Champions League
Painful motivational speech: Big toe at Tuchel
Full physical effort during the motivational speech: Thomas Tuchel had kicked a door. photo
© Tom Weller/dpa
Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel gives a passionate motivational speech before the game against Lazio. He kicks a door – and probably breaks his toe.
FC Bayern’s Champions League success was not without pain Lazio Rome went over for Thomas Tuchel. The Munich coach, who was leaving at the end of the season, hobbled across the pitch after the 3-0 win against the Italians; he had treated himself with ice spray during the game.
“The motivational speech before the game cost me my big toe,” explained Tuchel on Prime Video. In the press conference, the 50-year-old later reported that he had kicked a door and probably broke his toe. “I was happy to make the sacrifice.” He didn’t have the courage to take off his shoe during the evening. Then he would hardly have been able to get in, said Tuchel.
The team had hardly realized that their coach had been injured. Thomas Müller joked: “There’s always a little waste. Professional sport is always narrow. We just don’t do it with fruit tea.”
Tuchel: “Every team wants to get to the final”
After the exit was confidently averted, Tuchel was immediately asked about the possibility of possibly leaving FC Bayern Munich as Champions League winners at the end of the season. “If we want to achieve this, we have to take it step by step,” said Tuchel. He described reaching the quarter-finals as merely a “minimal goal” for a club like FC Bayern.
“The Champions League title is always the most attractive title and the hardest one to win in Europe,” said the 50-year-old. Tuchel won him as coach of Chelsea FC in 2021. The year before, he lost the final with Paris Saint-Germain against FC Bayern.
Hoping for luck
Tuchel’s gaze and that of the entire club is now focused on the draw on March 15th. “From now on there will be an open draw, so you also need the luck of the draw,” said Tuchel. Until now, German duels had been ruled out. In the round of 16, like every group winner, Bayern were drawn with a group runner-up. “Every team that is in the quarter-finals wants to get to the final – us too,” said Tuchel. “There are still goals to be achieved with Bayern.”
Tuchel cautiously answered the question of whether the win against Lazio meant a turnaround for the end of the season and also for the Bundesliga: “I hope, but we have to prove it.”