“Well first,” said Nenad Bjelica – and anyone who sat with the still new football coach of 1. FC Union Berlin in the media room in the Munich Arena late on Wednesday evening and listened to his statement about the game was actually sure that after these first words he would immediately apologize. For the fact that he pressed his hand firmly into the face of Leroy Sané, the FC Bayern player, in the 74th minute during a dispute over the ball not once, but twice. For crossing the line that should never be crossed on a sports field.
“So first,” Bjelica said in the first sentence of his statement in the media room – but what sounded like the beginning of an apology then continued without an apology, he would like to “congratulate Bayern Munich on their deserved victory.”
He then spoke about his team from Berlin, who hadn’t conceded a goal in the first 45 minutes. He talked about the team from Munich, who then scored the goal in the 46th minute. But there was one thing he didn’t talk about: himself.
When the first reporter was finally allowed to ask a question in the press conference, he immediately asked Bjelica about the scene in the 74th minute with Sané. And for reasons of transparency, the response of the Croatian coach, who received a straight red card for grabbing his face and had to leave the so-called interior of the stadium, should be reproduced in full here:
“So I’m in my coaching zone, a ball comes to me in my coaching zone. I want to get the ball and just give it to Sané. He pushed me. He wanted to play fast and pushed me. Then I reacted the way I shouldn’t react: with my hand on his face. That’s not okay. Then the red card is okay too. I felt provoked in my coaching zone and reacted in my coaching zone how I shouldn’t react.”
Nenad Bjelica: “I felt provoked in my coaching zone and reacted in my coaching zone how I shouldn’t react” : Image: dpa
It corresponds to the facts that Sané came into the coaching area and wanted to steal the ball from the coach (which is why the referee punished him with a yellow card). But it also corresponds to the facts that Sané pushed the coach for the first time when he had already touched his face for the first time. And when Bjelica was asked in the Sky interview – before the press conference – who he had to apologize to more, Sané or his team, he replied: “Not Sané, because he comes into my room to apologize to me provoke.”
It wasn’t just the action that was unworthy of a Bundesliga coach, but also the later discussion of the action.
And what did Thomas Tuchel, the Bayern coach, who sat with Bjelica on the podium in the press conference room on Wednesday evening, say about the scene with Sané? “It’s not my place to judge. I didn’t even notice it during that time. I just saw it in the pictures now. Everything has been said.”
It was perhaps a good thing for him that he didn’t have to answer as many questions as usual that evening because of the excitement surrounding Bjelica. He was happy that his team’s counterattack protection worked much better than against Bremen on Sunday. He was also happy that Raphaël Guerreiro, whom he had started at left-back because he had Leon Goretzka back in the starting line-up, did a very good job – and not just because he scored the game-winning 1-0 goal. But that was it.
On offense, the old worries (play structure) are still there. And there are new worries in defense because central defender Dayot Upamecano and substitute right-back Konrad Laimer had to be replaced and are likely to be out for the time being. In Upamecano’s case (Tuchel: “Fiber injury in the back of the thigh”, he will probably be out for several weeks) this was already certain on Wednesday evening, but not yet in Laimer’s case.
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Either way, you could say on this Wednesday evening: It was a victory that FC Bayern really needed in view of the Bundesliga table, but it was also a victory that at least shouldn’t calm FC Bayern down too much.
