2024-05-01 13:18:43
FC Bayern got off to a strong start in the first leg of the Champions League semi-final. But he has to be content with a 2-2 draw at home against Real Madrid.
Bayern defender Kim Min-jae fouls Rodrygo, which allows Real Madrid to make it 2-2 with a penalty.
Sometimes the really big football games, which are charged with historical references and current dynamics, can best be explained with very trivial events. After FC Bayern’s entertaining 2-2 draw against Real Madrid in the semi-finals of the Champions League, there was, on the one hand, the not entirely surprising realization that coach Thomas Tuchel’s team can keep up well and score goals in their best moments against the Spanish giants. But that wasn’t enough to win because defender Kim Min-jae allowed the efficiency artists from Madrid to score two goals with two errors.
Kim was “too greedy,” said Tuchel, “something like that happens.” Otherwise, what the audience saw was pretty much what was expected from Real: “They did to us what they do to everyone: two goals from two chances to score.” Everything is to be expected and not surprising.
There has long been a competition of ideas – Ancelotti sees potential for improvement
This is what Real Madrid is like today: the players slow down, bravely enduring phases of opposition pressure, in which they defend with an impressive ability to endure, before suddenly striking. It is more of a very specific character that shapes Real Madrid’s game than a complex game idea.
The strong Munich midfielder Konrad Laimer spoke of an “up and down”; Real initially led thanks to a goal from Vinicius Junior, after Bayern had actually been superior. Kim had let himself be lured out of the defensive line in the hope of winning the ball and opened up space for a brilliant Toni Kroos pass, which made it 1-0. After the break, the Germans turned the game around when Real were actually stronger; Leroy Sané scored and Harry Kane scored from the penalty spot just four minutes later. The final point was Vinicius Junior, who converted a foul penalty caused by Kim.
SO IMPORTANTLY SIMPLE! 💪💪💪
💫 #FCBRMA | 2-1 | 68′ 💫 pic.twitter.com/uo6pBsH5EQ
— FC Bayern Munich (@FCBayern) April 30, 2024
But Tuchel didn’t want to worry about the mistakes and missed opportunities; he started working on his attitude for the second leg immediately after the final whistle. The starting position is now “crystal clear” and that makes things easy because both teams have to win, he said: “We can completely forget the result. That can also help us in terms of our attitude.”
There has long been a competition of thoughts and work on the mindset that the coaches and their teams are fighting at this highest level of football. Carlo Ancelotti, the Spaniards’ head coach, also tried to find the right words with a view to the second leg: “Bayern showed their best version, we only partially,” he claimed, which translated means: Actually we are better, and that’s why we will reach the final.
Uli Hoeness as a power player in the background who is surprisingly in need of communication
In this respect, this duel was, first and foremost, the introductory prelude to the real drama that will take place at the Bernabeu on Wednesday next week. “It’s still 50:50, who knows what will happen,” said Tuchel, who perhaps thinks he has chances because his team has always been best this season when they defended and countered intensively.
That’s exactly what could be possible in Madrid, although the Munich coach doesn’t just have to deal with the twists and turns on the pitch. He is also exposed to the madness of his current employer, who is looking for his successor and has a power player in the background in Uli Hoeness who is currently surprisingly in need of information.
Recently, the club’s gray eminence caused great irritation in a talk at a conference in the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” by accusing Tuchel of demanding expensive additions instead of improving the talents in the squad. This deeply offended Tuchel, and people commented, criticized and marveled for days. When asked whether this story about Tuchel and Hoeness had disrupted the preparation for the game against Real, sports director Max Eberl replied diplomatically before kick-off on Amazon Prime: “Uli is Bayern Munich and Thomas Tuchel gives everything for Bayern Munich.”
Even more important than the question of the acute impact of the debates internally is the message to Tuchel’s successor. Because the farce makes it clear: a coach is not protected in this club, but rather, depending on the situation, criticized, sometimes even exposed or – as in the case of Julian Nagelsmann – quite surprisingly dismissed. FC Bayern can be an unpleasant employer for head coaches.
It is quite possible that Leverkusen’s Xabi Alonso and Nagelsmann rejected offers to take over the Munich team next season for this reason. Other tasks seem to be more attractive for both of them. Bayern are now trying to convince Austrian national coach Ralf Rangnick to work together.
Eberl claimed that this process was not affected by the headlines these days: “No, it doesn’t make it any harder to talk to trainers about content. We have our ideas and we want to implement them. With all the things going on around us, we are calmly moving things forward.”
Max Eberl should help find the right coach for Bayern.
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Eberl did not want to comment on the specific question of how far the negotiations with Rangnick have progressed, nor on the assumption spread by various media that no conversation had yet been held with Rangnick’s current employer, the Austrian Association. There are many indications that a fundamental agreement was reached with the 65-year-old Swabian. That would also be fitting because there are two men in important positions in Munich, sports director Christoph Freund and youth director Jochen Sauer, with whom Rangnick worked at RB Salzburg.
Bayern would probably have to pay a transfer fee for Rangnick, and there are probably further details to be clarified, especially regarding the new coach’s power. It is relatively clear that this topic will also accompany the days before the second leg in Madrid. And it wouldn’t be surprising if so much hustle and bustle in this sideshow annoys Tuchel. At least around the first leg, the debates were not one of the reasons for the narrowly missed victory.
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