Have no choice but to win the Championship, the National Cup and the Champions League? Thomas Tuchel already vaguely knows this. Inducted this Saturday, March 25, the new coach of Bayern Munich a little to everyone’s surprise, in place of Julian Nagelsmann, the German coach experienced a similar challenge at Paris Saint-Germain (2018-2020) and to a lesser extent at Chelsea. (2021-2022).
By embarking on a Bavarian project as exciting as it is terribly demanding, “TT” knows that he will be expected at the turn. With Bayern, “the DNA is known, there is the obligation of victories”, he insisted during his presentation. “It is an obligation, there can be no misunderstanding. »
Accompanied by an image of a brilliant coach since his debut in Mainz, reinforced by his time in Dortmund, the finalist of the C1 in 2020 with Paris, then winner in 2021 with the Blues faces sacred challenges in Bavaria.
A capital shock against City in C1
This is the main question that accompanied the dismissal of Nagelsmann: how can Bayern fire the coach who carries the club to the quarters of the biggest club competition, easily getting rid of PSG? Bavarian President Oliver Kahn delivered some answers at a press conference, pointing more to recent insufficient performances in the Championship and his lack of chemistry with the group.
Still, Thomas Tuchel inherits a team cut to go to the end in the Champions League. And the end is not very far. To offer the 7th C1 in its history to Bayern, the 49-year-old coach only has three rounds to go: first the quarters, then the halves and the final.
Except that in the quarters, comes the team that scares everyone this year, Manchester City. Tuchel will have a hard time facing the armada of his best enemy, Pep Guardiola. The double confrontation against the Citizens arrives in just over two weeks (April 11-19), a short period of time to inculcate the principles of the game in a new workforce, however talented it may be.
Explosive reunion with Dortmund
With its 32 national titles, including the last 10 in a row, Bayern remains an undisputed boss on the German scene. Until this season, perhaps, when Borussia Dortmund holds it high and leads the dance in the lead, the teams standing in a small point.
We will play the 26th day in the Bundesliga next weekend, out of 34, which means that there is an urgent need to relaunch a machine that is a little seized up in 2023. (5 wins, 2 losses and 3 draws in the Championship). “The performance curve has continued to drop” since the 2021-2022 season, regretted Hasan Salihamidzic, Bayern’s sporting director, to explain the need for change.
“We have one of the best teams in Europe and yet the performances have not improved,” Kahn said. We cannot be satisfied with the results of the second half of the season and our performance. “As nothing happens by chance, Tuchel will start his new duties next Saturday against … his former club and rival for the title, Borussia Dortmund!
A first meeting, already, extremely important for him. Three days later, the Bavarians will play an arduous quarter of the German Cup against Freiburg. Another trophy, missed last year in favor of RB Leipzig, not to be missed.
Recreate locker room chemistry
To justify the “unpopular” dismissal of Nagelsmann, the Kahn-Salihamidzic duo put forward non-sporting arguments to the media: “The relationship between the coach and the team no longer worked”, “Julian is a top coach level, but the chemistry didn’t match. Tuchel therefore knows where he will be expected, beyond performance issues. Reputed to be a good manager with the stars (his relationship with Neymar has often been praised), the German also knows how to be respected and be heard.
Putting aside his tumultuous relationship with Leonardo, which ended up costing him his place in Paris, he will have been appreciated by his managers and his players wherever he went. In Bavaria, he will find a disciplined locker room. Although somewhat disturbed by the presence of a “mole” within it which may have annoyed Nagelsmann.
If the cleaning has been done internally, the Munich club is now counting on Tuchel to recreate the link with his group as the season is soon approaching its home stretch. A locker room mainly composed of French and Germans. Two languages perfectly spoken by the polyglot.
To be a prophet in his country
Revealed in Mainz before confirming his full potential as a coaching master in Dortmund, Tuchel went through the stages one by one across the Rhine. If he seemed to have headed for a career outside his country – his name came back insistently to Tottenham, Real Madrid or even Brazil – his trajectory took him back like a boomerang to his native Germany.
The level curve of his trained clubs is only climbing, and Bayern presents itself as his most important personal challenge. Him the native of Krumach, in Bavaria, a hundred kilometers from Munich.
To succeed, he will be able to rely on a player he knows by heart: Éric Maxim Choupo-Moting, his most faithful soldier whom he brought to Mainz, then to Paris, and who will never have failed him. . No coincidence that, in the images broadcast by his new club on social networks on the sidelines of his presentation, he turned to his jersey.