FC Bayern quarrels after gossip
“Shock lover” Tuchel no longer understands the world
By Tobias Nordman
4/12/2023 6:51 am
That’s it. Or not? FC Bayern needs a miracle to reach the semi-finals of the Champions League. Coach Thomas Tuchel is “in shock” after his team’s performance against Manchester City and despite the clear defeat.
Leon Goretzka was a little too close in the triangle. Joshua Kimmich was a little too far away. Jamal Musiala defended without physical contact. The fact that the Spanish vacuum cleaner Rodri flicked the ball from 20 meters into the corner late Tuesday evening, even with the wrong (because left) foot, Thomas Tuchel could have handled that well. Things like that happen in football. Because completely different things had happened that Tuesday evening in the stormy and rainy Etihad Stadium in Manchester City, the FC Bayern coach no longer understood the world after the final whistle. With 0: 3 (0: 1) his team was drowned in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and probably lost the second chance for the title within a week.
Bayern were knocked out of the DFB Cup against SC Freiburg. Also in the quarterfinals, also initiated by a shot with the wrong foot on Sunday. The lightning rescue mission of the new coach, who surprisingly replaced Julian Nagelsmann almost two weeks ago, is now in danger of failing with a bang. And Tuchel doesn’t really know why. He was extremely satisfied when he worked through the defeat against the giant team in sky blue and their coach Josep Guardiola. “I refuse because somehow badmouthing the performance. I saw a very, very good performance up to the 70th minute. I’m very satisfied,” said Tuchel on Amazon Prime. “There was absolutely more in it, we deserved much more.” At the press conference later he said: “The result does not show the history of the game.”
Tuchel relies on depth instead of Müller
The footballers from Munich had achieved things in Manchester that were quite astonishing. They had earned just as much possession as the hosts, who had ingrained in their DNA the ability to control the ball and opponent completely, and then break it down with precise attacks. They recently beat RB Leipzig 7-0, FC Burnley 6-0 and Jürgen Klopps Liverpool 4-1. The Tuchel team fought against a similar debacle with full passion. And with a lineup that was quite surprising. For example, Thomas Müller, who was outstanding against Borussia Dortmund, was not in the starting XI. Tuchel relied fully on the speed factor, wanted to play the depth. That worked quite well, but a target player was missing.
One like City owns with Erling Haaland. He was hardly noticed until the 70th minute. He had two degrees, but they seemed surprisingly hasty. But then the Norwegian was there. After a severe blackout by Munich’s Dayot Upamecano, Jack Grealish passed a hoe to Haaland, who crossed softly to the far post, where little Bernardo Silva headed in with full force (70′). Six minutes later, the storm force was on the spot itself and pushed a header from John Stones over the line. Haaland scored his eleventh goal in the seventh game and celebrated his first win in the eighth duel with FC Bayern.
Had Musiala met…
Haaland once again made it clear to FC Bayern that evening what he was missing: an outstanding centre-forward. In the absence of the injured Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting, the penalty area was rather wasteland. Almost all of Munich’s shots, of which the UEFA statistics counted twelve, came from a distance and too central to the attentive keeper Ederson. The game certainly had a “what if” moment, with which Munich quarreled. Shortly before the 0:1, Jamal Musiala shot from the best position, but Rúben Dias blocked the ball away with a monstrous sliding tackle. An outstanding action. These Citizens not only shine with their joy and creativity on the ball, but also with their passion for clearing away. A pretty perfect symbiosis that Guardiola has created in recent years. He said afterwards: “We scored three fantastic goals, it’s an excellent result.”
How to crack this giant collective? And in Munich they believe that not much is missing to make the miracle possible next Wednesday. More goal risk, fewer mistakes. Sounds so easy. Continuing the good performance, especially after the change of sides: “We were good for the first 20 minutes after the break, but we didn’t reward ourselves. We tried to pull the momentum onto our side.” Joshua Kimmich said: “It’s brutal. The first 60 minutes were very, very good. We believed that we could turn the game around. We saw today that it’s possible to keep up, that it’s possible to win . There is confidence in the team that we can get something in the second leg.”
Tuchel sees the key in the “shape”. At the end of last week he had already warned that his team was not in top condition. He hopes that one action will be enough for some players to regain the missing naturalness. This has worked quite well for Leroy Sané in the past few days, but this liberating blow is also needed for Sadio Mané or Serge Gnabry, who struggled as a striker but rarely saw light in the shadow of the city giants.
“Nothing is given away”
In the dressing room, Tuchel swears that it will be good. Manchester sometimes scored the goals from “not even half chances to score”, he said. They themselves deserved at least one goal and gave away one or two too many. But because his team just played such a good game that Citizens put up an equal fight, he is now “in shock” with his team. It was fun coaching her. And so he promised: “Nothing will be given away.”
A look at the history of the Champions League can at least give FC Bayern a little hope. Because other teams have already caught up a deficit of three goals. The second leg between Paris Saint-Germain and FC Barcelona in the round of 16 of the 2016/2017 season was sensational. PSG had won the first leg in Paris 4-0 – the Catalans turned the knockout round with a 6-1 in the second leg. In the semi-finals of 2018/19, Liverpool FC were almost out after losing 3-0 in the first leg at FC Barcelona, but made it back to the final with a 4-0 win in the second leg at home. The previous season, AS Roma had come back from a three-goal deficit against Barcelona in the quarter-finals, also thanks to the away goals rule.
“I’ve seen incredible things”
But not only Tuchel conjured up the spirit of Munich. In the festive ballroom of the Clocktower Hotel, club boss Oliver Kahn, who had previously been badly marked in the stands, also vividly demonstrated his legendary “go on, go on, keep going” mentality. “I’ve seen incredible things in football,” he said. “We have a duty to throw in everything we can in this second leg.” And it’s no use now to lament and see everything negatively. “We have a great opportunity to become German champions. It’s all very, very close. We can’t afford to lose ourselves in thought here. We have to do more immediately on Saturday.”
The clear defeat hurt – and was still difficult to grasp for the Bayern delegation with oysters, beef wellington or quinoa power salad on Wednesday night. On the one hand, you sniffed the balance in the meantime. On the other hand, she could have suffered an even greater defeat. The game was a “bit disgusting to analyze”, said late substitute captain Thomas Müller. “We’ll learn from it again, get up and try everything in the second leg. But of course it’s a miserable starting position.”