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Gerland raves about Tapalovic – players from Aus are surprised

Bayern are top of the table, yes, and still represented in all three competitions. And yet there are fires. Especially the end of goalkeeping coach Toni Tapalovic is keeping those involved on Säbener Straße busy. Just like long-time companions.

Worked together for a long time: Hermann Gerland (left) and Toni Tapalovic.

AFP via Getty Images

What happens at Bayern Munich with Manuel Neuer? The sacking of goalkeeping coach Toni Tapalovic continues to raise questions. As kicker learned, the players were very surprised by this personnel decision. The timing was just as unexpected – during an English week, the day before the home game against 1. FC Köln (1-1), and while Neuer was injured with a broken tibia and fibula.

So it’s no wonder that the Tapalovic exit is also a big topic among the professionals. For example, on Tuesday after the game, Sven Ulreich answered the question whether he would like to comment briefly: “Absolutely not.” This dismissal hits Captain Neuer even harder, after all the 36-year-old loses his closest confidant.

The Bayern decision-makers cited “differences about the way of working together” as the reason for Tapalovic’s departure. Now the record champions want to reorient themselves in this position, said sports director Hasan Salihamidzic. Those responsible do not talk about details.

Tapa is a full professional, outstanding on a human and professional level.

Hermann Gerland on Toni Tapalovic

Hermann Gerland, who has worked with Tapalovic for more than a decade under various coaches such as Jupp Heynckes, Pep Guardiola and Hansi Flick, says to kicker: “Tapa is outstanding on a human and professional level.” Of course, the current assistant coach at the DFB team can only rate the time he was with Tapalovic at FC Bayern, not the past year and a half. Basically, however, he sees the ex-goalkeeping coach as “a full professional at the highest level”. The 42-year-old played a large part in the successes of Manuel Neuer and thus also of FC Bayern.

Gerland got to know Tapalovic as “a great character”, who “very hard-working, well prepared and was always a team player with us”. He exchanged ideas with the young goalkeepers, made Neuer world goalkeeper five times (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020) and, in Neuer’s absence, set up his deputy Sven Ulreich in such a way that “Ulle”, as Gerland calls him, temporarily became an extended group of the national team mattered.

Maybe Bayern underestimates the relationship between Tapalovic and Neuer.

But now this familiarity breaks away in this already special position. And such a break should not be underestimated, Timo Hildebrand told “Watson”. “Perhaps FC Bayern underestimates the relationship between Tapalovic and Neuer. Without my goalkeeper coach in Stuttgart, I would never have matured into what I became in Stuttgart,” explains the former keeper: “Trapattoni brought his own goalkeeper coach with him, who is fully focused on the Italian school. It’s very different. I couldn’t handle it.”

Means: The relationship and understanding between goalkeeper and goalkeeping coach is elementary – as it was with Oliver Kahn and Sepp Maier. As a reminder: Jürgen Klinsmann, as national coach, had dismissed Sepp Maier as goalkeeping coach in 2004. A year and a half later, Klinsmann exchanged Kahn for Jens Lehmann. Neuer’s contract with Bayern runs until 2024. So another year and a half. But if Neuer comes back fit again in the summer, he can give the answer on the pitch.

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