Harry Kane's trophy curse is lifted! How Vincent Kompany defied the doubters and returned the Bundesliga title to Bayern Munich

Dyche labelled Kompany's move from Turf Moor to the Allianz Arena "an interesting twist of life". "I don't know how that works," the former Burnley boss admitted on talkSPORT. "I wish I'd have left the club £127 million ($170m) in debt and then got the Bayern job!"

It was certainly a turn up for the books. Kompany had led Burnley back into the Premier League by romping to the Championship title in 2022-23 and earned widespread praise for his team's attractive style of play.

However, the Clarets went straight back down, and although initially commended for sticking to his footballing philosophy, Kompany ended up being criticised for his unwillingness to compromise his principles and embrace a more pragmatic approach in order to try keep Burnley in the top flight.

Consequently, when he was confirmed as Bayern's new boss on May 29 - just 10 days after Burnley had finished their Premier League campaign with an abysmal 24 points from 38 games - the football world was more than a little taken aback.

However, it wasn't as if Bayern had that many appealing alternatives available to them. Alonso, Julian Nagelsmann, Ralf Rangnick and Oliver Glasner had all turned the job down, while a desperate, last-ditch attempt to convince Tuchel to continue at the helm had also ended in failure.

Furthermore, in Max Eberl, Kompany had a staunch supporter. The Bayern sporting director felt that Kompany was the kind of hungry, young coach capable of ushering in a new era of success and, perhaps more importantly, stability.

"We would like to see more continuity in this position and, in our talks with him, we were immediately on the same page," Eberl explained. "He clearly showed us how much FC Bayern appeals to him and that he is keen to take on the challenge. He was already a leading figure in top international football as a player and is also leading the way as a coach."

Former chairman of the Bayern board Karl-Heinz Rummenigge wasn't quite as convinced by Kompany's credentials - but that all changed after accepting Eberl's request to speak to Pep Guardiola, the highly-respected Catalan coach who not only won three consecutive Bundesliga titles at the Allianz Arena but also enjoyed great success with Kompany as his captain at Manchester City.

"I told Pep I needed an authentic and honest analysis," Rummenigge explained in an interview with Kicker. "We then were talking on the phone for almost two hours. To make a long story short, he said that he was 100 percent sure that Vincent Kompany would be the absolutely perfect coach for Bayern." It's certainly gone well so far.

Bayern made a record-breaking start to the Bundesliga season, with four consecutive wins, while they also opened their Champions League campaign with a historic 9-2 demolition of Dinamo Zagreb. Due to the intensive pressing and pretty patterns of play that underpinned Kompany's side, comparisons were quickly drawn with the man who had recommended him for the job.

"I felt like I was back in the days of Bayern under Guardiola," Werder Bremen sporting director Clemens Fritz said after watching his side lose 5-0 at the Weserstadion. "Bayern played with a lot of intensity and had incredible ball control.

"In the recent past, Bayern always gave you phases where you could gain possession of the ball and find your own structure. But there was such an intensity that even in the 88th minute, Kompany was still pushing his players from the sideline, and the players also wanted to keep going. This counter-pressing didn't give us any time to breathe."

Bayern were still very much a work in progress, though, and prone to the occasional defensive blackout during the first half of the season, particularly in the Champions League, where they were beaten 4-1 at Barcelona and, even more shockingly, 3-0 away to Feyenoord.

However, Kompany unquestionably improved Bayern's previously brittle backline. Under the guidance of one of the finest centre-backs the Premier League has ever seen, the previously inconsistent Dayot Upamecano and Kim Min-jae formed a formidable central defensive pairing that provided the foundation on which the title win was founded.

Kompany's greatest success, though, was arguably getting the whole squad to work in unison, given the divisive nature of Tuchel's tenure. Joshua Kimmich, for example, was close to quitting the club before the latter left last summer, but he's since signed a contract extension after coming to the conclusion that a resurgent Bayern are once again capable of challenging for Champions League glory under Kompany.

"It's not like it’s just the back four; the whole team works hard off the ball," the influential midfielder told the Bundesliga's official website. "At the end of the day, that brings us clean sheets, but also dominance with the ball. You can see everyone’s working together, that everyone's hungry to defend our goal."

The players also reacted positively to Kompany's measured approach to dealing with setbacks. Individual errors were never called out in the media and issues were always dealt with behind closed doors in the dressing room. Furthermore, when criticism started to come his way during a poor run of form at the start of spring, Kompany remained firmly focused on the task at hand.

"I'm doing this for the team, for the club and for the fans," he said at the tail end of February. "My job is only to concentrate on our games. What's being said or written on the outside doesn't matter." His approach paid off.

A dreadfully timed injury crisis may have put paid to Bayern's hopes of winning the Champions League - after impressively disposing of bogey team Leverkusen in the last 16, the were devastated by the loss of Upamecano, Kim, Manuel Neuer, Alphonso Davies and Jamal Musiala for the heartbreakingly narrow quarter-final loss to Inter - but Kompany managed to keep their Bundesliga bid right on track.

The Belgian hasn't done it all on his own, of course. He has been greatly aided by Musiala, Michael Olise, Kimmich and especially Kane, whose presence has proven a blessing for the Bayern boss rather than a curse. The England international has barely stopped scoring since arriving at the Allianz Arena and his 24 Bundesliga goals played a pivotal role in the club's 34th championship success.

Kane, though, is in no doubt that Kompany has been the key. "I think he sets the standards," the veteran forward told the Bundesliga website. "He's not afraid to tell it how it is. No matter who you are, whether you've played, 500 games or one game, he'll treat you the same. I think that's earned him the respect of the players."

And, with the possible exception of Dyche, maybe Kompany the coach has belatedly won over the rest of the football world too.