He paid an increasing amount of attention to nutrition and conditioning, and worked to build up his muscle mass, altering his body shape in a similar way to one of his team-mates: Leon Goretzka. According to those who know him well, he found that Bayern’s training sessions pushed him harder - physically and tactically - and the standard of the players around him brought his game on, first under Hansi Flick and then under Nagelsmann. They had a good relationship to the very end, despite Nagelsmann’s inability to offer Roca more minutes.įor all that game time was hard to come by, Roca left Bayern believing himself to be a better footballer than he was when he departed Espanyol in 2020. Goodbyes to bit-part footballers are rarely more effusive than that and Bayern’s head coach, Julian Nagelsmann, had spoken several times about the quality of Roca’s professionalism. Roca made 24 appearances for Bayern Munich across two seasons after joining the Bundesliga giants from Espanyol (Photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images) We wish him every success on his future path.” “We’re convinced that Marc will give Leeds a lot of pleasure. “Marc has a wonderful character,” said Bayern’s Hasan Salihamidzic as the deal went through on Friday. To them, he was a victim of the quality in their squad, a midfielder they could have used more. Six of those appearances were league starts but he had never complained or caused trouble, and for that, Bayern were grateful. In two full seasons, he had played only 24 times. But Roca was different, a player who the Bundesliga champions would have willingly kept had the midfielder not been getting itchy feet. Leeds had come close to having their fingers burned two years earlier when they tried to sign Michael Cuisance for £18 million, only for Cuisance to fail a medical. It helped that Bayern came across as a club who were only reluctantly selling Roca. Leeds just needed to be sure that physically, mentally and in terms of motivation, Roca was still in very good shape. And though his time in Germany did not work out perfectly, it did not alter Orta’s appreciation of him either. He was one of many people who developed an admiration for him while the now-25-year-old was emerging at Espanyol in Spain but in the transfer window Bayern signed him (the summer of 2020), Roca was too highly rated for Leeds to have a reasonable chance of landing him. In truth, Orta had been following Roca for far longer than six months. As he flew home, Orta sent dispatches to Leeds in the early hours of the morning and gave the deal the green light. Orta, who had been actively pursuing an interest in the midfielder since January, was there to run Roca through the plan for him at Elland Road but also to check that his motivation was intact after two fairly quiet years in Munich. Victor Orta, the club’s director of football, had gone in search of that appetite when he flew to Barcelona a week earlier for a face-to-face chat with Roca: their last conversation before Leeds got their ducks in a row with Bayern. He had cut an impressive figure since landing in England but it reassured Leeds a little more to see how happy he was to be there. One went to the club’s secretary and the other to a second member of the club’s staff, with a few words of thanks from the Spanish midfielder for the work done to finalise his move from Bayern Munich. On the way out of the stadium, Roca gave away both bottles. As usual, the gifts were waiting for Marc Roca when he got to Elland Road to finalise his contract last Friday. One of the traditions at Leeds United is to give new signings two bottles of champagne: one for them, one for their significant other.
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