FC Bayern still intercepts BVB and is crowned last-minute champion – the eleventh title in a row. Is everything okay in Munich? The opposite is the case. Because of the staff quake in the management floor, the chaos continues.
FC Bayern’s unbelievable championship acted like putty on the shards of the season. But the putty only worked for seconds.
The footballers, who had been relieved of all their burdens, were hardly about to shout and cheer their trembling happiness at the smallest conceivable happy ending of this season, which had been messed up on all levels, when the next hammer had already broken down on this reeling club, which currently hardly knows as happens to him.
On this absurdly wild Saturday afternoon it titanized and brazzot itself out. Boss Oliver Kahn is history, as is sports director Hasan Salihamidžić. Christian Dreesen takes over.
In an early supervisory board meeting on Friday, actually it should not have taken place until Tuesday next week, the official knockout. decided for the management duo that has 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, like a guillotine in the celebration of the strangest title in recent decades. Bayern didn’t secure the eleventh bowl in a row with a lot of strength, but faltered 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 turning point at Bayern
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. The club was surprised and embarrassed by this personality via Twitter. 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 from the pandemic to now, the fatal mistakes in squad planning. 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 massive cut in the record champions for a long time. Maybe never in this form.
The comparison with the 2011/12 season was drawn again and again. BVB was on top, FC Bayern not. Sports director Christian Nerlinger flew afterwards, Matthias Sammer came.
A new era was founded, which, at least in the Bundesliga, is still alive with this title. But there was always one powerful constant. Usually two: Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge.
And the patriarch from Tegernsee can certainly understand his role on the supervisory board 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 (whose greatest advocate he was) 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. For Hoeneß, this fatal development must have been an unbearable pain.
FC Bayern: Serious allegations by Oliver Kahn
Now everything has to find itself again. The trainer, who at least does not leave the season completely weakened as a champion, and the bosses, who have to make financially sound decisions for a new structure for the team.
But who are the bosses? In addition to Dreesen, who is a man of numbers, there will also be a man for the sport, for the emotions must come. The search is ongoing, but the search for suitable players should have been a priority for a long time. 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 fought in the semi-finals of the Champions League seemed like a different game, a damn expensive one.
Mistakes on and off the field have long been 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 explosive internal information leaks to the public and ensuring peace and quiet, getting sovereignty over pictures and reports. There was no lack of that again on this Saturday afternoon. 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. Flash kick out on the lawn?
Kahn’s tweet, which accused the club of forbidding him to travel to Cologne, raises even more questions. Garnished with the call to not only celebrate the championship together next year. Strange greetings provoking a communication debacle.
And 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 – and begins to tear himself apart.
Tobias Nordman