Summary: Bayer Leverkusen - Bayern Munich 1:2 (Sport1)
Julian Nagelsmann took advantage of the national team break to go skiing in Austria and recharge his batteries for this season's game against Borussia Dortmund, and there - in the wonderful Tyrolean mountains - he was surprised to learn on social media on Thursday that it was decided to fire him from Bayern Munich.
The short vacation was ruined, and the coach made the way back north in a gloomy mood.
In general, one gets the impression that this season the people of Bayern should not choose skiing to relax.
Manuel Neuer, who saw this as a cure for his soul after being eliminated from the World Cup in the group stage, crushed his leg on the mountain near the house, and this had even more serious consequences than the fact that he ended the season.
The club decided to take advantage of the situation in order to fire goalkeeper coach Tony Tapalovic - the captain's closest friend who came to the club from Schalke together with him more than 11 years ago.
No one at all consulted with the veteran star before making the decision, nor did they even inform him of what was done properly, and some believe that by doing so, Bayern pushed Neuer out rudely and blatantly.
The man behind Tapalovic's firing was Naglesman.
Tapalovic worked in perfect harmony with Jupp Heynckes, Pep Guardiola, Carlo Ancelotti and Niko Kovac, and was even promoted to be much more than a goalkeeping coach in Hanzi Flick's team, but the young coach canceled all the additional powers of the goalkeeping coach and the tension between them was great, until the moment Bo had the opportunity to simply kick him out of the system during a flash.
Neuer's fury was enormous, and he even criticized the club in two media interviews, for which he was fined huge sums.
This rift will not be easy to heal, if at all.
His ski vacation also ended very badly.
Manuel Neuer (photo: screenshot, Twitter)
Total backing for the man who cost 25 million - until the upheaval
What could be learned from this affair?
Mainly because the Bayern management gave complete backing to Nagelsmann.
She agreed to his request to make an extremely provocative move, which destroyed the balance in the dressing room and personally hurt one of the team's most important players.
The message was clear - the coach was preferred over the captain.
Neuer was the past, the younger Nagelsmann was the present and the future.
And there is quite a bit of logic in this, because you can't trust a 37-year-old goalkeeper who has suffered a serious injury, while the 35-year-old coach is considered an extraordinary talent, and Bayern marked him a long time before they got their hands on him.
And when it happened in the summer of 2021, the price was high and so was the commitment.
The Bavarians paid Leipzig a record sum of 25 million euros in order for the Red Bulls to agree to release the coach, then signed Nagelsmann to a huge contract for five long years at a salary of eight million euros per season, in order to build the entire team according to his worldview.
Very few coaches have received such great credit, and Bayern put all their eggs and reputation in one basket.
It was clear as day that Nagelsman's failure would first of all be the failure of the management that bet on him with all their might.
Therefore, Nagelsmann's position is seen as completely solid, and even when the results in the league were not promising at the beginning of 2023, no one was surprised that the president Herbert Hainer claimed last Monday: "Julian is an excellent coach who proved against Paris Saint-Germain his tactical and strategic expertise. We have a project Long-term, because we want to build something together with him. I see clear progress in the year and a half since his appointment. He is doing a great job."
More in Walla!
Kimish on Nagelsman's dismissal: "This is the business - a little love, a little heart"
To the full article
Received full backing - until the upheaval.
Julian Nagelsmann (Photo: GettyImages, Alexander Hassenstein)
Exhausted the players and did not promote young people?
Not sure
And there you have it, within a few days the attitude changed 180 degrees.
"We came to the conclusion that the quality of our squad was not reflected even though we won the championship last season. After the World Cup, the team played less good and less attractive football, and the instability put in jeopardy the achievement of our goals this season and beyond. This is why we acted now," explained CEO Oliver Kan. Now, in accordance with the new situation, quite a few excuses are being leaked to the media about Naglesman's shortcomings and errors that allegedly led to his dismissal.
He is said to focus on the smallest details at the tactical level and exhaust the players with overly detailed instructions before each game.
This is absolutely true, but this is Naglesman's style which was well known to the decision makers even before his appointment, and nothing has changed here.
It is said that he did not connect with all the old players, he talked mainly with Yuzua Kimish who became his close friend, and often upset the others.
This is also true, but the facts were known a long time ago and the management happily went along with it, as can be seen in the case of Neuer and Tapalovic.
Robert Lewandowski's choice to leave Bayern is also to a considerable extent related to problematic relations with Nagelsmann, and this did not prevent the club from standing behind him - so at the current time the explanation is simply not conceivable.
It is said that he made too extensive rotations, did not establish a permanent composition and tactics, frustrated the bench stars who did not get opportunities and did not promote the young players.
All these claims are only partially true and with a limited guarantee, mainly because they contradict each other.
If there is excessive rotation, it means that many players are getting opportunities - and you can't complain about both things at the same time.
If the management is unhappy that familiar stars are disillusioned with their status, it cannot simultaneously demand the cultivation of new players - after all, there is only room for 11 footballers on the pitch.
And speaking of youngsters, Jamal Musiale certainly made impressive progress during Naglesman's time;
Josip Stanisic was backed up even though he didn't always deliver the goods - and has improved a lot lately;
And the 17-year-old French acquisition Mathis Tal has also been well integrated and has already scored five goals this season.
Mathis de Licht integrated perfectly into the defense and immediately became a leader.
You can be angry that the Dutch Ryan Harafenbrech was pushed to the sidelines of the squad, but should he really be preferred over Leon Goretzka?
The answer is quite clear.
More in Walla!
Nagelsmann and the players were surprised, Bayern rushed Tuchel for fear that he would escape
To the full article
The division of powers in the management is not clear.
Bayern Munich CEO Oliver Kahn (Photo: Reuters)
Management is responsible for the chaos
In short, Naglesman is really not perfect, but nobody is perfect.
It is possible not to pick him, but in that case he simply should not have been named, because he did not surprise negatively in any parameter.
Being a very young coach - too young for a club like Bayern - obviously worked against him, but this was also known in advance and the management chose to take the risk.
We can talk about the fact that he has a journalist partner who worked at "Bild" until recently, and we can also mention that someone recently leaked tactical plans from the dressing room to the media and astonished Naglesman who commented sarcastically: "A mole is a protected animal and it will be very difficult to track it down."
This does not justify firing a coach who only two months ago received permission from the management to humiliate Neuer.
It is much more likely to assume that the reasons behind the surprising step at such a problematic time lie in any struggles within the management itself.
It is well known that for years there was a debate at Bayern about the identity of the future coach around whom the team should be built.
The rift was between Nagelsmann's supporters, headed by former president Oli Hans, and Thomas Tuchel's supporters, headed by former CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge. The inability to resolve the issue led at the time to the failed appointment of Kovacs, and later also to the phenomenal promotion of Flick. Hans and Rummenigge have already left Retired, but they continue to operate behind the scenes, the people associated with them are in the system and it is likely that Camp Tuchel is still alive and well. This is a club with very complex internal politics and the division of powers between CEO Kahn and sporting director Hasan Salimidzic is not exactly clear.
More in Walla!
Not only Julian Nagelsmann paid a price: his partner announced her resignation
To the full article
A thousand times "worse" than its predecessor.
Thomas Tuchel (Photo: Reuters)
Tuchel is more domineering and stubborn than Naglesman
Since Bayern, at least temporarily, gave up on Tuchel's option, he managed to win the Champions League with Chelsea and now - after being fired from the London club - moved almost protestantly to live in Munich.
Recently, his name has been linked as a possible replacement for Antonio Conte at Tottenham and also as a possible successor to Ancelotti at Real Madrid.
By the way, it is hard to believe these two options because Tuchel is not desperate to jump into the Roosters' crisis two months before the end of the season, while Raul is marked with a high level of certainty as the next coach at the Santiago Bernabeu.
Even so, these options are now being marketed by those close to Bayern's management as an excuse that action should have been taken here and now, before Tuchel allegedly "runs away".
This explanation does not hold water and very ironically Tuchel's shortcomings are connected with the "sins" of the fired coach.
Nagelsmann goes down to too low a resolution tactically and exhausts the players?
Tuchel is a thousand times "worse" in this respect.
Naglesman having difficulty in human relations with the stars?
Tuchel is a thousand times worse in this respect.
Stubborn Naglesman?
It is not easy to find a more stubborn and domineering coach than Tokel, who does not allow anyone to interfere in his considerations and interferes himself in the work of all the professionals in the club.
In fact, this was the most central concern of the camp that opposed Tuchel's appointment in the first place.
Naglesman, both as a young coach in need of backup and as a Bayern fan as long as he can remember, was supposed to show much greater flexibility in his interactions with the management, and that was indeed the case - as far as his work with the bosses was concerned, there were no particular conflicts.
Tuchel is a foreign planter who arrives with his team.
He is an extremely brilliant professional who is, in principle, capable of succeeding in the short term anywhere, but you cannot in any way build on working properly with him in the long term, because the explosion will come.
More in Walla!
Thomas Tuchel was introduced as coach of Bayern Munich: "The timing surprised me too"
To the full article
Most of them are angry.
Bayern Munich fans (Photo: Reuters)
The fans vote against
This explosion is simply inevitable in a club as saturated with ego as Bayern.
In the first stage, it will be interesting to follow the reaction of Kimmish, who was particularly close to Naglesman, defined him after his dismissal as one of the best coaches in his life and therefore may be marked by Tuchel as loyal to the old regime.
The influence of the midfielder, who is nominated to succeed Neuer as captain, is enormous in the dressing room and is also extremely critical from a purely professional point of view.
The management bet, therefore, on a very big shock in the system precisely before the most important games of the season.
On April 1, Tuchel will make his debut in this season's game against former Dortmund, and it already sounds like a good joke.
After that, he also has two meetings with Manchester City in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, where Nagelsmann had a perfect record of 8 wins in 8 games this season.
All the plans of the fired coach have been thrown in the trash and the team is starting from scratch with no minimal time to re-prepare - and all this without there being a real reason for the dramatic change.
In the polls conducted on the leading websites in Germany, between 75 and 80 percent of surfers voted that the decision to fire Nagelsmann was not justified, and the anger is also great among the fans who were not particularly enthusiastic about him.
The onus will be on Kahn and Selamidzic, and at first glance it looks like they've lost control of the slide down a steep slope.
It could end in a glorious skiing accident.
Follow Yochin on Facebook
sport
world football
Tags
Bayern Munich
Julian Naglesman
Thomas Tuchel
