Earlier this year, representatives of one of the Bundesliga’s budding superstars met with a delegation from Bayern Munich. Their client is likely to move to a bigger club at the end of the current season, and Bayern, the German champion, is one of a half-dozen potential suitors. But first, his agents wanted to discover what plans the club’s hierarchy had for their player.

The tone of the meeting was cordial — Bayern prides itself on its hospitality, its clubby atmosphere — but it was not, from the agents’ point of view, especially productive.

Bayern did not offer a detailed pitch, a clear blueprint, of how a career might develop under its care. Instead, its officials simply gave the impression that it was inevitable the player should move to Bavaria. Surely it was obvious, after all, that he was by nature “a Bayern player.”