Dhe posters are witnesses to a time that everyone thought was long gone. “Koan Neuer” was written on the handy slips of paper that were held up thousands of times in the Munich soccer arena when FC Schalke 04 played FC Bayern on the 31st Bundesliga matchday of the 2010/11 season. With that same Manuel Neuer, the young national goalkeeper and declared transfer goal of the record champions, who fell behind Borussia Dortmund in the national hierarchy at the time and had to react.
No one in Munich’s fan scene had any doubts about Neuer’s sporting qualifications, the rejection was mainly driven by ultra circles because Neuer had lived an identification with his club in Gelsenkirchen that made it seem impossible that he would serve another club with the same dedication could. But the anti-Neuer protest did not seep away in the south stand, but spread to the circles of supporters who were not suspected of questioning club politics.
The image databases even contain photos of Hias Hammerl, a taxi operator from Bad Tölz, who goes to the stadium in traditional costume and with a cowbell and compliments the FC Bayern management at annual general meetings. He also posed with a “Koan Neuer” poster, echoing the general mood that was expressed in other documents: “Neuer – just visiting” announced a lettering. Another: “Power is our new Sepp.”
“Koan Neuer” mood back
Thomas Kraft, then 22 years old and in the club since the B youth, should become the new permanent number one, a figure like the great Sepp Maier in the seventies. The fans generously ignored the fact that Kraft was born in the Westerwald. However, they set themselves apart from Manuel Neuer with a rejection cloaked in dialect: no Neuer, koan Neuer. The message: You can’t be like us, the “mia san mia” will never apply to you.
In addition to ten German championships and winning the Champions League twice, Manuel Neuer’s successes in Munich include above all the credible fusion with the Bavarian way of life: He is not one of those football professionals who travels home to their original neighborhood on every free Monday. He has settled down. At Tegernsee, in picture-perfect Bavaria. Water, mountains, country houses. He built one himself, contacting the municipal decision-makers who have to approve such projects.
Julian Nagelsmann is facing groundbreaking weeks with the Munich team.
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Image: AFP
He recently invited a “Spiegel” reporter on a hike up to a hut in which he and friends want to invest. He spends his free time where he lives, racing in the area and – a point that just throws the Manuel Neuer story from its straightness – skis on his local mountain and no further over the Achenpass in the more opulent Austrian areas. His physical proximity to Honorary President Uli Hoeneß, who also resides at Tegernsee, is an insignia of power: he has long since arrived, Neuer has subdued FC Bayern, the “Koan Neuer” is a fading memory of an emotional aberration that has long since been corrected.
But now the “Koan Neuer” mood is tangible again. The people who are connected to FC Bayern recognize that the interviews that the 36-year-old captain gave to the team “Süddeutsche Zeitung” and the portal “The Athletic” were statements on his own behalf and were placed at an inopportune time. Neuer puts “his personal interests above those of the club,” complained sports director Hasan Salihamidzic in the “Bild am Sonntag” – and thus has the decisive point: No player may be bigger than FC Bayern, the largest and most successful club in the country. Others who were very popular as players smashed up at FC Bayern when they wanted too much.
