The Bavarians sensationally decided to change manager during the March international break – but that bold gamble has not paid off
Less than a month after suddenly replacing Julien Nagelsmann as Bayern Munich boss, Thomas Tuchel was fielding questions about a club in crisis. "I can absolutely understand that three years without a semi-final in the DFB-Pokal is not enough," he told reporters on April 21. "But the quarter-finals of the Champions League three years in a row is not a crisis.
"We don't have to question everything. There's always a sense of being realistic. Many big clubs didn't even make it to the quarter-finals. Although we remain ambitious and we always want more, we're still first in the Bundesliga. I wouldn't say we're in a crisis."
They definitely are now, though. On Saturday, Borussia Dortmund will end Bayern Munich's run of 10 consecutive German titles if they beat Mainz at home. It would be a stunning achievement by BVB, but an utter embarrassment for Bayern, who are operating on a whole other financial plane to everyone else in the league.
Heads would almost certainly roll at the Allianz Arena, with sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic and CEO Oliver Kahn already under intense pressure over what is now looking like one of the most catastrophic calls in German football history.
Getty Images'Are you kidding me?!'
Bayern's decision to sack Nagelsmann came as a massive shock, not least to the man himself. The 35-year-old was on a skiing holiday when his agent, Volker Struth, broke the news to him. Nagelsmann replied, "Are you kidding me?!"
The manager's shock was understandable. Bayern had gone into the March international break on the back of a desperately disappointing 2-1 loss at Bayer Leverkusen that had allowed Dortmund to move one point clear of them at the top of the Bundesliga table. Salihamidzic had publicly berated the players for playing with "so little drive, so little mentality, so little fight and so little assertiveness" but there was no inclination that a change of manager was on the cards.
Not with a monumental meeting with Manchester City on the horizon. There was concern at board level over Nagelsmann's apparent struggles to motivate his players for domestic fixtures, but his record in the Champions League, Bayern's primary target, was literally flawless. The Bavarians had won all eight of their fixtures on their way to the quarters, outclassing Barcelona, Inter and Paris Saint-Germain along the way.
As Struth told the Phrasenmaher podcast, "I would have bet my fortune after that Leverkusen game that nothing would happen at all. I would have thought that they would still wait for the games against Manchester City."
Instead, Bayern dropped a bomb on the football world on March 23.
AdvertisementGetty Images'I thought it was a joke'
Kahn's argument was that Nagelsmann just wasn't getting the most out of the stellar squad at his disposal. "After the World Cup we played less and less successfully and attractively," the former goalkeeper said in a statement. "The strong fluctuations in performance called our goals into question this season, but also beyond this season."
There were rumours that Nagelsmann had lost the support of several influential players, including Manuel Neuer. However, Bayern legend Lothar Matthaus felt there was more to it; that it wasn't just a classic case of player power pushing a manager out the door as Nagelsmann hadn't completely lost the dressing room.
"I thought [the news] was a joke at first but it wasn't April 1st," the World Cup winner told GOAL. "It's the club's decision after all. The players aren't all with the coach usually in the dressing room, but a lot were happy with him and talked positively about him when he left – [Leon] Goretzka and [Joshua] Kimmich, for example.
"Something happened that we don't know about. The fans were happy with him, too, so we don't know what happened that made Bayern take this decision. I personally don't."
Getty Images'Bayern were nervous'
However, as even Matthaus conceded, the availability of – and widespread interest in – Tuchel played a pivotal role in Bayern's thinking. The former Dortmund boss had been a long-time target, but the timing had never been right. It still wasn't in March.
But in their desperation to belatedly land their man, Bayern were willing to offload a coach that they had paid €25 million (£21.7m/$26.8m) to prise away from RB Leipzig in 2021. Why? Because Tuchel was a free agent and considered by a number of top clubs, including PSG, Real Madrid and Juventus. Tottenham were also looking for someone to take over on a full-time basis from Antonio Conte – and still are.
So, "Bayern were nervous" as Matthaus put it. "Tuchel was free and Bayen didn't believe 100 percent in Nagelsmann. They couldn't [sack him] if he'd won three titles, as you couldn't explain it then. So, they decided to change him now, after just one."
It was a massive gamble, though, the kind of risk more associated with the days of FC Hollywood than the current incarnation of Bayern Munich, which is, on the surface at least, all about prudence and sensibility. And it's yet to pay off. An in-season change is never ideal, but Kahn felt compelled to act. He felt that inaction might result in Bayern losing their league crown. However, the switch hasn't improved Bayern; on the contrary, it's made them worse.
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Getty'We look drained'
Despite losing 3-0 at the Etihad in his fourth game in charge, Tuchel claimed that he was quite taken with the way in which his players had performed for 70 minutes in Manchester. "Of course, the result is bitter for us," he told . "But I fell in love with my team a little today."
It's fair to say he is no longer quite as besotted. Love has quickly given away to frustration, as underlined by a visibly enraged Tuchel snapping a slalom pole in two during a training session at the tail end of April.
By that stage, Bayern's season was unravelling. Tuchel had lifted the spirits at the Allianz Arena by beating former club Dortmund to put the team back on top of the table. However, the Bavarians only won one of their next six games in all competitions, which saw them knocked out of both the Champions League and the DFB-Pokal, and slip to second in the Bundesliga.
As well as blaming both the pitch and the referee for Bayern's worryingly meek European exit against Man City in Munich, Tuchel also questioned his players' fitness after a demoralising defeat at Mainz. "We look drained," he said. "We look like a team that has already played 80 games this season. We are not able to play flawless football, so the games and the points are running through our hands like sand."