FC Bayern Munich Noussair Mazraoui
“I experienced him as I always do, otherwise I wouldn’t have put him up,” says Tuchel
Status: 24.10.2023 | Reading time: 4 minutes
Noussair Mazraoui (right) during the duel in Istanbul. He wasn’t in the squad for the 3-1 win in Mainz at the weekend
Source: picture alliance/Eibner-Pressefoto/Joerg Niebergall
At Galatasaray Istanbul, Noussair Mazraoui was allowed to play for FC Bayern again for the first time after his highly controversial pro-Palestinian post. The lineup surprised many. But his coach no longer sees this as a problem.
Few stadiums are as loud as the Galatasaray arena in Istanbul, the Ali Sami Yen Spor Kompleksi Rams Park. If the opposing team has the ball, the fans whistle with all their might, and there were around 50,000 people on Tuesday. A special challenge, even for experienced professionals – that’s another reason why it was a special evening in the Champions League for Noussair Mazraoui and his teammates from FC Bayern.
The premier class group game in the Turkish metropolis was the 25-year-old’s first game for Bayern since the scandal surrounding his pro-Palestine post almost two weeks ago. After his return from the international trip with the Morocco national team, he was injured. Mazraoui shared pro-Palestinian posts on his Instagram story a week after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel. One of the posts he shared came from an account that calls for the elimination of the Israeli state.
Daniel Peretz, his teammate at Munich, is Israeli. The substitute goalkeeper, who fought back tears during a minute’s silence before the Bundesliga game at 1. FSV Mainz 05 last weekend due to the events in the Middle East, sat on the bench in Istanbul. And saw Mazraoui and his team win 3:1 (1:1). The fact that FC Bayern was letting Mazraoui play was not a good signal after his post, some users said on social media during the game. “I experienced him like I always do, otherwise I wouldn’t have put him up,” said Thomas Tuchel before kick-off against Galatasaray on Amazon Prime Video: “He said he can play, no problem.”
The case is not yet over for Mazraoui
Tuchel had already emphasized the day before the game that Mazraoui was ready to play. He said they had spoken to the player in detail about the debate about the club’s reaction to Mazraoui’s post – FC Bayern has refrained from imposing a penalty or other consequences. Many people find Mazraoui’s statement distributed by the club and FC Bayern’s reaction to be inadequate.
The Makkabi Germany sports association wants to contact Bayern via its local club in Munich in the coming days to invite the club’s representative and the player to an interview. In any case, the vortex he sparked is still not really subsiding. Bayern’s CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen therefore tried to bring things back to normal at the Bayern banquet after the game at the Hotel Raffles.
At the beginning of his speech he said: “Let me make a comment. We don’t want to ignore the topic. We’ve all been able to read a lot about FC Bayern over the past few days about what’s outside of sport. That concerns us. I think it’s great how Thomas Tuchel said it at the press conference last Friday: We obviously want to fully integrate our player Nassouir Mazraoui into our team. There will be further discussions.”
But Tuchel is currently missing many professionals due to injury; he only had 16 field players with him on the trip to Turkey. Against Istanbul he did without world champion Thomas Müller, had Konrad Laimer play in central midfield instead of back on the right (Leon Goretzka is missing due to a broken hand) – and relied on Mazraoui as a full-back in the starting line-up.
This line-up surprised many, as Mazraoui had hardly been able to train with the team recently. Tuchel emphasized in Istanbul that the individual training last week was not a punishment. “We have accelerated the regeneration process to the utmost and have also taken a bit of risk in the last few days – always in consultation with the player, of course,” said the coach: “He remains our player.”
Mazraoui started the game with a lost challenge, which led to a foul from him and a free kick, which Istanbul did not take. When the score was 1-0, Kingsley Comans (8th minute of the game) was one of the first Bayern players to congratulate. He did his job in defense largely solidly, won an important header duel in the penalty area in the first half and also moved forward, although he also had some insecurities in his game and made very little use of the free space up front.
At the start of the second half he lost the ball on the edge of the penalty area, which led to a chance for Galatasaray. Before Harry Kane made it 2-1 (73′), he demanded the ball and prepared the goal together with Jamal Musiala. A strong and important action. In the 78th minute, Tuchel substituted Mazraoui and brought Bouna Sarr into the game.
On Saturday afternoon, Mazraoui could be in the starting eleven again: Bayern host SV Darmstadt in the Bundesliga.
also read
Here you will find content from third parties
In order to display embedded content, your revocable consent to the transmission and processing of personal data is necessary, as the providers of the embedded content require this consent as third party providers [In diesem Zusammenhang können auch Nutzungsprofile (u.a. auf Basis von Cookie-IDs) gebildet und angereichert werden, auch außerhalb des EWR]. By setting the switch to “on”, you agree to this (revocable at any time). This also includes your consent to the transfer of certain personal data to third countries, including the USA, in accordance with Art. 49 (1) (a) GDPR. You can find more information about this. You can revoke your consent at any time using the switch and privacy at the bottom of the page.
