Kompany calls for calm on Bayern's Champions League history-maker Karl
Bayern Munich made it three wins from three in the Champions League with a victory over Club Brugge, as Lennart Karl starred on Wednesday.
Vincent Kompany called for calm when discussing Bayern Munich's teenage star Lennart Karl after he made history in the Champions League on Wednesday.
Bayern maintained their perfect start in Europe's flagship competition with a 4-0 rout of Club Brugge at the Allianz Arena.
Karl was named in the starting lineup, and aged 17 years and 242 days today, he became the youngest player in Champions League history to start a match for Bayern.
He is also the second-youngest German to start a match in the competition, after Julian Draxler for Schalke against Manchester United in May 2011 (17y 226d).
The talented teenager broke the deadlock in the fifth minute, becoming both the youngest player to score for Bayern in the Champions League and the youngest German to ever score in the competition, breaking team-mate Jamal Musiala's prior record versus Lazio in February 2021 (17y 363d) both times.
"He was great tonight and will get a lot of hype – but I'm not a fan of hype," Kompany said. "I'm a fan of performance, education, and calm.
"All eyes are on him now, but he'll need peace and time to keep developing. Today he showed he can already help us immediately."
Kompany also praised the versatility of winger Michael Olise and Karl in attack, saying: "Olise and Karl can both play inside and out – that's great for us.
"Olise gives us reliability on the wing; we can always count on him there. That's why Karl played more centrally today, and he did it brilliantly.
"But he has to keep working hard if he wants to perform at the top level like Harry Kane does at 30."
Karl's opener was followed up with goals from Harry Kane and Luis Diaz after the restart, with substitute Nicolas Jackson sealing the triumph 11 minutes from time.
Bayern are now unbeaten across their last 36 home games in the Champions League group stage/league phase (W34 D2), while also continuing their perfect start to 2025-26.
Indeed, Kompany's side also became the first Bundesliga club in history to start a season with 12 competitive wins – in Europe's big five leagues, only AC Milan managed a longer winning streak at the start of the season in 1992-93 (13).
Despite their strong start in the Champions League, the Opta supercomputer hands Bayern just a 9% probability of lifting the Champions League this season, behind Liverpool (11%), Manchester City (12%), Paris Saint-Germain (15%) and Arsenal (21%).
And the Bayern boss acknowledged tougher games are to come, with PSG and Arsenal their opponents in their next two European outings.
"Our way to the next round isn't easy – with PSG and Arsenal waiting, we face strong opponents," Kompany added.
"It's not yet the decisive phase to win the competition, but we don't want to stop now. We want to keep playing the way we have in recent weeks."
