/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/NNDWZHKVYK4XAPOANMAHSMFMHI.jpg?fit=768%2C548&ssl=1)
Weeks ago, the entire Bayern board understood that the dismissal of Julian Nagelsmann and the consequent signing of Thomas Tuchel, in March 2023, was a mistake. Given the impossibility of finding a solvent substitute to take charge of the team immediately, and very concerned about the image of lack of control that could be projected, the most powerful club in Germany decided to reach an agreement with Tuchel to terminate his contract at the end of this season. season, a year ahead of schedule.
Bayern published a statement this Wednesday morning: “Bayern Munich and coach Thomas Tuchel have jointly decided to end their collaboration, which originally ended on June 30, 2025, on June 30, 2024. This “It is the result of a friendly discussion between CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen and Thomas Tuchel.”
The 3-2 defeat against Bochum last Sunday, the third in a week after losing in Leverkusen (3-2) and in Rome against Lazio (1-0), dispelled the illusion of those responsible for Bayern. The Bavarian coach who had led PSG to the 2020 Champions League final and Chelsea to victory in 2021, was incapable of developing a game model based on the constant attempt to dominate the rival field. The defeats in February opened every imaginable gap within the team. The coach’s inability to devise a rational game model consistent with the club’s history, the disconnection to which Harry Kane and Musiala, his most creative players, were forced, and the explicit confrontation of the players with the coach, unleashed a serial crisis.
That the captain, Joshua Kimmich, was about to come to blows with Tuchel’s field assistants in Bochum constituted the latest example of loss in the most ambitious project that continental football has undertaken in recent years. The signings of Harry Kane, De Light, and Kim min-Jae represent the tip of the iceberg of an unparalleled plan to face the rise of the Premier.
“The atmosphere in the locker room is as if we were fighting to avoid relegation,” Tuchel said in Bochum. For a club that has won 11 of the last German leagues, the situation is a hurricane.
Flick, Alonso y Zidane
Uli Hoeness, Bayern’s honorary president and its highest authority in sports matters, has been looking for replacements for some time. He doesn’t find them. Hansi Flick, the man who led Bayern to win its last Champions League in 2020, has not convinced Hoeness since the leader declared his enmity to Pini Zahavi, the agent in whose hands Flick has placed his future. Hoeness’ favorites are Zinedine Zidane, who has refused to entertain offers for years, and Xabi Alonso, but the Spanish coach who leads Leverkusen at the top of the table with eight points of difference, has not wanted to commit to anything while Bundesliga is at stake. Reasons for conflict of interest and market. Other clubs want to hire Xabi Alonso, including Liverpool, where he would replace Jürgen Klopp, who in turn announced that he would leave office at the end of the season.
The strange solution that Bayern has discovered to the conflict responds to what seems like an extravagant current. First it was Klopp, who announced his deferred resignation on January 26; The next day it was Xavi Hernández who appeared in public to declare that he would terminate his contract with Barça ahead of time, next June; and now it is Bayern that is trying to stop the landslide that is dragging it by putting a nail in the mud.