The attacker of the German record champions has not been able to build on his strong performances from the first half of the season for weeks. Thomas Tuchel explains why – and reveals details
Leroy Sané’s current form crisis at FC Bayern is also a concern for Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel. The 50-year-old spoke about the attacker’s situation at the press conference before the game at SC Freiburg on Thursday – and made it clear: Sané has been playing with injuries for weeks. “Leroy is, it has to be said very clearly, really someone who can tolerate pain incredibly well. I just believe – and this is just my personal assumption, even if Leroy doesn’t confirm it 100 percent – that he feels something in his head last few weeks that he bit his teeth a little too hard in his good will and total doggedness.”
This should also be noted in his game: “I feel that he is not free, I can see in the pictures when we analyze the first half of the season again how freely he can move, how obvious his acceleration was, how free his stopping movements were. That We haven’t seen each other for a while now.” In fact, Sané scored all of his nine goals this season across all competitions before the winter break, and the 28-year-old also recorded nine of his twelve assists before the turn of the year.
“He’s definitely not sniveling”
Tuchel revealed further details: “The first time we noticed it was actually in the final training session before Bochum, when he was in so much pain that he almost couldn’t do anything.” In the 2-3 defeat, the national player was only substituted on in the 70th minute and was unable to prevent the surprising defeat.
“I think it’s just because he has a lot of aches and pains and to a certain extent he’s paying a toll for the overload. And when Leroy now says by himself that he has to go out, then you know that it really hurts because he “He tolerates it very well otherwise. He’s definitely not sniveling.”
It is not yet certain whether and for how long Sané will be able to play against Freiburg on Friday: “We need to find the best solution for tomorrow,” Tuchel continued. “If he can, we’ll take him into the final training session. We’ll see if he can help us off the bench tomorrow.” It could also be that, despite being rested against Freiburg, Sané will still not be able to play in the Champions League second leg against Lazio next week, “because of the many different ailments.”