In Wednesday’s match against Manchester City, Bayern tied the score at 1:1 with a penalty, but that was the only way to avoid defeat. In total, the fight ended 4:1 for the English team.
While since the final participation in 2012 and the triumph a year later, in the following five years, except for one case, they reached at least the semi-finals every time, since the spring of 2019, Bayern has been unsuccessful in the Champions League four times.
The only exception was the victory in covid 2020, when from the quarter-finals one match was played on a neutral ground.
The anger of the fans goes back to the recent dismissal of coach Julian Nagelsmann, who was replaced by Thomas Tuchel during the international break in the second half of March.
Bayern’s management, represented by CEO and former goalkeeper Oliver Kahn and sports manager Hasan Salihamidzic, justified the change by saying that “the club’s sporting goals are at risk.”
“We saw that our goals are at risk not only for this season, but also for the next one. We came to the conclusion that we should make a change,” Kahn said.
Indeed, Bayern dropped to second place in the Bundesliga, but had an impressive Champions League round of 16 against Paris St Germain and was in contention for the German Cup.
After the arrival of Tuchel, although Bayern returned to the first place in the league table, they have already finished in other competitions.
Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel gets angry during the match against Manchester City.
He lost the home cup quarter-final with Freiburg 1-2, and Manchester City in the Champions League was also beyond his strength. Under the new coach, the team won only two out of six games.
“The goals may not be met, but the values of the club must not be missing. The policy of the club management is questionable,” the banner read.
Fans suggest that the famous “Mia san mia” that characterizes the values, cohesion and mutual relations of the fans with the club has been lost. They don’t like the timing of the coach change and also the way it happened.
Nagelsmann learned about his dismissal from the media, which brought the unconfirmed information already late in the evening of March 23. The management got in touch with the coach only afterwards. Nagelsmann was in the mountains at the time.
Kahn explained this by saying that he was in contact with him, but did not want to inform him about the change by phone and that Nagelsmann could not arrive in Munich until the next day.
Anyway, Bayern have only one competition left. They lead the Bundesliga by two points ahead of Dortmund with six rounds remaining. Bayern plays three times at home and three times away, its rival has four games at home and two away.
A scuffle between Bayern’s Leon Goretzka (8) and Manchester City’s Erling Haaland.
“There is an internal unrest at Bayern. The original Mia san mia is fading without Uli Hoeness and Karl-Heinz Rummennigge against the backdrop of frequent coach changes and dwindling heartthrobs in the squad. And that is primarily the responsibility of Kahn and Salihamidžič. The question is how long Uli Hoeness, who has influence and oversees everything from the supervisory board, will remain calm,” writes the renowned magazine Kicker.
Major changes to the squad are expected to take place in the summer.
“We’re still getting to know each other,” coach Tuchel said on DAZN after the Champions League exit.
“I still think our squad is good. But of course there are players that the coach and I are working on,” Kahn said.
Kahn and Salihamidžič are criticized for not finding an adequate replacement for the striker after the departure of Robert Lewandowski. In the position of striker number one is the original substitute Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, who is already thirty-four years old.
“We tried everything possible to complete the team in this position. We even tried to bring in a player that we saw in the opposing team today,” Kahn alluded to the interest in Erling Haaland, who went from Dortmund to Manchester City last summer.
“Our eyes are always open and we deal with the staff every day. But you can’t easily find replacements for someone like Robert Lewandowski in Europe. And if someone is like that, then extremely expensive,” Kahn stated.