Hiroki Ito

He was tired and that's going to happen.

So company embracing this rotation, trying to use Kim Min-jae in a way that's super effective for him, knowing that you still have Hiroki Ito back there as well.

Company's got some tools to work with here.

Now, he's still going to lean on Upamecano and Ta.

I mean, the season was tough for him last year in terms of workload.

He went on to have an incredible World Cup where he was great for France, but he also played a lot.

I think that's definitely one thing you're going to have to continue to monitor if you're a company, and you're going to have to continue to trust what you're getting out of Kim Min-jae and maybe even be more open to using Hiroki Ito more.

So for Upamecano, I give him a very, very solid A right now.

For Stuttgart, it's harder to pick out a standout when the team couldn't find the net.

But players like Hiroki Ito and Chris Fuhrich were certainly involved in their attacking endeavors, trying to break down that resolute Dortmund defense.

Overall, this was a classic Bundesliga encounter.

A game of fine margins, where a moment of quality from Karim Mademi proved the difference.

It wouldn't be altogether shocking to see Kim Min-jae out there at all, but I think it'll be Upamecano and Tahir.

The one guy that we haven't mentioned a lot this season is Hiroki Ito.

He is more of just a deep sub at this point.

I don't know that we'll see him start regularly, if at all, at any point during this campaign.

Now, it comes down after this to three guys.

Jonathan Ta, Dayu Upamecano, and Hiroki Ito.

We saw all three of them play against Bota Glimt.

Unless there's something wrong with Kim Minjae that we don't know about, we can assume that he'll be one of the starters.

So we'll say that Upamecano is going to get a day off.

We'll go with Ta and Kim and Jay here.

Hiroki Ito, I think, could see some action.

It was great to see him back on the pitch.

Everyone on this team will play an important role at some point.

I think the only guy right now who is totally and completely out of the mix is Hiroki Ito, and it's kind of puzzling to figure out what's going on with him.

He is the fourth center back on the team at this point.

He's the third left back.

And I was kind of shocked the company left him in there for the entirety of the match.

I thought that Kim Min-jae would come in or even Hiroki Ito just to give Dio Upamecano a break.

But it tells you exactly where company sees Upamecano.

He knows he is invaluable to the team.

So you have to think that Dio Upamecano will start in one of the spots.

It seems like Hiroki Ito is the odd man out who they do not really want to play.

And it's a shame because at 27, it's awfully young to be in this kind of spot for a team like Bayern Munich.

Who will get the nod, Ta or Kim Min-jae? Tough call, but I think it will be Ta only because Kim Min-jae started last weekend as well.

So I think company has an idea of what he wants to do with this rotation.

And unfortunately, it just looks like Hiroki Ito is not part of it.

I would love to personally see Ito play with Upamecano this weekend.

I think it would be great.

However, when Max Abreu was recently asked to speak about Jonathan Todd, Dio, McConnell and Kim and Jay and that trio that has been most of used to Vincent company.

He totally left out Hiroki Ito, which I found to be very, very curious.

Surely Ito probably if he's reading that was maybe a little shocked as well.

At this point, Ito is definitely more of a center back than a left back.

I didn't think Neuer would be back for this season, but here we are.

At center back, last weekend we saw Daya Upamecano and Kim Minjae get the nod.

I think in this matchup, I really won't be shocked to see Yonathan Ta and Hiroki Ito playing together.

It sounds kind of weird.