They played like a team huddled before the occasion. Simple touches became pinball ricochets into the crowd, straight five-meter passes became the impossible. From the bench, the coach looked on in horror, occasionally throwing his hands in the air, half-mad at his side’s incompetence. Or was it the other way around? He later admitted that the fear had spread from him to the players like a nasty virus.
We’ve seen it all before for as long as most can remember. Borussia Dortmund came, faltered and lost in Munich for the ninth straight league game, thankfully the collapse didn’t spiral into anywhere near double figures. And yet, not competing at the Allianz Arena offered an odd twist. It was Bayern, not the guests, who had looked so bad in the opening minutes, and Thomas Tuchel, not Edin Terzic, went berserk on the touchline.
“I was very nervous,” said the 49-year-old after the final whistle. “Maybe my team felt that because we started very nervously and made a lot of technical mistakes. We looked very sloppy.” Was it last week’s abrupt leadership change, a move that seemed to have split the dressing room, and all the hubbub that went with it? Before the game, Sky Germany pundit and former Bayern legend Lothar Matthäus accused CEO Oliver Kahn of being classless and not telling the truth about the timing of Julian Nagelsmann’s sacking, prompting an angry spat on live TV.
Maybe it was just the uncertainty that comes with a team trying to do things differently within a matter of days, not knowing for sure if it would work out in the most important game on the national calendar.
Dortmund, on the other hand, played with a boast of 10 league games unbeaten and took control of the game, with Bayern unable to exert significant pressure. The problem was that the impressive spell only lasted 13 minutes. When Gregor Kobel missed a disastrous equalizer into his own net – Leroy Sané could have put the finishing touches but let the ball trickle into the empty goal so as not to disturb the sublime absurdity of the moment – Bayern regained their composure and Dortmund lost theirs.
Two goals from close range by Thomas Müller, whose striking instincts were compared to a “truffle pig” by Tuchel, gave Borussia the lead after just 23 minutes. Bayern could have gone on to utterly crush their hapless opponents but were content to play cat and mouse with them, letting them live just enough to add two meaningless goals late in a 4-2 loss. “We could easily have scored three or four more goals,” said Joshua Kimmich without exaggerating.
Nerves aside, it later turned out that Dortmund’s early dominance was partly intentional. While Tuchel’s four defense system signaled a return to basics before Nagelsmann – “we want the players to play in the positions they feel most comfortable in,” said Tuchel – the tactical setup was closer to Carlo Ancelotti’s “Let’s do more do”. with less approach”.
Bayern barely pushed up, instead settling into a 4-1-4-1 block in midfield to wait for a battered BVB to fall into the trap. Again and again they exposed them during the break. Only a few bad finals and stray offside runs separated them from an even more demoralizing defeat for Dortmund.
Leon Goretzka was reluctant to talk too much about the new manager’s instructions – “It wouldn’t be wise to reveal that,” said the midfielder – but Tuchel had kept things simple by splitting his side in half. He told them to play with five attackers and five defenders, with the two sections protecting each other.
Müller – referred to by Tuchel as the “truffle pig” – scored eight goals this season with a brace (Photo: Lars Baron/Getty Images)
It took Bayern a while to pull themselves together, but the ease of their victory was as much a result of Tuchel’s anti-concept approach as Dortmund’s fragility. Everyone knew what they were doing and they did it together because it was easy for everyone to understand, even for a team that had only met their new coach 48 hours before.
But that’s just the beginning. Müller, Goretzka and Kimmich were all very self-critical about the performance and complained about minor mistakes and a lack of concentration in the last 20 minutes after a series of changes. Tuchel agreed with that assessment but was in a forgiving mood, save for the odd yell of annoyance from the bench. “There’s a lot that can be improved, but this result will give us a boost,” he said.
It will be a while before a more complete picture emerges as Dortmund have failed to provide a significant challenge; Freiburg, one of the most clumsy teams in the league, could do better in Tuesday’s cup and next Saturday’s league encounter. “It still doesn’t feel like I’m 1000 percent my team,” admitted Tuchel. “And I don’t know my way around (Allianz Arena) either.” He was generous to his predecessor, referred to “the work and passion” of Nagelsmann and his employees and vowed that he would “complete this thing for Julian too”. wool.
And what about Dortmund? BVB sporting director Sebastian Kehl did a rigorous job of exuding confidence without ignoring the magnitude of the defeat. “Today there was a lack of compactness and discipline, you can’t perform like that in Munich,” he said.
“But the championship wasn’t decided yet. We are Borussia, we will rise again. That’s not done.” There is indeed everything to play for. But that’s not how it felt on Saturday night. If this was a glimpse of FC Bayern’s future under Tuchel, it was frightening for the competition.
(Photo above: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)