OPINION
Loss to Fribourg
Out of the DFB Cup: Bayern have a mentality problem
FC Bayern’s defeat against SC Freiburg was painful – the first title is gone
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FC Bayern is eliminated by SC Freiburg in the DFB Cup. So far so sensational. But that had little to do with bad luck. Bayern are apparently suffering from what has long been located in Dortmund: FC Bayern has a mentality problem.
“It just pisses me off brutally,” Joshua Kimmich rumbled after FC Bayern’s quarter-final defeat by SC Freiburg. Out of the cup, lost a triple chance, Munich will not go to Berlin for the third time in a row. In fact, everything went according to plan.
The duel against Freiburg was a typical cup game for the record champions. Lots of possession, maybe few chances, but shortly before the end someone will somehow push the ball over the line. Bayern celebrate, the opponent explains that they “kept up well for a long time”, but were unfortunately eliminated in the end. It’s happened like this dozens of times. On Tuesday evening, however, it was suddenly a wrong world in the Allianz Arena.
The stoppage time was already running, everyone was preparing for extra time when the ball bounced on Jamal Musiala’s arm. A whistle. A pointer. Penalty for Freiburg. Nicolas Höler slams the ball under the bar. Freiburg in the semifinals. Bayern-Dusel for the Breisgauer.
Outstanding against Paris, cup failure against Freiburg: FC Bayern has a mentality problem
At the latest with the first playful title, new coach Thomas Tuchel will have made it clear: He will probably not be a fireman in this life. His game is too complex for that and needs too much start-up time. But much more important and worrying: His team obviously has what rivals Borussia Dortmund have been accused of for years: FC Bayern has a mentality problem.
Against Paris in the Champions League, Munich played like unleashed. “Bayernlike” as it is called in modern German today. But under the ex-coach Julian Nagelsmann, a certain sloppiness seems to have crept in when it’s not against the opponents that Pep Guardiola once described as “toptoptop”.
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Tuchel is certainly not responsible for this. What can a coach do who hasn’t even had a handful of training sessions with his team? Once again, you have to question the FCB boardroom and the point in time at which Nagelsmann was kicked out – especially when you know how complex and time-consuming it is to implement Tuchel football. Chelsea FC can sing a song about it.
Tuchel needs time for his system – but he doesn’t have that in the final spurt of the season
Hasan Salihamidžić and Oliver Kahn have put Tuchel in the thankless situation of having to work on two construction sites: On the one hand, he has to tattoo his system as quickly as possible on the players’ cortices. On the other hand, he has to find out (perhaps even faster) why it is even necessary to explain to the players of the record champions that you have to “be more stable, be tougher”, as he said after the game. Goodness knows that the statement that the “last hunger” was missing in this quarter-final will not allow Tuchel to sleep well. Ironically, the club, which for decades carried its mantra-like “mia san mia” like a protective shield in front of it and won games out of a mixture of arrogance and self-evidence, Tuchel now has to explain the luck of the capable. The coach certainly hadn’t imagined it that way.
Even after the change of coach, things continue to simmer at Bayern. Even the game against BVB was not a revelation despite the 4-0 lead in the meantime. Now the first title knockout against Freiburg. Tuchel will certainly take Bayern to a new, higher level. But until then it will take time. Time that he actually doesn’t have in the final spurt of the season.
