Change of assistant coach Barry fixed
Thomas Tuchel tries to free himself from the heated debates about the club’s management and especially CEO Oliver Kahn after the Champions League end at FC Bayern. At the same time, before his return to Mainz this Saturday, the 49-year-old coach tried not to let the possible win of the next championship title in a close race with Borussia Dortmund appear as a kind of consolation prize. “We’re fighting for the title. We don’t have to be ashamed of the championship title,” said Tuchel before the Bundesliga game on Saturday (3.30 p.m.), where his old and new assistant coach Anthony Barry will also be on the bench.
“I feel a calm, focused atmosphere here, positive energy and I probably feel the famous calm in the center of the storm,” said Tuchel. In his opinion, the topics outside of it overshoot the mark. “My collaboration with Brazzo and with Olli is calm, goal-oriented, solution-oriented and in a positive mood,” he said of Kahn and sports director Hasan Salihamidzic. And further: “You have shaped this club as a player. They have the will to win in them.” A departure in the Champions League quarter-finals against Manchester City is “not a crisis” for him.
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Even so, Tuchel declared the away game at Mainz 05 as a “test of character” for his team right after the insufficient 1-1 draw against Man City. He expects “a brutally difficult task” at his former club and in the coaching duel with his former player Bo Svensson. Mainz have been unbeaten in nine games and are surfing the same wave with Svensson. Bayern are missing the in-form defender Benjamin Pavard (27) due to a yellow card suspension.
Tuchel praises Müller as a “role model” after an “extremely tough decision”
In the meantime, Thomas Müller (33) will most likely call upon Tuchel as captain again from the start. The coach assured once again that Müller’s reserve role in the two Champions League games was not a forward-looking decision, but was due to the special game situation against England’s champions.
“I was extremely impressed with how Thomas took the decision. He received an extremely tough decision against himself,” said Tuchel. He himself is “a big Thomas Müller fan”. Like any player, the offensive all-rounder will never be happy when he has to go to the bench. “But that’s my job. But it’s all good. Thomas deserves and gets my maximum respect.”
Müller has “an indefinability in world-class form. Nevertheless, I was of the opinion that the characteristics of the Manchester games are not his games, that they do not suit him one hundred percent”. Otherwise he probably would have played from the start.
In all four other Bayern games under Tuchel, Müller was in the starting XI. “I was really happy about his reaction on the training ground. The handling was not only professional, but exemplary. He sent the best signal of all,” said Tuchel. “I have to make my decisions, sometimes they are tough and sometimes they make someone like Thomas. There is no personal note in it. Everyone has to accept it in a squad with a competitive situation.”
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FC Bayern: Thomas Tuchel gets the assistant Anthony Barry
The new assistant coach Anthony Barry will also be there against Mainz. After reports on Thursday evening about the former Chelsea assistant’s upcoming move to Munich, Tuchel confirmed the transfer on Friday: “We fought hard and waited a long time. We really wanted to have him with us. The whole package: personality, love of the game and the job, quality in the smallest exercises. The quality of standard situations, including the presentation. That was on a completely new level for me.” The club’s official confirmation followed in the afternoon. Barry was also released from the Blues following his split from head coach Graham Potter.
Anthony Barry becomes the new assistant coach #FC Bayern.
About the message: https://t.co/J4cn7M8foP
— FC Bayern Munich (@FCBayern) April 21, 2023
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