Bayern, Dortmund and the title: there hasn’t been more excitement for a long time

Thomas Tuchel came out to win three titles with FC Bayern. Now he still has the championship. About troubled Bayern and a pursuer who sometimes slips up.

At the end of a long day after Bayern beat in the Champions League quarter-finals Manchester City was eliminated, the coach Thomas Tuchel sat at the press conference on Wednesday (April 19, 2023) and was asked to sum up his first few weeks at the club. The questioner mentioned the end of the DFB Cup and in the “premier class”, he said that factors such as bad luck could not explain it.

It was a question, as coaches tend not to like them that much. Tuchel didn’t like her at all. “I don’t know if I like your judgmental tone”, said Tuchel. And that he will try to “to ignore”. He then spoke about the performances against Manchester that he “was very satisfied”. He spoke up about games “Eye Level”from the fact that Bayern could have kept up with perhaps the best team in Europe.

Tuchel has been the coach of FC Bayern since the end of March, he started to save the season. To become champions, to win the DFB Cup and also the Champions League. The plan didn’t work out. Bayern have only won two of the first six games under him, now they still have the championship.

Tuchel says: No master shame

Less than two days after being eliminated from the Champions League, Tuchel was back at a press conference, actually she was supposed to inform about the thoughts of the coach before the Bundesliga game against 1. FSV Mainz 05 (Saturday from 3.20 p.m. in the audio stream on sportschau.de). Sometimes it was about Tuchel and his former club Mainz, but of course it was also about the overall situation in Munich. “We’re fighting for the title”said Tuchel and only meant the one in the Bundesliga. “We don’t have to be ashamed of the championship title.”

Nobody really has to be ashamed of a championship, but winning the championship alone has rarely made anyone happy at FC Bayern. And anyway: Bayern aren’t champions yet, there’s still Borussia Dortmund. Bayern have 59 points after 28 match days – fewer than in any other of their ten most recent championship seasons. Only two points separate leaders Bayern from pursuers BVB.

When the two teams met just a week after Tuchel took office and Bayern won 4-2, some thought that was a preliminary decision in the championship race. The team then narrowly won against Freiburg and only drew against Hoffenheim, and there was little sign of a new Munich glory. BVB almost closed the gap on points last weekend, they just lacked seconds and attention on the defensive.

So FC Bayern is the leader of the table, but these days it is also a club in crisis, and in addition to the sporting one, there is one at management level. Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidžić, the club’s bosses, have seen better days. Her work is now also being questioned, it’s about missing sporting goals, but also about squad composition and transfer strategy.

At the beginning of the year, BVB was nine points behind Bayern

In Dortmund they don’t have such problems. The squad is certainly not perfectly balanced, but those responsible are not criticized for that. With a few exceptions, they’re happy with the development of the team there, so it’s no surprise. When the Bundesliga went on a long break because of the World Cup in Qatar, Dortmund was nine points behind Bayern, and there wasn’t much to indicate excitement in the title race.

Then BVB won eight league games in a row, while at the same time Bayern no longer played like Bayern. Their games ended in a draw three times, they lost once – and suddenly Dortmund’s chances of winning their first championship since 2012 were greater than they had been for a long time.

In recent months, coach Edin Terzic has managed to turn a talented but sometimes unstable team into one that often wins tight games. But that didn’t work against Stuttgart. It was the seventh minute of injury time when Silas scored the 3-3 equaliser.

Not only the coach Terzic looked somewhat horrified afterwards. “This is the space where I want to protect my team and us as a group. But it’s hard for me because it’s just so unnecessary, so stupid.”he said. “When you see what we have invested since July 1st – and then we just give it away.”

Terzic says: “Closer than ever to the championship trophy”

Only a few days have passed since then, but recently Terzic has sounded different again. Before the game against Eintracht Frankfurt (Saturday, from 6:20 p.m. in the audio stream at sportschau.de), he said: “We’re as close as we’ve ever been to the championship trophy. And we don’t want to let this chance slip away.”