Thomas Tuchel and Bayern Munich were always doomed to fail in the Bundesliga
The 50-year-old tactician is a cup genius, but history has shown that he's never been a convincing manager in league competitions. Saturday's defeat to Borussia Dortmund confirmed that.
Such is the remarkable power of Xabi Alonso’s Bayer Leverkusen’s side this season that they were apparently able to land a gut-wrenching punch to Bayern Munich despite being 600km away on Saturday afternoon. At least, that’s how Bayern head coach Thomas Tuchel saw it following his team’s disastrous 2-0 defeat to Borussia Dortmund. For the first time since April 2014, the Bavarian super club had been forced to hand over all three league points to their rivals in the Allianz Arena. And Tuchel struggled to explain why.
“Leverkusen’s win certainly didn't help,” said a dejected Tuchel after the game. “It was 0-1 for a long time. We thought we could get close again. It may be that it was part of it. It may be that the international break was part of it." In reference to Leverkusen coming from behind against Hoffenheim to win the game with goals in the 88th and 91st minute, Tuchel seemed convinced that such heroics had all but crushed his team’s spirits ahead of Der Klassiker. "After today's game, we don't need to say anything,” scoffed the Bayern boss. “Congratulations to Leverkusen!"
Of course, Tuchel, like the many Bayern fans that walked out of the stadium long before the final whistle on Saturday evening, knows fine well that the title race has been over for some time. And much like this season as a whole, Bayern looked laboured on the ball, clueless off it and most worrying of all entirely uninterested in matching the high standards the club have set themselves in the modern era.
That isn’t entirely Tuchel’s fault, but when we take a look back through his managerial career and see where the German tactician has thrived and faltered, it’s not hard - with the admitted benefit of hindsight - to note that his arrival in Munich 12 months ago was perhaps doomed to fail from the very beginning.
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