Thomas Tuchel will leave the post of coach of Bayern Munich this summer, only fifteen months after his arrival, paying a high price for a series of negative results which threatens the Bavarian club with a year 2024 without a trophy, a first since 2011.
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The nightmare experienced by Bayern in the space of nine days, with defeats on the road to Leverkusen (3-0) for the Bundesliga shock on February 10, in Rome on February 14 against Lazio (1-0) in round of 16 first leg of the Champions League and in Bochum (1-0) on February 18, completed undermining the confidence placed in the coach recruited in March 2023.
Twelve days from the end of the championship, Bayern are eight points behind Bayer Leverkusen still undefeated in 2023/24 (27 wins and four draws in all competitions) and will have to reverse the trend in Munich against Lazio on March 5 so as not to exit the Champions League prematurely.
“ After an open discussion, we came to the conclusion to end our work together in the summer », Explained the chairman of the board of Bayern, Jan-Christian Dreesen, thus bringing forward the end of Tuchel’s contract by one year to June 30, 2024.
Players reminded of their “obligations”
Dreesen also sent an “explicit” message to the players, reminded of their “obligations” to “ reach the maximum possible » during the 13 to 18 matches remaining for Thomas Tuchel on the Bayern bench (depending on the course in the Champions League), starting Saturday (6:30 p.m.) at home against RB Leipzig.
“ Particularly in the Champions League, we are confident that we can reach the quarter-finals, with the support of our fans in our full Allianz Arena. “, emphasized Dreesen.
For the first time since 2011, Bayern find themselves more than ever under the threat of a year 2024 without any trophies to add to the windows of Säbener Strasse, the club’s headquarters.
In 2023, he saved the furniture by winning an eleventh consecutive German championship title, snatching the “Schale” – name of the trophy awarded to the champion – from the hands of Borussia Dortmund in the 89th minute of the last day thanks to a goal by Jamal Musiala.
One figure alone sums up the failure of the Bavarian management which had decided to bet on Tuchel by dismissing his predecessor, Julian Nagelsmann in March 2023, while the club was still in the race on three counts: by losing in Rome against Lazio a week ago, the German coach recorded his 10th defeat in 43 matches at the helm of Bayern, as many as for Nagelsmann in… 83 matches.
Looking for a successor
At the same time as its very special end to the season, Bayern will begin the search for a new coach.
Former player of Bayern where he finished his playing career at the same time as Philipp Lahm in May 2017, the Spaniard Xabi Alonso made an exceptional debut on the coaching bench at Leverkusen and is a dream candidate, but his name is often cited to succeed Jürgen Klopp at Liverpool.
A very long list of names of other potential successors to Tuchel has circulated in the German press, ranging from Zinédine Zidane to Hansi Flick, including Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Sebastian Hoeness, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte.
The turbulence of recent months has not spared the club’s management: after the championship title on May 27, 2023, the duo at the head of Bayern at the time, Oliver Kahn as chairman of the board and Hasan Salihamidzic as sporting director, was immediately thanked. Kahn was replaced by Dreesen and Salihamidzic by Christoph Freund.
Bayern president Herbert Hainer and the still very influential honorary president and member of the supervisory board Uli Hoeness, are still in office, with the return in June 2023 of Karl-Heinz Rummenigge to the supervisory board.