Bayern Munich manager Vincent Kompany said, “Do you just stop believing in yourself and what you can achieve because of what other people say?” when asked about the skeptics who said the Bayern job was too big a step up. “The mentality is to keep going.”

After Bayern Munich’s 9-3 win in the Champions League against Dinamo Zagreb:

I’d love to elaborate on the question. But it’s a simple job. I love working with the players; I try to improve them; I try to improve the team; I try to improve myself. It’s not really something I should answer. I could give you a deep answer, but it doesn’t really deserve it.

I’ll tell you something in a quick way just to prove a point. I was born in Brussels, my dad was a refugee who came from Congo. What are my chances of even playing in the Premier League, winning something as a player, and playing for the national team? The odds were 0.000 something. Now I’m a coach. Do you just stop believing in yourself and what you can achieve because of what other people say?

The mentality is to keep going, and in the end, if you fail, you fail; if you succeed, you succeed, but you can always become better. Online, you can always find stuff, so I really don’t take it personal. What am I supposed to do—stop because of what other people think? Let’s encourage people to succeed and break barriers.

That is nearly word for word what I said before the season started: “I’m confident that with experience, he should succeed, but if he doesn’t, that is football.” That is how someone with Kompany’s mentality operates. Don’t worry about the outcome; focus on the process.

I was never one of those skeptics, but you couldn’t go in blindly confident that it would work this well because football is an unpredictable game. As I said, Vincent Kompany “is a manager who should perform better with a higher quality squad. He has a special ability to extract the maximum from his players, with his team punching above their weight with the ball.” With the vast amount of talent Bayern Munich has, I think it is harder to lose than to win, but the manner in which they are playing is remarkable.

It is a small sample size, but after watching Bayern this season, you begin to question the effectiveness of the list of managers before him. They were never able to extract the full potential of the players.

My only worry was how inventive they would be and what solutions they’d come up with. Kompanh and his team have far exceeded my expectations in that department. If you go back and watch Burnley under Kompany, the season prior to this, they didn’t conform to the opponent; they always set out to try and play their way, to their detriment at times. When Bayern Munich play their way, they look unstoppable.