There Thomas Tuchel stood like the famous drowned poodle in the rain of Manchester and had to answer questions. His team had just lost 3-0 to Manchester City, and it is very likely that they will be out of the Champions League. Only the greatest optimists and CEO Oliver Kahn (“I’ve experienced incredible things in football”) still believe in the very small chance of being able to avert failure in the second leg of the quarter-finals.
Tuchel had just rushed back out of the dressing room onto the lawn of the stadium, where the group of Amazon experts around moderator Sebastian Hellmann greeted him in a friendly manner and with a lot of therapeutic compassion. Neither Hellmann nor the experts Josefine Henning, Mario Gomez and Matthias Sammer wanted to blame the coach who was installed almost three weeks ago. How are you supposed to get rid of the shortcomings and mistakes that have crept in over the past year and a half from a team in such a short time?
The visibly battered Tuchel gladly accepted the understanding shown to him and even let himself be carried away to a declaration of love to his team. “I refuse because somehow I’m badmouthing the performance. I saw a very, very good performance up to the 70th minute. I’m very satisfied,” said Tuchel. “There was absolutely more in it, we deserved much more.” He was even “in love with” his team. It was fun coaching her, he remarked.
They were warm and emotional words, intended to ease some of the pain at the shock of the loss across the club. The team nearly fell apart after defender Dayot Upamecano’s disastrous blunder, which made City 2-0 in the 70th minute. Bernardo Silva’s header, initiated by Jack Grealish and prepared by Erling Haaland with a cross, was the decisive hit from which Bayern never recovered. They still conceded the 0: 3 by Haaland, but Bayern had long since stopped playing decent football. They were lucky that the defeat didn’t end in a total catastrophe with 0:4 or 0:5.
Nevertheless, Tuchel was right with his analysis. On the one hand. Bayern were the better team over 70 minutes. Especially after the restart, they pushed City deep into their own half. At that point, they gave the impression that it was a matter of time before they equalised. The 0:1 was due to a shot by Rodris in the corner (sometimes such a goal cannot be prevented). The performance until the break later invited to speculate about a different outcome of the game.
On the other hand, each would if and but usually only aggravates the disappointment of defeat. Because the whole truth is: Despite his declaration of love for the team Tuchel knows, of course, that he will be carrying a huge mortgage around with him from now on. He must now prove in the future that he is the right man for Bayern. The mortgage is additionally burdened by the fact that the Bayern bosses Hasan Salihamidzic (sports director) and Oliver Kahn (chairman) have mercilessly gambled away with the coach swap from Nagelsmann to Tuchel with regard to the current season. Your plan to save the season despite the obvious mistakes under Nagelsmann has failed if a miracle doesn’t happen in the second leg. The entire structure of FC Bayern is a little shattered at the moment.
Salihamidzic and Kahn were counting on Tuchel to remedy the team’s weaknesses within a very short time, which all came to light in the game against Manchester City as if under a magnifying glass. And for which they are partly responsible. Starting the season with only Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting as a true center forward has proven to be a misjudgment. The fact that the native of Hamburg failed against Manchester City and Gnabry played as a nine didn’t work. Gnabry hardly spread any danger of scoring, Sadio Mané, who was committed as a top player, is also not a real center forward.
In addition, there are the final weaknesses and the blunders on the defensive, which have been a common thread through the Bayern game for a long time. The fact that Nagelsmann’s team played so impressively and defensively in the games against Paris Saint-Germain shows their potential. She can’t recall it permanently. That proved the defeat in the cup against SC Freiburg (weak finish!). The list of shortcomings is long. This is the legacy of the Nagelsmann era.
Bayern destroyed their own dominance by failing to take advantage of chances and making individual mistakes. The fact that they showed little resistance after the 0:2 also makes it clear how insecure the team is and that it keeps falling back into fatal patterns. Tuchel rightly noted that some players simply lack the “form”.
Tuchel is now in the situation that he, as the person responsible, has to bring a messed-up season to an end, for which he can do very little. The probability of moving into the semi-finals in the Champions League is extremely low, even if Tuchel exuded optimism for the second leg (“Nothing will be given away”). The possibility of winning the eleventh championship title in a row will not console Bayern either. It would only be damage limitation given one’s own claims.
