Why everyone is suddenly bashing Thomas Tuchel
FC Bayern is getting its own condition peppered around its ears from all sides these days. As usual, Lothar Matthäus and Dietmar Hamann, two of the club's former players, are at the forefront of the movement. They make sure that things are never quiet around the record champions. Which is a great thing for German soccer, because it keeps the Bundesliga alive. FC Bayern was, is and will remain the club that moves people in the country. And when this club is not doing so well, the movement is many times greater. Malice is the driving force. And in view of this, the Munich team flew very quickly this week.
First by plane to Saarbrücken and then out of the DFB Cup on Wednesday evening at local third-division club 1. FC. After a terrible first half and a reasonable second, Bayern collapsed late in stoppage time. The footballers from Saarbrücken, who had long since exceeded their limits, had opened up one last time in the direction of keeper Manuel Neuer, played the perfect counter-attack and knocked the outsized favorites out of the competition. This caused a bad mood on all fronts in Munich. Among the board, the helpless coach, the squad and the fans. Only a handful of professionals went to the fans after the final whistle to say thank you. Thomas Müller, one of them, was so angry about it that he slandered his fleeing teammates in the Sky interview.
And as if the evening wasn't bitter enough as it was, the soccer gods had another kick up the backside hours after the final whistle: central defender Matthijs de Ligt will miss several weeks after suffering an injury against Saarbrücken. It was at this moment at the latest that the controversial topic of the summer returned to Munich with a bang: the rattling squad lacks meat. Tuchel, himself rather thin on the ground, had radioed SOS on all channels and loudly called for reinforcements. He did so in a way that did not please his bosses at all, and there was a debate. And around three weeks ago, he received another reprimand from club patron Uli Hoeneß. He found that Tuchel had made "unwise statements" because "I don't make my own team look bad by saying we are too thin", Hoeneß said: "If you see what we have sitting on the bench every weekend", which are only national team players, "then we don't have a thin squad".
"If you don't beat them now, you'll never beat them"
Well, it's now statement against statement. And an internal peace. Everything is fine, Tuchel hastily announced afterwards. We know from his past that his relationship with his bosses was not always easy. There was trouble in Paris, at Chelsea London too. And at Borussia Dortmund. After the attack on the team bus before the Champions League clash with AS Monaco, it all came to a head. The row with club boss Hans-Joachim Watzke still reverberates today. To this day, Tuchel has never set foot in his old home ground. That will change on Saturday. At 6.30pm (on Sky and in the live ticker at ntv.de), the old Westfalenstadion will host a clash of the giants. A duel between BVB, who are coming of age, and FC Bayern, who are once again in crisis.
Chief critic Hamann says: "If you don't beat them now, you'll never beat them again. The omens have probably rarely been better, but you still have to walk through the open door." How often have you heard sentences like that and how often has FC Bayern then mercilessly hit back and underlined: mia san mia. And how often did Dortmund suddenly panic when the door was opened for them? This was most tragically experienced on May 27 of this year, when the trophy fell out of the hands of the trembling Borussians. The Munich team gratefully picked up the undamaged silverware and raised it to the heavens. Tuchel had dragged Bayern's season over the finishing line and just about saved it. When he took over for Julian Nagelsmann, the treble was possible, and in the end there was the gift of the trophy.
Tuchel was protected by the events of a turbulent Bayern season. Hardly anything critical fell back on him. That is now changing with a vengeance. After the cup match, Der Spiegel even raised the question of whether things could get tight for the coach. Sport1 reported that there was dissonance between the coach and the team. He is said to speak a lot with his supposed favorite players Harry Kane, Leroy Sané and Jamal Musiala, but hardly or not at all with others. Has he possibly already lost the dressing room? Just like his predecessor Nagelsmann allegedly did? Fire away against Tuchel.
Hamann prepares the coaching discussion
The clash in Dortmund will not be a game of fate for the coach. But it will be a signpost as to where FC Bayern will be heading in the coming weeks. Into even more turbulent seas or back into calmer waters for the time being. Because up until this Wednesday, at least the results were good and the team gradually seemed a little more stable. But there were constant nuances. For example, the role of wild card Thomas Müller, the still barely recognizable or even unrecognizable game idea, the absence of the apparently slightly injured superstar Harry Kane in the cup. If Munich lose the game now, possibly by a clear margin, the record champions will finally have a coaching discussion on their hands.
Didi Hamann, who else, has carefully rolled out the carpet for this. With the best will in the world, he cannot imagine a long-term development. "I don't have the imagination, I don't know how." He has great concerns, "whether it will work in this constellation." When Tuchel was asked about the harsh criticism of the Bavarian ex-professionals on Friday, he interrupted the question and countered with an icy and smug response:
Tuchel still enjoys the highest level of protection at the record champions. Uli Hoeneß announced this week, albeit before the cup knockout: "After initial difficulties, the coach in particular has done a great job here to get so high up the table with a small squad. I have to say, that's the quality of a coach, to be so high up the table with a small squad." That's as good as it gets. Or is it? Tuchel will finally get his long-awaited reinforcements in the winter. "If we can come up with good arguments, and he probably will, then we're not totally against it," said Hoeneß. "If we are still in three competitions by then, as it looks like we will be, then we have to analyze what is necessary. And our coach will get everything he needs from us."
Upa, Leon, Leon, Upa?
Until then, however, Tuchel will continue to be extremely challenged. He must somehow balance the imbalance, which has become even more unbalanced due to the injuries. He must creatively compensate for the failed squad planning of the summer, when everything was focused on Harry Kane and the issue of back-up was criminally neglected. The second title, after a 3-0 defeat in the Super Cup against RB Leipzig at the start of the season, is now gone and three really strong rivals have emerged in the Bundesliga: BVB, Bayer Leverkusen and RB Leipzig.
But now it's Dortmund and the next complicated personnel puzzle. And the starting position for the puzzle is as follows: De Ligt is out, Joshua Kimmich is suspended, Dayot Upamecano, Leon Goretzka, Raphaël Guerreiro and Noussair Mazraoui are all injured. According to Tuchel, a decision will be made "very, very late". He is most likely to play Mazraoui, not Guerreiro at all and Upamecano and Goretzka to a limited extent. "The natural step" would not be to use both, said the coach, but: "If Upa can't, then Leon, if Leon can't then Upa, that's roughly the plan." However, the coach also made one thing very clear: "Regardless of the importance of the game, we still have a responsibility for the players, for their health, for the rest of the season. We have to be smart and weigh up the risks carefully." Lothar Matthäus and Dietmar Hamann will be watching very closely.
- With Borussia Dortmund looming on the horizon, Matthäus and Hamann believe that if FC Bayern Munich fails to secure a victory, they may never have another opportunity to defeat their rivals.
- Amidst the criticism directed towards Thomas Tuchel following their DFB Cup elimination, it's been reported that there's dissonance between the coach and some of the players, leading to questions about whether he's lost the team's support.
Source: www.ntv.de
