Kompany’s position is straightforward: the judgement comes after the final, not before it.
That is not the profile of a side that has fallen short across the board. It is the profile of a team that has dominated at home and missed one of the biggest targets in Europe. For a club of Bayern’s scale, the Champions League always shapes the mood. But Kompany’s argument is that the final should be played before the debate starts.
Kimmich appears to be making a similar case from a player’s perspective. Silverware defines careers, but he is right to separate a season’s level from a single afternoon.
That distinction matters at Bayern, where standards are so high that even a title-winning season can feel incomplete.
None of this makes the final meaningless. VfB Stuttgart can still turn the game into a real test of Bayern’s nerve, and a defeat would sharpen the focus on Europe. A win, though, would leave Kompany with a domestic double, more silverware, and a powerful answer to the noise around the Champions League exit. The next storyline is simple: whether Bayern finish with celebration in Berlin or head into the summer with the familiar sense that one prize was still missing.