Interview with Pavlović: Full Control

Munich—Aleksandar Pavlović no longer waits for permission to run a match; he simply assumes command. In a wide-ranging interview with FC Bayern’s members’ magazine 51, the 20-year-old Munich native outlined how he has turned the area in front of the back line into his personal headquarters, why responsibility feels like a privilege, and why the shy “asparagus stick” of yesterday has become the midfield metronome Bayern trust when the stakes are highest.

“I’m someone who tries to take control of the game and direct what’s happening with composure and vision,” Pavlović said, describing a playing identity that has already earned him a regular place alongside Joshua Kimmich in the double pivot. “When I realise we have everything under control, I want to be creative and show people some good football.”

Control, in Pavlović’s definition, is multi-layered: possession, tempo management, spatial awareness and the ability to switch from calming circulation to vertical thrust in a single heartbeat. The youngster monitors that control by demanding the ball under any circumstance, scanning 360 degrees and, when lanes vanish, instantly recalculating solutions. “No matter who’s in front of me, how tight things are on the pitch or how much pressure there is: I have no fear,” he stressed, tracing that trait back to childhood kick-abouts in the city he still calls home.

Bayern head coach Vincent Kompany has taken notice, praising the midfielder’s perpetual availability and defensive growth. Pavlović credits the Belgian’s centre-back pedigree for sharpening his own anticipation and tackling. “When you have a former world-class centre-back as a coach, you almost have to improve, don’t you?” he joked, before tipping his cap to two idols: Rodri, whose Ballon d’Or-level mastery “defined the number-six position,” and Sergio Busquets, the understated Barcelona general who “always had one eye on his surroundings.”

Yet film study has taken a back seat to self-analysis. “I concentrate more on my own game and what I can improve,” Pavlović noted, pointing to incremental gains that loom large in knockout football. “Everything happens faster against top clubs… you have to be even more alert.” Alertness, he believes, will eventually translate into decisive moments—perhaps even a goal in a Champions League final that would nudge him into the rarefied tier of match-winners.

For now, the priority is collective. Together with Kimmich, he fine-tunes a non-verbal language—hand signals, positional rotations, split-second decisions on who steps out and who drops between centre-backs—to keep Bayern’s defensive spine airtight. “Playing with two number sixes means you have a more attacking part and a more defensive part,” he explained. “But the roles can change during the game, so you have to communicate constantly.”

That growing authority spills into the dressing room, where Pavlović embraces mentorship the way he embraces a 50-50 ball. “When younger players move up to the first team, such as Lennart Karl for example, I try to be there for them,” he said, recalling his own integration under the wing of Leon Goretzka and Josip Stanišić. Responsibility, he repeated, is “a privilege.”

The next major checkpoint on his radar is a World Cup, a topic Germany coach Julian Nagelsmann recently fuelled by floating a potential double-six pairing of Pavlović and Goretzka. “Of course I’m pleased,” he smiled, “but at the moment I’m still looking at it from afar.” First comes the business end of the club season, the pursuit of silverware with the colours he has worn since primary school. “Red and white have been my colours since I was a child… there really is nothing better for me than wearing this jersey—and I’d like to do so for as long as possible.”

From the once-gangly teenager nicknamed “asparagus” to the fearless general now dictating play at the highest level, Pavlović’s transformation is complete—except, he insists, for the final chapters still to be written under the bright lights of Europe’s grandest stages.