Title, mourning, serious allegations
FC Bayern does not know what is happening to him
By Tobias Nordman
May 27, 2023 at 9:28 p.m
In a heart-stopping final, FC Bayern actually secured the championship. Because Borussia Dortmund first panics and then despairs. Because the people of Munich find their old punch again at the prime time of the season. Everything’s ok? The opposite is the case.
FC Bayern’s unbelievable championship acted like putty on the shards of the season. But the putty only worked for seconds. The footballers, who seemed to be freed from all burdens, were hardly about to scream out their trembling happiness about the smallest conceivable happy ending of this season, which had been messed up on all levels, when the next hammer had broken down on this club, which currently hardly knows what happened to it . On this absurdly wild Saturday afternoon it titanized and brazzot itself out. Club boss Oliver Kahn is history, as is sports director Hasan Salihamidžić. Christian Dreesen takes over.
In an early supervisory board meeting on Friday, the official knockout. decided for the management duo, who had been criticized for months, actually from the beginning. It was not made public, the club said, in order to focus on the last task, on the last possible title. It worked. Everything else is not. The news burst onto the world via the “Bild” and “Kicker” channels while celebrating the strangest title in recent decades. The Bavarians didn’t secure the cup with a lot of strength, but staggered, in an entertaining stumbling duel with BVB. In the end, the coach stood in front of the microphones and had to explain what he couldn’t explain. Even Thomas Tuchel was not unaffected by the fact that the two who convinced him to come to Bayern in the middle of the season are suddenly no longer there.
A caesura?
With the Munich team, they were once again trying to somehow capture the things that had galloped away far too often this season. For example, the billing of the physically and mentally seriously injured goalkeeper Manuel Neuer via the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, who was even more affected by the dismissal of his buddy and goalkeeper coach Toni Talapovic than the consequences of his skiing accident. Or the incredible leak about the dismissal of coach Julian Nagelsmann and the simultaneous takeover of Thomas Tuchel. These are just the wildest excesses of numerous episodes that never let this club rest. Also because the bosses who have now been deprived of their power never had sovereignty.
There are many good reasons for her departure. The bad crisis management, the fatal mistakes when putting together the squad. Top players that didn’t work, positions that weren’t filled, and a destroyed hierarchy that could never heal. The club is shaking, the bosses have to go. There hasn’t been such a cut in the record champions for a long time. Maybe never. The comparison with the 2011/12 season was drawn again and again. BVB was on top, FC Bayern not. Sports director Christian Nerlinger flew, Matthias Sammer came. But there was always one powerful constant. Usually even two: Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.
And the patriarch from Tegernsee can certainly be understood as one of the driving forces behind the exit of the two ex-players at the top of the club. Hoeneß had given his FC Bayern, his family, his sanctuary into the hands of Kahn and Salihamidžić and had to watch how the colossus, which was once bursting with strength and pride, had become a working giant. Not broken yet, but always looking for support.
An angry titan
Now everything has to find itself again. The coach, who at least doesn’t leave the season completely weakened, and the bosses, who have to make financially sound decisions for a new structure for the team. A squad that has been weakening for years may still be enough for the championship, but not for reaching for the European crown. Because what Real Madrid and Manchester City played in the semi-finals of the Champions League seemed like a different game, a damn expensive one. Mistakes on and off the field are punished more mercilessly than before. With bad results and sunk millions. The wire on which to balance is getting narrower and narrower. The dance on him more and more dangerous.
But what is even more important for FC Bayern: plugging the holes from which internal information leaks out to the public and ensuring peace and quiet, getting sovereignty over pictures and reports. There was no lack of that again this Saturday. Not just because of the media dismissal. The scenes of Salihamidžić, who first celebrates in ecstasy and then appears stunned after a conversation with President Herbert Hainer, raise questions. Even more the tweet from Kahn, who accused the club of forbidding him to travel to Cologne. Garnished with the call to not only celebrate the championship together next year. Another slap on the already crimson cheek of the record champion, who even in the intoxication of bliss no longer knows what is happening to him.