joao Palhinha, Leroy Sane, Thomas Muller and Serge Gnabry all appeared off the bench in the second half.
Next up will be Kompany's first big test as manager when Bayern face double-winning Leverkusen at the Allianz Arena on Saturday evening.
But any idea that Bayern will be forced on to the back foot when taking on Alonso’s side – who are second in the table – has already been dismissed by Kompany.
“When I played against the top Bayern teams in the past, I didn’t have the impression that they were pressured by the opponent,” he insisted. “They were always the ones to put the pressure and were good on the ball. We’ll see whether we’ll manage to do that.”