FC Bayern licks its wounds after the 1: 3 against RB Leipzig – and has no explanations at hand as to how a league leader can fall apart in the final spurt of the season. The Munich team still doesn’t want to tick off the German championship.
It is sometimes said that stadium disc jockeys have a rather idiosyncratic sense of humor and taste in music. “The Scientist” by British pop rockers Coldplay resounded through Munich’s Allianz Arena on Saturday evening. A song about longing, but also about powerlessness and helplessness.
A few minutes earlier, FC Bayern had lost 3-1 to RB Leipzig, possibly missing crucial points in the fight for the German soccer championship. The Bavarians had previously stumbled helplessly across the pitch for long stretches, and the longing for the eleventh title in a row will probably remain unfulfilled.
“Nobody said it would be easy. Nobody ever said it would be this hard,” says Coldplay. But that hard? Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel took the defeat to the outside with a cultivated gallows humor, with an occasional cynical laugh he trudged to the obligatory interviews after the game.
Thomas Tuchel: “Too little in everything”
“I wouldn’t call it stupid,” said Tuchel in an initial analysis of the game in the mixed zone. The first 30 minutes were “ok”, “good enough to deserve a 1-0 lead.” But after that? “Incredibly flawed – no pressure, no need, too little exercise, not enough responsibility, not enough courage, not enough precision.” Tuchel could have extended the list indefinitely: “It was not enough in all things.”
“Deficits Out of Nothing”
He seemed at a loss, as he had so often in the past few weeks after his team’s moody performances. He criticized “deficits” that “creep in from absolutely nothing”: “To let a second half run completely through your hands and to play football with such a high error rate – that’s hard.” Analyzing the “why” shouldn’t be easy for Tuchel.
Thomas Müller: “ripped off looks different”
Captain Thomas Müller also seemed at a loss after the sometimes hair-raising mistakes. “Maybe we overdid at the beginning, maybe we overexerted ourselves.” He didn’t have an explanation ready on the ARD microphone. “The positional play with the ball low at the back didn’t work,” he added – meaning the time after the first 30 minutes, which was still reasonable.
But otherwise? “Ripped off looks different,” he said, looking at the 1-1. Bayern had caught a counterattack from their own corner, which Leipzig played to the end in an exemplary manner with a four-on-one majority.
Thomas Müller, the championship and the “final point”
After all: Müller does not want to tick off the championship yet. “Now back to the final point: It doesn’t matter how this game ended today. The starting position is crystal clear. But we still have one game to play – and if we win that, Dortmund will have the pressure,” said the Bayern captain: “Dortmund have to win twice. We wanted to keep it in our own hands, that didn’t happen. But the only thing we can do now – and we will do it – is win in Cologne.”
FC Bayern before the new beginning?
It’s not “over” yet, said FC Bayern CEO Oliver Kahn after the 3-1 defeat. But maybe those responsible should start looking at a season without a title. “I’m going back to the beginning,” says the end of Coldplay’s “Scientist.” Not a bad approach, a fresh start after a messed-up season might be easier for Bayern than working through the current weaknesses.
