The 17/18 season started with the return of an old friend in Munich. Jupp Heynckes inherited Carlo Ancelotti, whom Bayern surprisingly fired after just six matchdays. Heynckes’ opening press conference was highly emotional. Just like the bitter relegation of a Bundesliga dinosaur.
Jupp Heynckes had once again returned to FC Bayern Munich – and at his first press conference he not only surprised the media representatives present with intimate insights into his private life. With a trembling voice, the triple trainer told about the death of his beloved cat. He also emphasized how difficult it was for him to have left behind his 12-year-old dog Cando, with whom he walks twice a day extensively because his wife is out with cartilage damage. You could immediately guess what emotional side the Bayern players were going to experience in the coming weeks and months. Because as Kalle Rummenigge said, visibly touched, at the end of the press conference: “As I was just able to learn, Jupp has succeeded in pacifying cats and dogs. I know from my own experience that anyone who pacifies cats and dogs is also able to coach FC Bayern.”
If you only saw the bare numbers, you really couldn’t understand what had to have happened in the course of the first rounds at the record champions for FC Bayern to fire their coach Carlo Ancelotti after the 6th matchday. Because, as usual in recent years, the Munich team won the German championship for the sixth time in a row on the 29th matchday with a 4-1 away win at FC Augsburg. And yet this early dismissal was the key to another very quiet season for Bayern. Under Jupp Heynckes, the team immediately appeared transformed and lost only one game in the entire season.
French international Ousmane Dembélé caused turbulence before the first whistle even blew. His desire to change was so great and strong that he pushed his club Borussia Dortmund by all means to let him move to FC Barcelona. The burnt ashes left by his transfer to Dortmund smoldered a little longer and finally prompted Aki Watzke to comment on this subject in principle: “The next player who tries to put us under pressure by showing performance holds back or even goes on strike will not get away with it – and will sit in the stands.” A threat that worked.
“The VAR is like sex without pleasure”
- Ben Redelings is a best-selling author and comedian from the Ruhr area.
His current book “60 Years Bundesliga. The Anniversary Album” is a modern classic from the publishing house “The workshop”
He travels throughout Germany with his football programs. Info & dates www.scudetto.de.
The big theme of this season, however, was different. The newly introduced video proof stirred tempers from the start. Very little worked out as it should and so there were always grotesque scenes. The unsurpassed highlight of the numerous slapstick interludes was a situation on the 30th matchday. After the game between FSV Mainz 05 and SC Freiburg went almost completely without excitement for almost 45 minutes, referee Guido Winkmann missed a clear handball by a Freiburg player in the last few seconds before the half-time whistle. Shortly after this scene, Winkmann asked both teams into the dressing room.
When all the players had already disappeared into the catacombs and the referee had already left the field, he suddenly stopped. Video assistant Bibiana Steinhaus got in touch with him and drew Winkmann’s attention to the handball. After that, there was nothing else to do but get both teams out of their cabins and take the penalty kick that was due. Scorn and mockery then poured buckets over the referee and his video assistant in Cologne.
But in addition to some nasty comments, some football fans also caricatured the topic of video evidence with a fine ironic blade. One user wrote: “This is the first time someone has scored in the break sweepstakes, I think.” In an interview, Bayern’s ex-player Bixente Lizarazu criticized the long delays that repeatedly occurred between a possible goal and the final decision: “The video assistant is a bit like sex without pleasure. Before the climax comes, says someone ‘stop'”.
When Tedesco knelt in front of the Schalke players and they followed him
The most adventurous game of the season was seen by over 80,000 spectators on the 13th day of play in Dortmund. In the district derby against FC Schalke 04, BVB was already 4-0 up at half-time – and in the end could be happy that the match was called off in the 94th minute after the Royal Blues had equalized 4-4. Otherwise, all observers on site agreed that Dortmund would have left the field as losers after these two spectacularly different halves.
In the evening in the “Aktuelle Sportstudio”, Schalke keeper Fährmann revealed the simple but extremely successful trick that coach Domenico Tedesco had used to heat up his team for the second 45 minutes. The young coach of the Royal Blues had brought his team very close together, knelt in front of his players and then pointed out how unstable BVB actually was. Tedesco then called it 0-0 and demanded that his team win the second half. And that’s what they finally did.
After a fabulous season a year earlier, 1. FC Köln ended the season with bitter relegation. At that time, the long-standing dream duo Schmadtke-Stöger had long since ceased to exist. Shortly after the start of the season, manager Schmadtke answered a journalist’s question: “Do you want me to rate the season now? On the third day of the season? The season sucks!” And indeed she was.
Only HSV fared worse. After 55 years without a break in the premier league, the Dino finally had to accept that the fight against relegation just wasn’t winable this time. From now on, the club mascot “Dino Hermann” wore a patch on his nose. May the wound heal quickly!