Monday 22 November 2021
Bayern finally FC Hollywood
Quarantine, wages and Lewandowski trouble
By Stephan Uersfeld
The unrest at Bayern Munich does not want to end. It’s still about Kimmich & Co, the way out of the vaccination crisis. A mole is up to mischief. In Poland, too, it’s about FCB. Superstar Lewandowski is under attack because the national team was not that important to him.
Hasan Salihamidžić made an all-round strike. The Bavarian sports director railed against BVB professional Marco Reus because he had left the national team early. He should “shut up”, angry Dortmund’s sports director Michael Zorc. A little Bundesliga squabble at the beginning of September over the big question of load management. One who has long since been forgotten. Too much has happened since then.
Two months later: Germany is in the middle of the fourth wave of the corona pandemic. The excitement about the unvaccinated Bayern quintet Joshua Kimmich, Serge Gnabry, Jamal Musiala, Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting and Michael Cuisance does not want to end. Again and again the players have to be quarantined. Unrest in Bavaria. Restlessness everywhere. Also with the Polish national team around Robert Lewandowski. He did not play in the last World Cup qualifier against Hungary. Not because of Corona, but because he needed a break. Good for Bayern because his representative, Choupo-Moting, is out again.
“Team won’t break”
The quarantine, the vaccination statute, the wage cuts. That is of course also the subject of the press conference before the game at Dynamo Kiev in the Champions League, where one point is already enough to win the group. “I don’t think the team will break up because of the situation,” said coach Julian Nagelsmann, who was repeatedly confronted with the situation when asked. For a few days, this has also included the question of a new mole on Säbener Strasse, which repeatedly brings new developments to light and, most recently, fueled the debate about the salary cuts for unvaccinated players. That is, said Nagelsmann, of course unfortunate when “internals are leaked”, but ultimately also “no things that extremely endanger our sporting success.”
Bayern press spokesman Dieter Nickles tries again and again to put the conversation on sporting matters. But before the rather insignificant game in Kiev, there are more pressing issues. The German record champions have long since qualified for the knockout phase of the Champions League. “We don’t have this pressure on the results,” said the Bayern coach: “Despite the eight failures, we still have a good team on the pitch. We don’t come with any counter troop.”
But also not with the best players. In addition to the five quarantine professionals Kimmich, Gnabry, Musiala, Choupo-Moting and Cuisance, the positively tested Niklas Süle and Josip Stanisici, who will be back in the squad against Arminina Bielefeld at the earliest, and the banned Dayot Upamecano are still missing. Two other players, Marcel Sabitzer and Kingsley Coman, could still join. Both are battered. Bayern do not want to take any chances and risk more serious injuries. Load control under corona conditions. Not so easy. In the Bundesliga, it’s first against Bielefeld, then to the top game in Dortmund, who want to be there when Bayern is in quarantine and are only one point behind the record champions despite sobering performances and injury problems.
“We did not hear a reasonable explanation”
With all the failures – and the constant threat of quarantine for the players without a vaccination – it was certainly not inconvenient for Bayern that star striker Robert Lewandowski controlled his burden with the national team. During the important World Cup qualifier between Poland and Hungary, he asked national coach Paulo Sousa to take a break. They had previously qualified for the playoffs with a win against Andorra. It was no longer possible to go up. But there was still a threat of relegation to the group of unset teams in the playoffs. So no home right in the first knockout game and a probably stronger opponent as well.
Lewandowski did not play. Poland lost to Hungary. A couple of other results ran against them. They were relegated to the group of unset teams. The excitement was great. Had Lewandowski abandoned his national team? Or has national coach Paulo Sousa made a mistake? And were Bayern involved? The record champions credibly deny this, although he now benefits from it.
“Things were clearly discussed with the national team. With the national coach and with Lewy. Nothing was controlled by us, pushed by us. That first,” said Nagelsmann: “Of course, a certain amount of control is also important at Lewy. Now is His 1A representative with a similar position profile, Choupo-Moting, is in quarantine. That’s why he won’t get that much break now, because we won’t be able to add that much offensively in the next two games. So it’s good that he does one Got a break. ”
The Poles don’t care. You are mad. Pissed off. “It was the last game in the World Cup qualification, and an extremely important game in a sold-out national stadium,” says Jacek Stańczyk, editor-in-chief of the Polish sports website Onet Sport / PrzegladSportowy.pl, in an interview with ntv.de: “And Lewandowski doesn’t play . Although he is not injured. Although there was nothing else. It is difficult to understand, we have not yet heard a reasonable explanation. A situation in which everything just went wrong. “
The wildest theses are buzzing around. Little is clear. The official version goes like this. Even before the Andorra game, Sousa, who recently compared Lewandowski with Michael Jordan, and the Bayern striker agreed a break in the game against Hungary in the event that qualification for the playoffs was already established.
Lewandowski’s status scratched
But after the defeat it got uncomfortable, the version didn’t last long in the Polish press. The reported that Lewandowski had made this decision for himself, the coach did not want to stand against him. They took out heavy artillery. There is talk of a birthday party with a multimillionaire, of recordings for his Amazon documentary, which were more important to him than the game. Some reports speculate that the people involved did not even realize what the game was about: home rights in the first round of playoffs. All sorts of accusations that can hardly be substantiated, but which document how angry the reactions were in the country where the Bayern striker has long since become a national shrine. This status is now scratched. For a player like Lewandowski, who always strives for recognition, an unfamiliar situation.
In the game against Hungary Lewandowski was still on the bench. But not because he was suddenly in the squad and maybe could have turned the game around, but rather because there was no other option. A spokesman for the Polish association told the media that he did not sit in the stands of the stadium because otherwise the fans would probably have spoken to him the whole time. Lewandowski sat on the bench, followed the defeat, came under fire, and stated on the association’s website that he had never refused to play for the national team. But the criticism continues to this day. Hasan Salihamidžić has not yet commented on Lewandowski’s absence in the decisive qualifier. He probably has other worries at the moment.