SIX months into his role as Bayern Munich manager, Vincent Kompany’s side are eight points clear at the top of the Bundesliga and on course to regain the title they relinquished to Bayer Leverkusen last season.
The 38-year-old coach was brought in after Bayern ended the 2023-24 season 18 points off the top spot in third under Thomas Tuchel – their worst league finish since 2010-11.
Kompany became the Bundesliga’s first black manager and only the second black manager in any of Germany’s professional football leagues.
However, he is not the first in his family to make history as a black pioneer. Kompany’s father, Pierre, arrived in Belgium in 1975 as a refugee from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo and went on to be elected as the country’s first black mayor when he topped the poll for municipality of Ganshoren in Brussels, in 2018.
Troy Townsend, former head of development for Kick It Out, says he and others are “galvanised by the potential for success” of Kompany who, he believes, will “pave the way” for others.
In a Football Daily special on BBC Radio 5 Live, presenter Eli Mengem explores what has made Kompany into the man he is today and how the Belgian has become a trailblazer for black coaches.
Former Anderlecht manager Hugo Broos was the man who gave Kompany his senior team debut aged 17, when he selected the defender to play in a Champions League second qualifying round tie against AFC Rapid Bucuresti.
The 72-year-old says the youngster “had no fear”.
“We were immediately convinced we had a great player,” he says.
Kompany was one of a golden generation of Belgian footballers, alongside the likes of Eden Hazard, Kevin de Bruyne, Thibaut Courtois, Jan Vertonghen and Romelu Lukaku.
Broos, who won three European trophies with Anderlecht and currently manages the South African national team, adds: “Vincent was even a little bit higher than all those guys.”
After winning the Belgian championship twice in three seasons with Anderlecht, Kompany was courted by big Premier League clubs including Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United and Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea.
However, in 2006, aged 21, he opted instead to join German side Hamburg for a then club-record fee of about £7m.
He endured a tough start in the Bundesliga, picking up an injury straight away while the club got into a relegation battle. It was also during his time in Germany that his mother passed away and sister got cancer.
As the podcast explores, Kompany’s mother Jocelyne, who worked as a trade unionist, was an influential figure, helping to instil the socially conscious values that he exhibited during his time at City, when he worked with Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham to help tackle homelessness.
Kompany has previously said that his difficult spell at Hamburg taught him to, “stay humble on the way up”.
“That was maybe the best step he ever could make. Discipline. At that moment, he needed that. That was a good thing,” says Broos.
“That changed him a little bit and it was maybe that change that he needed to become the player he became.”
In 11 years at Manchester City between 2008 and 2019, eight of which were spent as club captain, Kompany won four Premier League titles, two FA Cups and four League Cups and is widely regarded as one of the top-flight’s best-ever defenders.
“We won the league and went out to the local pub, the Railway in Hale,” says former City team-mate Kyle Walker.
“He’s got a pint of Guinness and everyone’s following us around. He stood up and he did a speech. He loves talking. But to do that, and bring not just the lads together, but the fans who were joining that moment with us, that was powerful for me.”