FOOTBALL – BUNDESLIGA – Julian Nagelsmann will not be allowed to make mistakes at Bayern Munich

His professional titles? Any! The most beautiful lines of his CV? A 2020 Champions League semi-final with Leipzig (lost against Paris), and a loss in the 2021 German Cup final against Dortmund. His chaotic preparation, three defeats and a draw, did not allow him to gain confidence. And yet no one in Munich can imagine anything other than a 10th consecutive title next May. Nagelsmann will discover the management of a locker room of multimillionaire stars with sometimes intrusive egos, where he will not even have the benefit of age: Robert Lewandowski (33 years old on August 21) and captain Manuel Neuer (35 years old) are of his generation.

Only victory matters

He will also discover one of the few clubs in Europe where only victory is acceptable, and where there is talk of “crisis” after three consecutive matches without success. Four coaches have just marched in five years: two were sacked in high season, Carlo Ancelotti and Niko Kovac. “At FC Bayern, success must come very quickly”, has also warned Oliver Kahn, the new boss who succeeds Karl-Heinz Rummenigge: “We want to stay in the top 3 in Europe”. Clearly, the title of champion is mandatory, the double desirable, and the Champions League always a stated goal.

“If I don’t win anything here, it will be my fault”, has already admitted Nagelsmann, in whom the leaders have shown their confidence with a 5-year contract, after snatching it from Leipzig for 25 million euros. But the 30-something knows football too well to have any illusions: “I will not feel arrived and warm until I have won titles. There I will really be part of FC Bayern”, he said. “Everyone knows I dreamed of signing for Bayern when I was a player. It didn’t work out, but now I’m very close to the dream of my life”, unveiled the one who, as a child in Bavaria, slept under a duvet in Bayern’s red and blue colors.

“Attract the light”

Seriously injured at 20, he gave up a professional career to become a coach. Over the years he has developed a philosophy: in defeat, “as a coach you have to draw the light to you, he said, to show that you have everything under control and that you know what to do “. In the victory on the other hand, “I step back and let the guys take center stage. Winning is a moment that belongs to the players.”

His first task as a technician will be to rebuild a defensive hinge, after the simultaneous departures of David Alaba and Jérôme Boateng, the club’s two historic centers. He will be able to test the associations between Niklas Süle, Lucas Hernandez, possibly Benjamin Pavard, and the young 22-year-old French international Dayot Upamecano, who arrived from Leipzig with him.

He will then have to refine his team’s playing identity, even if the basic pattern seems difficult to upset: since the start of the golden decade of 2010 and the Robben-Ribéry era, Bayern have always played in 4-3- 3, regardless of the coach, with dribbling-scorer wingers (currently Gnabry, Coman or Sané) in the service of house gunner Robert Lewandowski.