Exciting Renato Sanches in Exalted Company Among Bayern Munich's Youth Signings

After arriving at Bayern Munich from Benfica in the summer transfer window for a reported €35 million, there is, perhaps unsurprisingly, significant excitement surrounding Portuguese midfielder Renato Sanches.

The 19-year-old became the youngest winner of a UEFA European Championship when he helped Portugal to the title in France in July at the age of 18 years, 10 months and 23 days.

Xabi Alonso may be a FIFA World Cup winner with Spain, but the 34-year-old—15 years Sanches' senior—is nonetheless impressed with his new Bayern team-mate.

"He has so much power, so much energy," Alonso told ESPN FC. "He's hungry to win things, to improve and I'm looking forward to working with him and to be able to share the midfield and to play together."

High praise, indeed, but where might Sanches rank among Bayern's all-time signings aged 21 or under? He is the most expensive, but will he prove to be the best?

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Just last season, Bayern picked up a pair of young players who went on to become key components in the champions' team—and in double-quick time, too.

French winger Kingsley Coman arrived on loan from Juventus, with Joshua Kimmich joining from RB Leipzig. Aged 19 and 20, respectively, at the time, neither could have predicted the 2015-16 season they would have under Pep Guardiola.

Coman may have arrived at the Allianz Arena with league titles in France and Italy—as well as the league-and-cup double with Juve in 2014-15—under his belt, but it was nonetheless injuries to Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery that afforded him playing time out wide.

The France international seized his chance, and he ended the campaign with six goals and 11 assists in all competitions as Bayern romped to a record fourth consecutive Bundesliga title—picking up the DFB-Pokal along the way.

Further back, Jerome Boateng and Holger Badstuber also saw frequent visits to the club's medical staff last term, so Kimmich, having been a midfielder, was thrown into central defence for much of the second half of the season.

He did not disappoint, enjoying 14 clean sheets in his 23 appearances, and he ended the season as a full Germany international.

He scored his first Germany goal as the world champions kicked off the defence of their title with a 3-0 win away to Norway in European qualifying Group C on Sunday, and many are now describing him as the natural successor to Philipp Lahm for club and country.

"When Philipp retires at Bayern in two years we don't have to worry about his position," Bayern academy coach Hermann Gerland told Munich newspaper TZ (in German) recently. "Then Joshua will be Bayern's new right full-back."

That two of Bayern's best signings under the age of 21 happened over the last year is a quirk of history, but no conversation about where Sanches might rank among prodigal Bayern acquisitions would be complete without looking at Gerd Muller, Stefan Effenberg and Mehmet Scholl.

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With so many of the first great Bayern team coming through their youth academy—think libero Franz Beckenbauer and goalkeeper Sepp Maier—it is easy to forget that Muller was actually signed from lower-league 1861 Nordlingen at the age of 19.

A record 365 goals in 427 games later and "Der Bomber" is rightly regarded as one of the most fearsome strikers Bayern—and, indeed, the rest of the world—has ever seen.

Muller scored the winning goal in the 1974 World Cup final as West Germany beat the Netherlands 2-1, and he concluded his Bayern career in 1979 with no fewer than 13 major honours with the club, including three consecutive European Cups.

Fast forward to 1990 and Bayern acquired a promising Effenberg from Borussia Monchengladbach a matter of weeks before his 22nd birthday.

While his birthdate means that he might only squeak into this list by the skin of his teeth, the midfielder's achievements with the Bavarians mean that his place is assured.

Trophyless but for the 1990 DFL-Supercup in his first two seasons with the club, Effenberg went on to spend four years at Fiorentina and then Gladbach before returning to Bayern in 1994.

His second spell was significantly more fruitful, with Effenberg captaining Bayern to three consecutive Bundesliga titles, the third of which—in 2000-2001—was accompanied by the fourth of the club's now five European Cup/Champions League triumphs.

Effenberg scored the equalising penalty against Valencia in the 2001 Champions League final at the San Siro, before converting his spot-kick in the shootout, and he is regarded as one of the best players to have pulled on the red shirt.

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Which brings us neatly on to Scholl. The mercurial attacking midfielder, a gifted free-kick taker, was also part of the Bayern team that lifted the trophy in Milan in 2001, and he was another player formed at a different club before making the switch to Bavaria as an already-established full professional.

Scholl broke through at hometown team Karlsruher SC before signing for Bayern in 1992—two years after Effenberg—a few months before his 22nd birthday.

The Bundesliga Player of the Year in 2001, Scholl won eight league titles with Bayern in the 15 years he spent with the club, also scoring in each leg of the UEFA Cup final victory over Bordeaux in 1995-96.

Sanches is unquestionably one of the brightest talents in world football today, and when Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge told Soester Anzeiger (h/t ESPN FC) that "Bayern would not have been able to afford him had we tried to sign him after the Euros," his sentiment was understandable.

Standing a stocky 1.76 metres, Sanches can both defend and attack with aplomb. His ability to fire goals in from range with little back-lift is eye-catching, and he has already won one of the biggest trophies on offer in the sport.

However, injuries to fellow midfield contenders like Alonso and Arturo Vidal might not arise and present an opportunity for Sanches in the way that Ribery's and Boateng's misfortune did for Coman and Kimmich last season.

Between them, meanwhile, the combined trophy haul of Muller, Effenberg, Scholl, Kimmich and Coman stands at 13 Bundesliga titles and four European Cups/Champions Leagues.

When Alonso and Rummenigge describe a player in such glowing terms, it is difficult to ignore the talent in question, and Sanches has the ability to rank alongside this exalted company over the years to come with Bayern.

Indeed, he will be playing beside two of them—Coman and Kimmich—this season. If the aforementioned players qualify for a top-five 21-or-under list of sorts, then it seems obvious that Sanches has the potential to penetrate such a leaderboard.

"He's such a promising player," said Alonso. "Can he learn from me? Maybe I'm able to learn some things from him as well."

If Alonso is proved right, Sanches may well go down as the best of them yet.