FC Bayern Munich continues to stumble through the season. After the defeat at VfL Bochum, the Bayern bosses tried to downplay the coaching discussion surrounding Thomas Tuchel, but the coach is now just a coach on call. And there is one main reason for that.
By Patrick Strasser
The last impression remains, they say. The very last picture that the visitors to the stands at the Ruhrstadion saw of FC Bayern Munich on Sunday evening was a document of the crisis and the current chaotic state of the record champions. After two defeats, the industry, indeed almost all fans believed, that the empire would now strike back. In fact, completely angry members of the reeling empire attacked each other after the 2:3 at relegation candidate VfL Bochum.
As the team, both served and harassed, trudged back towards the dressing room from the aisle to the corner with hanging heads, Joshua Kimmich and assistant coach Zsolt Löw engaged in a heated battle of words. On the way into the catacombs, which – what a symbol – leads down step by step, Löw shouted something after Kimmich, who had been replaced after a good hour, while cursing wildly. Captain Manuel Neuer intervened as an arbiter and pulled on the assistant coach’s jacket to break up the arguments. Proof of how nerve-racked the industry leader is, who is losing his national supremacy after 12 years and, after eleven championships in a row, is now eight points behind and should soon be preparing congratulatory messages for Bayer Leverkusen.
It’s hard to imagine what went on in the Bayern dressing room after this incident. If you know the protagonists, you will find out soon enough, because in such extreme situations almost everything is exposed to the outside world. Out of self-protection and pure self-interest. The Bayern ship, which started the season on course triple, runs aground. Save yourself who can! The family, always striving for harmony, is currently presenting a devastating picture. Mia san torso. A club in the form of a pile of rubble. Midfielder Leon Goretzka thinks he’s “in a horror film that doesn’t want to end. Everything is going against us.”
A little later, those responsible downplayed the Kimmich incident – diplomatic damage limitation. “Josh must have been fairly well served on the substitutes’ bench, but that’s normal,” said board boss Jan-Christian Dreesen reassuringly and explained: “He always gives his all and wants to win. It’s understandable that Josh is simply angry at that moment.” Coach Thomas Tuchel was deeply relaxed: “I know what was going on. It’s not for the public.” And further, as if it were a trifle: “We are in a football locker room. A pretty normal incident, if it stays within limits. And it stayed within limits.”
Has Thomas Tuchel already finished with Bayern?
Given the interpersonal eruption between his vice-captain and his most important assistant after the third defeat in nine days, the 50-year-old may have already become so hardened that hardly anything can shock him in the FC Bayern cosmos. Or maybe Tuchel is already mentally done with this job, which is becoming more and more of a nightmare for him after just eleven months in office. First the 3-0 humiliation in Leverkusen, the 1-0 defeat in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 at Lazio Rome during the week and now the rebuff at relegation candidate VfL Bochum. The first titleless season since 2011/12 is looming. Tuchel would go down in the history books of the usually so glorious club. What else is there to do other than feigned nonchalance and the principle of hope?
It was an almost absurd, incomprehensible performance by FC Bayern with fluctuations that upset every coach. Determined and determined right from the start, including the opening goal by Jamal Musiala, after the equalizer suddenly unsettled again and resigned to fate, staggering into the next defeat. With ten men after Dayot Upamecano was sent off, they fought passionately against the defeat. Without fortune. The problems are deeper than just being located in the coaching bench.
The team appears to be put together incorrectly, a failure and at the same time a legacy of the Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidzic era. The squad obviously doesn’t have enough quality and there is no longer any hierarchy within the team. Leading players like captain Manuel Neuer and vice-captain Thomas Müller are too busy trying to maintain their level in the autumn of their careers. The chosen new generation of leaders Kimmich and Leon Goretzka do not live up to this claim. In addition to the crisis situation, the two biggest performers of the first half of the season, striker Harry Kane and top assist provider Leroy Sané, are now also weakening. These Bavarians have lost all dominance and sovereignty and are only beginning to show what they can do when they no longer have anything to lose. Is this a glimmer of hope for the rest of the season?
Irony aside. FC Bayern always has to win. Tuchel knows this, he has already emphasized it several times. Victories are the club’s staple food, and every phase of hunger leads straight to the fundamental question, the coaching question. Was this 2:3 “anne Castroper”, as the people of Bochum lovingly call their rough and charming home ground, the last game in office for the Champions League winner Tuchel (with Chelsea FC 2021) and his coaching team? Final stop, please dismiss everyone?
“I don’t believe in these monstrous statements of support for trainers. That’s not a question that arises for us today. It’s not an issue that we’re currently dealing with,” said board boss Jan-Christian Dreesen about the ailing trainer and asserted: ” We have to concentrate on the next games.” Tuchel will “of course” still be on the bench next Saturday against RB Leipzig. Because despite the horror week in Bayern, he lost three games in a row for the first time since May 2015 and is allowed to stay. Must stay?
Tuchel seems to have no alternative. But despite his contract running until 2025, he is probably only a temporary coach, on call. The bosses around Dreesen and President Herbert Hainer, who continues to maintain close ties to Tegernsee and the powerful honorary president Uli Hoeneß, still want to hold on to their hapless coach. They continue to hope for a turnaround before or at the latest in the second leg of the round of 16 against Lazio on March 5th. We now want to avoid a knee-jerk reaction like the one that occurred when Julian Nagelsmann was fired at the end of March last year (when Bayern still had a chance of winning the title in three competitions!).
There is no plan B for a Tuchel replacement
Furthermore, there is no adequate plan B. Firstly, none of Tuchel’s assistant team would be considered to take over immediately – they are too loyal to their boss for that. Hansi Flick, the seven-title coach in 2020/21, would be free and probably employable at the club despite the discord when he was fired in the summer of 2021. It is understandable, however, that the former national coach would like to sign a longer contract than just three months for a rescue mission. What was a service of friendship for Jupp Heynckes in two cases does not have to apply to Flick. According to “Bild”, Hoeneß is not said to be entirely positive about Flick’s return. The possibly suitable successor candidates for Tuchel, Leverkusen’s designated master coach Xabi Alonso or Sebastian Hoeneß, who kissed VfB Stuttgart awake, would have to be bought out of their contracts and would only join in the new season anyway.
Bayern are in a quandary. Tuchel is nonchalant. “I’m a coach, I’m not afraid of anything,” he emphasized in Bochum, “everything’s fine.” He said about the relationship with the decision-makers: “I feel the support, know my relationship with Jan and know how we work together. He knows how much it bothers me and how much we invest. The fact that there is a coaching discussion is the business . No problem, I know that.”