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Page 1 — The big test for coach Tuchel
Page 2 — What style of football does Thomas Tuchel represent?
Thomas Tuchel is currently being punished for his honesty. That’s how he will see it, not entirely wrongly. The Bayern coach recently said that he loves Spain as a football country and was more appreciated in England than in Germany, ignoring the PR rule that silence is golden.
TV pundit Didi Hamann criticized Tuchel for this, for which he later apologized. However, it is unlikely that they will be super happy with Tuchel’s statements in Munich. And the Bild-Newspaper picks apart his every word and every look anyway.
Such trivialities would hardly be discussed if Tuchel mastered his core task. So if his team played better and gave less cause for doubt.
Thomas Tuchel has already won the Champions League as a coach and is valued in London, Paris and other football metropolises. But he has never formed a top team over the years. And after ten months he hasn’t made much progress in Munich either. Therefore, the game in Leverkusen on Saturday will not only be the top game in the Bundesliga, but also a test for coach Tuchel. How good is he really?
You ask yourself this question, even though the results are right this season. In the Bundesliga, FC Bayern won 16 of 20 games. He is 13 points ahead of old rivals BVB and 14 points ahead of Leipzig. The big duels lie with Bayern, with their superior individual players they have an easy time against offensive teams. Then Tuchel lets them counter, like in the 4-0 win in Dortmund in November and the 3-0 win against Stuttgart just before Christmas. This is also the biggest danger for Leverkusen’s team, who like to move far into the attacking half.
Structural deficiencies in Bayern’s defense
The outstanding average of 2.5 points per game would easily have been enough to lead the league in most years. The fact that Tuchel is still only in second place and shouldn’t lose on Saturday is basically his personal bad luck. For the first time since 2012, when Dortmund defended the title under Jürgen Klopp, the Bundesliga has a second team of stature: Bayer Leverkusen has scored two more points under Xabi Alonso, the team has not lost a game yet and is 3: 2 against Stuttgart in the semi-finals of the DFB Cup.
Tuchel is particularly unflattered by the direct comparison with his competitor Alonso. The inexperienced Spanish coach achieves more with a significantly weaker and cheaper squad. Leverkusen is a coaching team. You can see his handwriting in every game, in every half.
That cannot be said about Bayern. They lack similar organization on the pitch. A recent example: In the home game against Bremen almost two weeks ago, central defenders Dayot Upamecano and Matthijs de Ligt moved the defensive line far into the opponent’s half. A big mistake meant Justin Njinmah was able to run with a big lead. His goal was disallowed due to a foul in advance, but this scene revealed something about the structural deficiencies of the Bayern team.
Thomas Tuchel is currently being punished for his honesty. That’s how he will see it, not entirely wrongly. The Bayern coach recently said that he loves Spain as a football country and was more appreciated in England than in Germany, ignoring the PR rule that silence is golden.
TV pundit Didi Hamann criticized Tuchel for this, for which he later apologized. However, it is unlikely that they will be super happy with Tuchel’s statements in Munich. And the Bild-Newspaper picks apart his every word and every look anyway.
