DDespite everything, the boss was in a good mood and caused laughter with self-mockery. “Finally there is a good coach,” said Thomas Tuchel, 49, with a wink at the FC Bayern press conference on Säbener Strasse on Friday afternoon.
Background: In the morning, Anthony Barry, 36, was at the training ground of the German record champions for the first time. Tuchel had already worked with him at his previous club FC Chelsea and now wanted to bring him to Munich as his assistant coach. After a long poker game, the clubs agreed that Bayern would apparently pay around 1.1 million euros to the top English club for the Briton.
The first joint task for Tuchel and Barry is challenging: This Saturday (3.30 p.m., in the sports ticker of the WELT) her team plays at 1. FSV Mainz 05 in the Bundesliga. It is the first game after Bayern Munich’s elimination in the quarter-finals of the Champions League against Manchester City last Wednesday. And for Tuchel the first meeting as a Bayern coach with his former club. He took over the Mainz professional team in the summer of 2009 after just one year as U19 coach and trained for five years. He started his great career at FSV, which has led him to FC Bayern via Borussia Dortmund, Paris St. Germain and Chelsea.
The pressure on Tuchel at FC Bayern is enormous
The bottom of the table from Mainz has not been defeated for nine games in the league and is in third place in the second half of the table. As the leaders of the table after 28 games, Munich are only two points ahead of second-placed Dortmund. After the end of the DFB Cup and the premier class, the championship is now mandatory. Otherwise, Tuchel would be the first Bayern coach since 2012 to end a season without a title. The pressure on the last scolded team and their coach is enormous.
“We have to face the next fight on Saturday, that’s another willpower,” said Tuchel. “It’s definitely a character test. It’s going to be a brutally difficult task. We will support the team so that they show the hunger and greed that is necessary to achieve all goals at FC Bayern. We fight for the title. We don’t have to be ashamed of the championship title.”
During the week there was again a lot of unrest in the club. After the end of the Champions League, it became public that the supervisory board had spoken about a possible dismissal of CEO Oliver Kahn, 53. The Norwegian television expert and former Bundesliga player Jan Aage Fjörtoft wrote on Twitter that Kahn’s replacement was “a matter of time”.
Club President Herbert Hainer, 68, only publicly denied it with a short sentence. The powerful supervisory board and honorary president Uli Hoeneß, 71, did not want to comment on WELT AM SONNTAG’s request. Kahn himself said the BILD: “I’m not wasting a second worrying about my contract at the moment, it’s always about Bayern Munich.”
The former national goalkeeper had already emphasized on Wednesday after the 1-1 draw in the second leg against Manchester: “Now we’re trying to become German champions. And then we will surely go inside. Then we will ask ourselves many, many questions.” Kahn continues: “We are totally convinced that with Thomas Tuchel we will sooner or later be back where we all want to be, namely right at the top – also in Europe.”
Magic Munich transfer limit could fall
Club chairman Hainer admitted after leaving: The team is missing a striker. And promised that the club would invest a lot of money in new players after the season. The magic 100 million euro limit for a transfer could fall at FC Bayern for the first time this year. Traded candidates include Tottenham Hotspur star Harry Kane, 29, Victor Osimhen, 24, from SSC Naples and Eintracht Frankfurt’s Randal Kolo Muani, 24. Until then, Tuchel will have to do without a “real nine” in world-class format.
The head coach said on Friday afternoon about the unrest in the club and possible effects on his work with the team: “I feel a calm, focused atmosphere, positive energy and probably the famous calm in the center of the storm.”
Christian Heidel, 59, remains convinced of Bayern Munich’s Tuchel project, despite the disappointing start in terms of results. “I have no doubt that Thomas will be a very successful Bayern coach,” said the sports director of Mainz on Sky. “The biggest challenge will be the next few years. He has now taken over a team that he hardly coached, that he didn’t put together,” Heidel said. “Nevertheless, I assume that he will be successful with this team. It doesn’t necessarily have to be on Saturday. ”Tuchel is also not as complicated as it is repeatedly portrayed. “I experienced him as a trainer for several years, which were completely stress-free,” said Heidel. “You have to take him with you, also when it comes to decisions, especially about the squad.”
Tuchel even inspired the Mainz coach Bo Svensson, 43, to become a coach at all. “I was under Thomas Player for five years, it was a very formative time and that’s why I went the coaching route,” said Svensson. “As a coach, he was so different from anything else I’ve experienced that I suddenly saw the drive to do it myself. His ambition and his ambitions are extremely high.” Tuchel also gave him things to take with him “that made me think, that were absolutely important for me to find my identity”.
Svensson has a positive league record against Munich: As a professional and coach, he has five wins, two draws and four defeats. With all solidarity and mutual respect: Tuchel and his Bavarians want and must do everything to ensure that Svensson’s balance sheet deteriorates this Saturday.