After the last turbulent season, FC Bayern should be calmer and more focused again. But the opposite is the case. Immediately before the start of the Bundesliga, the squad is like a construction site and coach Tuchel initiates wild debates.
Thomas Tuchel made no effort to give the impression that he was happy with the situation at Bayern. No sooner had the first title of the season slipped through his hands, no sooner had his team ruined the Supercup against RB Leipzig last Saturday (0: 3) than he angrily settled accounts with his team. He even apologized to the new superstar, Harry Kane, for what he wanted to be considered a non-performance. That doesn’t happen too often either. Especially not at FC Bayern, this title hamster, who always wants one thing: hoarding more titles. So far there has been one in the Tuchel era: the championship. But how it came about, they probably still can’t understand to this day. Jamal Musiala exploits BVB’s gigantic panic attack with his genius.
The title was the smallest conceivable happy ending to a season that had driven the record champions crazy. And it all started with Captain Manuel Neuer, who wanted to get rid of his desert frustration on thin snow conditions, fell and got really badly injured. A symbol for everything that happened at FC Bayern in the months that followed and that still has an impact today. After a dominant preliminary round, nothing went together anymore. The club experienced a crash like it hadn’t known for a long time. And he met it with sheer desperation. The future of the club collapsed in less than half a year. Julian Nagelsmann flew first, which was very surprising at the time in mid-March. Then the insecure and increasingly unhappy alphas Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidžić had to step down from their posts. Tuchel became coach and the anxious club fathers returned in Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.
That memorable day on May 27th in Müngersdorf, when everything turned around – the title, the bosses, the mood – should have been chaos for the last time, as the club had wished for afterwards. Full power for the conversion. Back to dominance. On to a new era.
So much construction site was rare
And now? Construction site. If this Friday (from 8.30 p.m. in the live ticker at ntv.de) When the new season kicks off when FC Bayern play at Werder Bremen, there are many things at stake. But it’s not about the Munich team playing everything in the ground again. Despite Kane, whose transfer saga was as absurd as it was expensive. Kane plays, from now on even always. At least a stake that is firmly hammered into the record champions. Now he just needs to get good crosses. The FC Bayern wingers had delivered that against RB Leipzig in the Supercup, but only until Kane came into play. After that no more. So finally the zero was at the wrong end. It’s one of the smaller, creaking flywheels that Tuchel needs to get going again these weeks. However, the trainer is certain: “The Harry Kane effect will not fizzle out.”
Another flywheel: the goalkeeper question. Believing that everything would be fine with Neuer for the new season, the Munich team squeaked in the position. Alexander Nübel was passed on to VfB Stuttgart and increased Yann Sommer’s desire to move to Inter Milan. But because Neuer is still not fit and that will obviously remain so for a long time, a new man is needed. Starting the season with just Sven Ulreich and Tom Ritzy Hülsmann is too delicate for everyone involved. The search is on, there have been cancellations. The club still has a good two weeks to find a solution, then the transfer market will close.
Until then, Ulreich will have to fix it. And the transfer strategists of FC Bayern. It was heard on Wednesday that they are now only looking for a replacement for a replacement. It should be Daniel Peretz. The 23-year-old comes from Maccabi Tel Aviv and should get a contract in Munich until at least 2027. Tuchel actually wanted it differently, he wanted a new number one who would clear the space between the posts without a murmur when Neuer can play again. Now the roll backwards. At the bosses. And with Tuchel, who publicly accepts this without complaint. But it’s not the first wish the coach doesn’t get. It didn’t work out with clearer Declan Rice, nor with right-back Kyle Walker. And also not with Keeper Kepa.
Small fires are glowing everywhere
However, it is not the only problem they face. There is unrest in the squad. Small fires are glowing everywhere. Benjamin Pavard wants to leave, but Tuchel doesn’t like it. Leon Goretzka would like to stay, but is currently only a substitute. He doesn’t like that. Especially not with a view to the upcoming European Championships at home next year. Konrad Laimer has surpassed him in central midfield, alongside Joshua Kimmich, who Tuchel doesn’t really want to have there. He wants a “holding six”, a defensive six that stays in position. He doesn’t see that in Kimmich, he had made that clear in a kind of government statement. The national player contradicted almost immediately. In Munich he is a kind of sacred cow. But Tuchel doesn’t seem to care. He speaks and speaks of things as he sees fit. In a one-to-one conversation, he even made it clear to Kimmich that he was making the game too slow. The player saw it differently. The amazing thing: Why is the content of a one-to-one conversation public? Closing their own ranks has been identified as a core task after a mole (or several?) undermined the dressing room last season and throwing treats down the boulevard.
With his announcements, Tuchel is risking the hierarchy in the team, which was already beginning to falter. In the disorientation of the past season, in which even the new coach could not ensure order and stability. Without Neuer, without the injured Müller, whose role is completely unclear in the future, and now Goretzka has been demoted from regular player to “captain of the substitutes’ bench”, as some media have called it. Or with wrangling over Kimmich and his value for the team. He’s trying to get back to the topic immediately before the league starts, but as it is: What has been started is difficult to stop. After all, with Kane he got a man who should not only close the goalscorer gaps, but is also an important axis element. As does Kim Min-jae, the new central defender who was also ripped off from SSC Napoli for a lot of money.
At Borussia Dortmund it had banged because of Tuchel’s relentless approach. The coach was not afraid of the alpha animal clash, of open dissent. No matter where. Whether at BVB, Paris St. Germain or Chelsea FC. Everywhere he lost, he flew, although he had delivered athletically. The respective club burned. Nothing is on fire in Munich yet, but the coach already has the match in his hand. According to reports, he should not only stress the club bosses with his transfer requests, but also cause discord within the team. A smaller indication of this was provided by the announcement by Hoeneß, who was powerful again, that a six was not needed. He named Laimer as the reason. Perhaps there is no dissent, no grueling power struggle, as the record champions experienced not too long ago between ex-coach Hansi Flick and Salihamidžić, but at least a different understanding of how a six should play.
Where to go with Thomas Müller?
Another problem looms: where to go with Thomas Müller? The preparation missed the club icon injured. It won’t be a big issue in the next few weeks if the 33-year-old doesn’t play from the start. The coach got a small foretaste of the force of the discussion after he had not called up Müller in the Champions League duels with Manchester City in the quarter-finals from the start. The term “non-typical Thomas Müller games” was born. Tuchel tried to downplay the matter quickly. As is Goretzka’s current role. And also the thing with the “Holding Six” and Kimmich. But the fitter the old master Müller gets, the more discussions will come up again. It will help Tuchel if the team plays successfully. But what if not? Niko Kovac and Nagelsmann, among others, have experienced how sensitive the topic of Müller is.
Tuchel should be the strong man this summer, the coach and the squad planner before Christoph Freund takes over from RB Salzburg on September 1st. He briefly commented on his commitment: “never spoken to him”. A quote that was difficult to assess. It didn’t sound like euphoria. Freund is apparently not yet involved in the current transfer phase. But his longing for stars from the Premier League, the (still) strongest league in the world, has so far been difficult to realise. For Kane, the record champion had stretched to the limit and even went “all-in”. A second deal in this category? Unthinkable.
But Tuchel thinks differently. He comes from clubs with almost unlimited possibilities, he’s now hitting economic limits. With Kane and defender Kim (50 million euros), the club has already made wild contortions on the market – even if it has made very good income for Sadio Mané (Al-Nassr) and Lucas Hernández (PSG). And these economic limits will continue to shift to the disadvantage of the record champions, the more the unrestrained clubs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Premier League throw astronomical sums at each other.
But Tuchel is also seething himself
The Munich team just experienced how much this coach can be a powder keg himself on Saturday evening. After the bitterly failed showdown with Leipzig, Tuchel mercilessly settled accounts with his footballers. He was stunned, uncomprehending, even at a loss. This public anger is said to have surprised the bosses in its intensity. Especially since he disconnects himself from the criticism. And he was able to do that comfortably last season. Anything that didn’t fit wasn’t credited to him. It was hardly even an issue that he couldn’t give the team any support, no clear game idea. He should only save the opened vase from bursting. “I almost can’t stand losing,” said Tuchel, explaining his verbal escalation after the bankruptcy in Leipzig. His team is still a mystery to him at times. “We haven’t found the one key to pick the lock yet, but we still have a few on the bunch of keys,” said the coach.
Now every development falls back directly on him and his coaching team. And so the work and actions of Tuchel are now being looked at closely. Six wins, five defeats and two draws after 13 competitive games are a coach’s balance sheet that doesn’t even begin to look like Bayern. With his public criticism, with his repeatedly expressed wishes, he builds ahead. Create explanations. Thomas Tuchel makes no effort to give the impression that he is satisfied with the current situation at Bayern.