When the time had come after a good hour, the audience rose from their seats. A wave of enthusiasm swept through the FC Bayern stadium. The spectators shouted “Harry Kane” so loudly that the name of the new striker could possibly be heard beyond the concrete bowl on the outskirts of Munich.
Even the small band of RB Leipzig supporters who had been making a fuss under the arena roof fell silent when Kane came on as a substitute in Saturday’s Supercup, less than 24 hours after signing a four-year deal at Bayern Munich. It was a very special moment, the only one from Munich’s point of view that evening, which ended with a 0:3 defeat and the realization that the new striker alone is not enough to get the German record champions back on track bring.
Hype about Kane in the Bayern transfer
Never before in Munich had a player been received as enthusiastically and enthusiastically as Kane. The night before, fans had been at the airport in Oberpfaffenhofen, as well as in the clinic in Munich, where the captain of the English national team completed the medical check, a few hours late because his former employer Tottenham Hotspur had wanted to renegotiate again.
And they are also waiting at the FC Bayern training ground when Kane finally arrived there at a very late hour to sign the contract. The captain of the English national team is not the first player with something like superstar status that FC Bayern has signed.
But when Franck Ribéry, Arjen Robben or Luca Toni arrived in Munich, there were no smartphone apps that tracked the flight of the private jet that took Kane from London to Munich on Friday. He admitted in an interview on the club’s website that he had never experienced such hype. However, it was also Kane’s first change of club since establishing himself as one of the best forwards in the world.
It may be that on his first day at Bayern, Kane had a few doubts as to whether he had made a good decision. “He probably thinks we haven’t trained here for four weeks,” said coach Tuchel at Sat.1 after the unsuccessful first competitive appearance of the new season.
Christopher Meltzer, Munich Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 4 A comment by Christopher Meltzer, Munich Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 27 Christopher Meltzer, Munich Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 9 Published/Updated: Recommendations: 23
Kane had just sat down on the bench when Dani Olmo made it 0-1 because Munich’s defense wasn’t sorted. Shortly before the end of the first half, when Kane had already made acquaintance with his neighbors on the bench, the Spaniard increased to 2-0 in Leipzig’s service. In between, the newcomer from the island had to watch as his colleagues missed a few brilliant chances that he, Kane, might all have converted.
Above all, Mathys Tel provided the proof that FC Bayern urgently needed a real centre-forward. The talented Frenchman lacks the callousness and confidence that made Kane the second-best goalscorer in Premier League history in England. Shortly after his substitution in the 64th minute it was 0:3, again it was Olmo who converted a penalty kick caused by Noussair Mazraoui. Kane hadn’t even touched the ball.
He was on the pitch for nine minutes before making his first appearance but, like the rest of the team, he remained pale. Unlike his colleagues, however, it was understandable for him. He went to bed at three or four o’clock, admitted Tuchel, after a hard day with many new impressions. But Kane didn’t want to miss out on taking part in the Supercup right away in order to perhaps win the first major title of his career, for which he now has to wait a little longer.
The criticism that the Bayern coach then practiced was not directed at Kane. One did not expect, said Tuchel, “that he is the superhero”. However, what the rest of the team showed was “inexplicable” for him. “The discrepancy between mood, form and what we get on the pitch is huge,” said the Bayern coach.
Still under the fresh impression of the game, Tuchel even said on television that he had “no starting point”. He had said something similar a few times at the end of last season. But while he was not blamed for the state of the team after taking over as coach at the end of March and the turbulence at the club, he is now judged on the form and performance of the players.
The grace period for Tuchel is over and he has to put up with questions such as why he didn’t manage to structure the team in preparation. Later, at the press conference, he repeated the criticism but refrained from speaking again about his own helplessness.
He gave Kane something like a guarantee of commitment for the Bundesliga opener against Werder Bremen on Friday (8.30 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Bundesliga, on Sat.1 and Sky) and the weeks and months that followed. “He plays every game,” said Tuchel. An integration phase is not planned. “We have to get to know him. We can learn from him, not the other way around.” Harry Kane may have imagined it to be a little easier. His new job at FC Bayern.
