special memories
Tuchel triumphed when Bayern suffered
By Till Erdenberger
03/25/2023, 7:42 p.m
Thomas Tuchel should lead FC Bayern into a better future, they want from the record champions. In the past, however, the new coach has already annoyed his new club. With good ideas.
In August 2009, the order of German football was completely different than it is today: after the third match day of the Bundesliga, Bayer Leverkusen led the table, Hamburger SV was second, Schalke 04 third – and FC Bayern was ranked 14th, behind Hertha BSC, well behind Hannover 96 and just ahead of 1. FC Nürnberg on the relegation rank. And Thomas Tuchel was to blame for that. “My first Bundesliga win was against Bayern, with Mainz,” said the new coach of the record German champions in a video interview with the club.
After two draws at the start, his team beat FC Bayern Munich on matchday 3. “I’m a communicative, meticulous coach who works close to the team. My philosophy is: forward-looking defence, strength in tackles, quick play up front,” Tuchel explained in an interview for FC Bayern’s website before the game . “It seems to be in line with the club’s expectations of the coach’s work and our team’s game.”
“Smart and attentively defended”
The promoted team surprised FC Bayern under Louis van Gaal with fast, intense football. At the end of the first season under the new coach there was a strong 9th place, the following year Tuchel led his team with seven wins in a row to the start record in the history of the Bundesliga at the time. FC Bayern, of course, quickly repaired the false start with two points from the first three games, at the end of the season van Gaal was allowed to give the “celebration beast” at Marienplatz and celebrate the championship.
That Thomas Tuchel, however, who worked meticulously in front of himself in Mainz, which is structurally inferior by miles, and established new vocabulary such as “match plan” in German football, repeatedly annoyed the big FC Bayern: In his first three years of service in the Bundesliga, Tuchel worked out his own A professional career had to end early and in the lower league due to a serious injury, a positive record against the industry leader: three wins faced two defeats and a draw. No other Bundesliga coach was able to annoy the record champions so effectively and with a clearly inferior infrastructure. “We showed all the virtues that characterize us: passion, willingness to run and emotion. And we defended attentively and cleverly,” said Tuchel after a 3-2 win over FC Bayern in winter 2011.
For Thomas Tuchel, a few days before the start of the Bundesliga in 2009, he was brought completely surprisingly from the A youth team to the Bundesliga, and his first win in the Bundesliga marked the start of a rapid rise: he led FSV Mainz 05 into international business twice before he left the club in 2014 left again. He won the DFB Cup with Borussia Dortmund, he led Paris Saint-Germain to various national titles and in 2020 to the Champions League final, which he won with Chelsea in 2021. That made him World Coach of the Year 2021. After his surprising dismissal from Chelsea in September, he remained on hold – and is now supposed to save Bayern. The same FC Bayern against whom Thomas Tuchel once celebrated a very special victory in August 2009.
In 2017, the former upstart hit his new club very hard again: In the cup semi-finals, FC Bayern suffered a bitter 2: 3 in the home arena against Tuchel’s BVB – who also won the DFB Cup a few weeks later. The championship, in turn, went to FC Bayern again.
“Glad to be on the other side”
With Mainz and Borussia Dortmund he also experienced “bitter defeats” against Munich, later also in the 2020 Champions League final with Paris Saint-Germain. The record champion is “simply the highest standard in the Bundesliga”. Normally, a team in games against Bayern is “always a big outsider”. The final in the premier class in 2020, which Tuchel lost 1-0 with PSG, was “very, very close, on a knife’s edge”.
The 49-year-old was presented on Saturday as Julian Nagelsmann’s successor, his contract runs until June 30, 2025. The change of coach in Munich also caused a stir internationally. “I’m happy now to be on the other side and hopefully to give our opponents the feeling that sometimes they don’t have a chance,” said Tuchel.
On “bundesliga.com” you can still read today: “All in all, all three victories of Tuchel’s Mainz team against Bayern were well deserved. In addition to tactical flexibility, the respective momentum also played a not inconsiderable role in all of these successes, so that Tuchel always could then score when Bayern were struggling with problems.” Now they have problems again at FC Bayern, the situation with a point behind Borussia Dortmund and a mixture of intrigue and love surrounding the nailed Nagelsmann caused those responsible to worry too much about the sporting side. Now Tuchel should score again. For Bayern Munich.