Jonas Urbig: A ready-made successor to sweeper-keeper Manuel Neuer
Bayern Munich will be without Manuel Neuer for their final game of 2025 at Heidenheim on Sunday, but the veteran goalkeeper’s hamstring injury has presented understudy Jonas Urbig with an opportunity the 22-year-old will want to seize with both hands.
Such opportunities have been hard to come by for Urbig since he joined the record German champions on a four-and-a-half-year contract from boyhood club Cologne nearly 11 months ago.
A calf injury to Bayern’s skipper back in March resulted in Urbig being handed an uninterrupted 11-match run in the side, incorporating a 2-0 UEFA Champions League last-16 victory at Bayer Leverkusen and both legs of the quarter-final defeat to Inter Milan.
Watch: Urbig's best saves for Cologne
Despite making only four appearances since – two in the DFB Cup and two in the Bundesliga – Urbig has shown more than just the odd glimpse of his enormous potential.
Barring any last-minute surprises, the eight-time Germany U21 international will be looking to register a third consecutive Bundesliga clean sheet at the Voith-Arena, having kept out Borussia Mönchengladbach and VfB Stuttgart in his two top-flight outings so far this term.
Such was the Bavarians’ dominance in those games that Urbig only had to make one save – a fairly routine stop from Deniz Undav in the second-half of Bayern’s 5-0 Matchday 13 victory at the MHP Arena.
Since his Bundesliga debut in March, however, Urbig has actually been the busier of Bayern’s two first-choice keepers when out on the pitch.
In 23 league outings this year, Neuer has faced 55 efforts on target – or 2.39 per game on average. Urbig, meanwhile, has faced exactly 30 shots on target in his 10 top-flight appearances, over 20 percent more than the 39-year-old.
Neuer, as one might expect, leads the way in most of the key goalkeeping metrics. He has kept 12 clean sheets, conceded 18 goals – or one every 115 minutes – and saved over 67 percent of the opposition’s 55 attempts on target. He has managed to hold on to nearly half of those shots (46 percent).
Urbig, who has four Bundesliga clean sheets to his name in 2025, has been beaten every 75 minutes on average, saving 60 percent of shots he has faced and holding on to the ball 39 percent of the time.
However, anyone harbouring ambitions of becoming Bayern’s new number-one goalkeeper has to be much more than just a superb shot-stopper.
No keeper in world football has been better with the ball at their feet than Neuer over the past two decades. While it would be unreasonable to expect Urbig to blossom into a like-for-like replacement for Bayern’s sweeper-keeper extraordinaire, there have been promising signs.
Urbig’s team-mates certainly have no qualms about giving him the ball when under pressure. Like Neuer, the Euskirchen native has averaged over 40 touches with his feet per 90 minutes this term.
He also boasts an impressive long ball completion rate – 43 percent compared to the veteran custodian’s 48 percent.
Intriguingly, in his two league appearances this season, Urbig has actually been involved in more defensive actions outside his penalty area than Neuer (four compared to 2.75 per game).
More intriguingly yet, those actions have taken the 22-year-old further off his goal-line than the former Schalke custodian (22.6m on average compared to 20.7m). Could Bayern have yet another world-class sweeper-keeper on their books?
At his unveiling back in January, the club’s sporting director Christoph Freund described the acquisition of “promising young goalkeeper” Urbig as a “transfer with a view to the future”.
Publicly at least, head coach Vincent Kompany has always echoed Freund’s sentiments, insisting he has a “clear plan” for Neuer’s understudy.
Watch: Urbig on his move to Bayern
When pressed about that plan in the build-up to the Champions League clash with Sporting earlier this month, Kompany replied: “We discussed very, very clearly at the start of the season how Urbig would be deployed.
“As a coach, I’ve learned that if you commit [to one goalkeeper] too early, you can always get into trouble.”
Another unflappable performance by Urbig against Heidenheim might just necessitate a rethink.
Related news
Fantasy tips for Matchday 15
Not sure which players should be in your Fantasy team? We've got you covered...
Who is Jonas Urbig?
Find out more about the young Bayern Munich goalkeeper who is already capitalising on Manuel Neuer's absence.
Neuer suffers hamstring injury
The Bayern stopper is set to miss the Bundesliga leaders' final game of 2025 at Heidenheim on Sunday.