FC Bayern is in the best financial position among the top European clubs. But the relationship between costs and performance is unlikely to be worse for any class team.
Claims and reality are currently far apart at FC Bayern: Coach Thomas Tuchel seems perplexed.
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For a coach whose days are numbered at one of the biggest football clubs in the world, Thomas Tuchel doesn’t cut a bad figure. Tuchel, who will leave the club early at the end of the season, answered all questions, although the tone has become more inquisitorial in recent weeks. It is not easy for the coach to explain what is happening to FC Bayern.
A 2:3 at newly promoted Heidenheim is the lowest point of an undesirable development that must be seen as the worst crisis of this century for the Bavarian club. An elimination against Arsenal FC in the quarter-finals of the Champions League would accentuate this.
16 points behind Leverkusen
It wouldn’t be a catastrophe if Bayern finished second in the Bundesliga, behind a brilliant challenger from Leverkusen who made life as difficult as possible for them. Only: The gap between the club that was once labeled as eternal second and the seemingly invincible ones from Munich is 16 points with six rounds to go. At the weekend, Leverkusen can make the championship perfect – and look at the rivals’ discussions calmly.
Thomas Tuchel freely admitted after the match in Heidenheim that he had no explanation for what was happening in his team. A sentence that makes him more vulnerable than he already is. Because he has been identified everywhere as the culprit. Lothar Matthäus and Dietmar Hamann, the notorious TV experts who do not have a particularly high reputation with Tuchel, see him above all as having a duty.
The relationship between coach and team is obviously damaged. In Tuchel’s case, only one mechanism is revealed that Bayern have perfected over decades: If things don’t work, it’s basically the coach’s fault. Then it’s mostly because of his style that doesn’t reach the team. It’s a convenient approach. For a long time, the club’s management was able to avoid criticism if things got out of hand again.
Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel is having trouble with his team.
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But in the past – considering the current situation – it was at best an irritation. And they were often lucky that the right man was there at the right moment. Jupp Heynckes stepped in every now and then and even won the Champions League. Hansi Flick, who got the job by chance, inspired the team after the departure of coach Niko Kovac, he led them to the Champions League victory in 2020. This triumph is likely to prove deceptive when it comes to recognizing the deficits: a club that was still at the top three and a half years ago, is probably less inclined to question things as fundamentally as is necessary.
Bayern never found peace with any coach
A lot has happened in Munich since then. Nobody can speak of calm waters; things are now stormy. After Flick, the successful coach, left the club in a dispute with then manager Hasan Salihamidzic, Bayern believed they had found the coach for the coming years in the highly talented Julian Nagelsmann.
The trust was expressed in a five-year contract, but after just over a year and a half it was over. Nagelsmann’s dismissal was followed only a short time later by a statement of no confidence at board level: Sports director Salihamidzic and CEO Oliver Kahn had to leave the club at the urging of seniors. Uli Hoeness, the long-time manager and president, and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, former chairman of the board, with whom Hoeness had formed a not always harmonious but congenial partnership, grabbed the hapless duo’s spokes.
After almost a season under the aegis of the new club boss Jan-Christian Dreesen, things are even worse. This cannot come as a surprise. Because in the Bavarian environment the idea of performance has gradually eroded. FC Bayern is indeed a remarkable biotope: there are few places in Europe where more money can be earned, and the Bavarians not only reward their top talent handsomely. However, a look at the team shows that there are many things missing: the goalkeeper monument Manuel Neuer is now 38 years old and is injured from time to time; Regardless of his still existing class, his missions cannot be planned.
Thomas Müller is a veteran with high standards, but at 34 years old he no longer lives up to them as often. The fact that Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka do not have the leadership qualities that their appearance often suggests contributes to the problem. Defense has been the Achilles heel for years; Tuchel hasn’t found the ideal mix either. And the undoubtedly accomplished wingers Leroy Sané and Serge Gnabry lack any punch that is necessary to win titles. Anyone who claims that things are decadent at Bayern is certainly not wrong. And anyone who thinks that the Bavarian squad meets high standards should remember that it’s not just about potential. No top club should have a worse cost-benefit ratio than Bayern.
The stakes were always high in Munich
The stakes were always high in Munich. Especially since high wages are not a problem per se. Bayern are not only debt-free – the club recently had a turnover of 854 million euros, with an annual profit of 35.7 million euros. Compared to the cross-subsidized competitors from England and Paris and traditional Spanish clubs, some of which are heavily indebted, such numbers seem like sheer magic.
Bayern undoubtedly have the scope to make a change. But the conversion is not something that can be done overnight. The new sports director Max Eberl, who previously worked in Mönchengladbach and at RB Leipzig, will be in charge. Eberl made an impression at the time when he left his place in Gladbach in tears and gave the impression that he no longer wanted anything to do with professional football. Eberl is considered a confidant of Uli Hoeness; he played for FC Bayern in his youth and made sensible transfers in both Gladbach and Leipzig.
But when you look at the extremely robust Munich environment, doubts can arise as to whether Eberl can deal with such a challenge in the long term. His appearance in the “Aktuelle Sportstudio” after the defeat in Heidenheim, in which the coaching question was also raised, sounded all too resolute: “I’m not really interested in the coaching search right now. Now it’s just about the game on Tuesday. “It’s going to be complicated enough.”
So Max Eberl doesn’t want to talk about the new coach – but he’s only part of the problem. But the debate is even more heated. All sorts of names are circulating, Roberto de Zerbi from Premier League club Brighton & Hove Albion is considered a possible candidate. Xabi Alonso, the fabulous Basque, is out of the running after deciding to continue his career at Leverkusen for at least another year. How great the need, but perhaps also the lack of imagination, is shown by the fact that the name of Julian Nagelsmann, who was fired a year ago and is currently in charge of the German national team, is mentioned.
To say that the situation is challenging for Bayern would be an understatement. They are where they haven’t been for over three decades: in a crisis that is about much more than just a championship.