Bundesliga
Builders Rummenigge and Tuchel: restart at retro Bavaria
Has to clean up a lot at FC Bayern: Coach Thomas Tuchel. photo
© Karl-Josef Hildenbrand/dpa
Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge are back in the middle of the operational team at FC Bayern. As before, it has to go without a sports director. The coach has a key role.
The proclaimed “restart” at FC Bayern Munich after the double ejection of Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidzic is initially being designed by old acquaintances.
The Bavarians present themselves as a kind of retro Bavaria: with the eternal club patron Uli Hoeneß (71), returnee Karl-Heinz Rummenigge (67), President and Chairman of the Supervisory Board Herbert Hainer (68) and Jan-Christian Dreesen (55), who actually runs the club wanted to leave after ten years and has now been promoted to the new CEO.
“I’m not the new guy, I’m the new old guy at best,” said Dreesen at his presentation at the no longer expected Munich championship weekend. Hoeneß and Rummenigge, who have to shape their own legacy again, could say the same thing.
The association should be pacified and calmed down. And he also has to be realigned in sport after two lost years – to more titles, to dominance, in short, to “Mia san mia” again. The previous CFO Dreesen takes over Kahn’s job. He wants to be a kind of anti-Kahn, an approachable team worker. The East Frisian Dreesen spoke of more “for each other” and “together” on Säbener Strasse – “and there should also be a bit of joy”. A successor for Salihamidzic is the personnel construction site, which still has to be closed. But this should happen without time pressure.
Memories of 2016
“We’ve had something like this before,” Dreesen recalled in 2016, when Matthias Sammer left FC Bayern for health reasons. It took more than a year before the novice manager Salihamidzic was presented by Hoeneß and Rummenigge as an (emergency) solution. “We didn’t have a sports director or sports director on the team for quite a while. During that time, I worked very intensively with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge on the transfer business,” said Dreesen. The clock is now turned back again.
The first candidates for the post of sports director are publicly traded, such as Hoeneß’s eternal dream Max Eberl (RB Leipzig) or Markus Krösche (Eintracht Frankfurt). “I think FC Bayern is looking for a big, long-term solution,” said Michael Reschke of the German Press Agency. The 65-year-old was technical director from 2014 to 2017. A return to Munich is “currently not an issue” for him.
In the end, Hoeneß might end up choosing a prominent ex-Bayern professional again. But that is music of the future. Now it’s about the present. The new season and urgent transfer issues such as a new center forward or the sale of players who are willing to change, such as Benjamin Pavard, have to be dealt with during the summer break. “We have Karl-Heinz Rummenigge on the team. We still have Uli Hoeneß on the team. And above all we have a Thomas Tuchel on the team,” said Dreesen, who as CEO is responsible for the entire operational business, on the approach.
Key roles at Rummenigge and Tuchel
The key roles fall to Rummenigge and Tuchel. Rummenigge, who after almost two decades prematurely vacated the head post for Kahn in 2021, is returning to the record champions as a supervisory board member. His admission to the Hoeneß committee, which previously consisted of eight people, at the Tuesday meeting was initially considered a formality. “Karl-Heinz has an incredibly great football expertise. We want to use it more again,” said Hainer, chairman of the supervisory board. Rummenigge is a transfer professional and internationally well connected.
And Rummenigge should harmonize with Tuchel, whom he would have liked to bring to Munich as a coach when he was on the board. Tuchel, who had envisioned his first Bayern months quite differently after his lightning start at the end of March, wants to deliver football and victories again in the coming season, to which the “Bayern-like” seal of approval adheres. “We will try to prepare as best we can in the transfer phase,” announced Tuchel: “I hate to lose!” He no longer wants to lose much, but to win everything. That’s why you have to “step on the gas to make the best possible decisions,” as he said.
“In the summer we’ll really push the thing again,” announced Tuchel during the championship celebration. From the point of view of the new boss Dreesen, this means for the Bundesliga: “We want to be number one – and Dortmund should be number two.”