TDespite the debacle, the holiday planning remains. FC Bayern players have had their day off since Sunday up to and including Tuesday. Thomas Tuchel had decided this before the embarrassing 1:3 (1:0) at 1. FSV Mainz 05. “We’ve been going through the program for three and a half weeks without a day off. I don’t think we look fresh,” said the coach of the German record champions after the defeat. “That’s why we need a little distance.”
Out in the quarter-finals of the DFB Cup, out in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, on this 29th matchday they also lost their lead in the Bundesliga – Bayern have lost a lot in the past four weeks. They have reached the lowest point of their season so far. The team gave up another lead: Sadio Manés 1-0 (29′) equalized Ludovic Ajorque (65′) from Mainz, Leandro Barreiro (73′) and Aarón Martín (79′) caused a sensation. Borussia Dortmund won 4-0 against Eintracht Frankfurt and is now one point ahead of Bayern Munich.
The second half of Bayern was desolate. A performance with far too little energy, conviction, resistance and penetrating power. And sometimes far too little passion. “We can’t get a reaction,” said Tuchel. The team looks drained, as if they already have 70 or 80 games under their belts. You’re missing the basics.
FC Bayern threatens first untitled season in eleven years
“We make mistakes in concentration, we make big individual mistakes.” In fact, it was the pros with leadership claims, such as Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka, who were particularly disappointing. World champion Thomas Müller was self-critical and emphasized that he had made many mistakes in his game. Also weak: Before the 1-1 goalkeeper Yann Sommer fended off a ball in the middle.
“I don’t know who was the team today that wants to become German champions,” complained club manager Oliver Kahn after the game in the stadium: “It was definitely not our team. With this charisma it will be very difficult to become a champion.” Everything was missing in the game.
“It was a crash to the absolute low point of this season”
FC Bayern loses clearly in the Bundesliga in Mainz and no longer has the championship in their own hands. WELT sports reporter Julien Wolff says who he sees as responsible for the deep crisis of the soccer record champions.
Now the first untitled season in eleven years is imminent. That would be the Gau, that would be “of course a disaster for all of us,” says Kahn. He criticized the team. “At the end of the day, there are eleven men who are on the pitch and have to work their butts off for the goals of this club. That’s what football is about and nothing else. Ultimately, what the team brings to the pitch is not enough to become German champions.”
Many find that the players are clearly being held accountable too late. The team makes a “leaderless and undisciplined” impression on Felix Magath. “The change of coach came too late,” said the 69-year-old on Sunday afternoon in “Sport1-Doppelpass”. Bayern have the best squad in the league. It is the job of the trainer to moderate that. But Tuchel’s predecessor Julian Nagelsmann did not do the right thing to hold such a team together.
Date for Kahn and Salihamidzic showdown scheduled
In addition, the injured national goalkeeper Manuel Neuer cannot be replaced. “He was simply not valued enough in the past, he’s more than just a goalkeeper,” said Magath, who won two championship titles with the Munich side, among other things. Neuer cannot be replaced as a personality in the club, “otherwise they don’t have such a personality in the squad. Lewandowski is gone and Neuer is missing the most now. When Neuer comes back, I guarantee you, then the champions will be called Munich again,” said Magath. Under Nagelsmann there was a separation from the new confidante and goalkeeping coach Toni Tapalovic.
Only in the spectator role: Manuel Neuer last week when he lost to Manchester City in the quarter-finals of the Champions League
Source: pa/Peter Schatz
Kahn defended the change of coach from Nagelsmann to Tuchel at the weekend – even though Tuchel lost three of his first seven games as Bayern coach. “I’ve always talked about long-term goals,” said Kahn on ZDF’s “Aktuelle Sportstudio”. “It wasn’t just about the goals for the season.”
Kahn himself is faced with criticism of his balance sheet and with doubts as to whether he is still the right person as CEO. The former world-class goalkeeper said: “For me there is only one goal: to get this season around with the German championship title, and then to attack again next season.” He had previously said that he was not wasting a second at the moment to “worry about my contract, it’s always about FC Bayern”. Kahn said he accepts the criticism, “We all bear responsibility.”
WORLD learned: FC Bayern will not make any decisions about the future of its management team in the coming days. The next meeting of the board of directors is Monday, May 22nd, five days before the end of the season. Two days earlier, Bayern received RB Leipzig in the top game of the league. Only at this meeting of the Supervisory Board – according to the plan of the powerful body this weekend – will topics relating to the Board of Management be discussed. This will also include an assessment of the work of Kahn and sports director Hasan Salihamidzic. The nine members of the Supervisory Board definitely do not want to make groundbreaking decisions in telephone conversations. The Chairman of the Supervisory Board is Herbert Hainer, President of the Association.
The former Adidas boss said Saturday evening: “If you see two halves that are so different and then we collapse like that, it’s difficult to explain.” In the summer, the supervisory board could be ready to approve a mega transfer for around one hundred million euros. There should be at least one top striker.
But now it’s about the present and the near future.
