Bayern Munich’s faith in Thomas Tuchel is absolute – however bad things seem

If there’s no miracle and Bayern Munich get eliminated from the Champions League by Manchester City on Wednesday, many will wonder what all the fuss was about.

Out of the DFB Pokal, out of Europe and just narrowly ahead of Borussia Dortmund in a title race defined by the two sides’ weaknesses: couldn’t they have done just as well — or, rather, badly — with Julian Nagelsmann still in charge?

It’s a question that will unnerve executive chairman Oliver Kahn and sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic in weeks to come, even if Bayern win the Bundesliga.

The board will, understandably, plead for patience until Thomas Tuchel has had a chance to make a couple of changes to the squad and gets a full pre-season to whip the team into shape. In contrast to their constant but obviously forced backing of Nagelsmann until his sacking three weeks ago, confidence in the former Chelsea manager really does run very high at Sabener Strasse. Players have also been hugely impressed by his methods and eloquence. There’s a strong belief that things will get better before too long.

But in the meantime, poor performances such as the 1-1 draw with TSG Hoffenheim on Saturday make waiting for the big upswing a very uncomfortable exercise. As a club, Bayern are unable to simply accept an absence of short-term success.

The new coach’s inability to produce an immediate bounce, the 4-2 win over Dortmund aside, has shifted the public discourse in Bavaria away from him and towards the club’s leadership duo. “Kahn and Salihamidzic have driven the season into the wall,” Bild wrote on Monday. It’s an obvious charge considering that their big decision hasn’t brought quick dividends. But it’s also a revisionist take.

After last season had “fallen apart” after the winter break, as Leroy Sane told The Athletic, the current campaign had been in danger of disintegrating from the get-go. There was a major crisis as early as September (four games without a win), another one in January (three draws), a board meeting where serious doubts about Nagelsmann were voiced in February and then the decisive 2-1 defeat at Leverkusen on March 19. In between those lows, good results in the Champions League kept things ticking over for the 35-year-old. But those occasional highs, marked by a show of focus and spirit by the team, only brought the drab inconsistency in the league into sharper focus.

Around €145million ($159m) worth of arrivals in the summer, including in key areas that had been neglected in the past, had created an expectation that Bayern would make a serious dent on the Champions League in Nagelsmann’s second season. Domestically, improvement would be measured in style, not just trophies. The board craved the devastating dominance the team had shown under the guidance of Jupp Heynckes (2012-13), Pep Guardiola (2013-2016) and Hansi Flick (2019-20).

Instead, they witnessed a series of closely-fought and worryingly fraught games that were more reminiscent of a different decade, the post-2001 years, when Bayern slipping up in the league was still a fairly regular occurrence. A points average of 2.08 had them on course for their worst season since 2010-2011. Not even Jurgen Klopp would have survived such regression with a squad that’s on a completely different level to anything the rest of the league can muster.

Kahn and Salihamidzic were faced with a stark choice. Intervene in March, at the risk of appearing panicky, or see the season out fearing the worst, and face even stronger criticism for their inaction afterwards if the team’s form failed to improve. In light of Tuchel’s availability, they opted to change jockey mid-race and would undoubtedly do so again.

Perhaps a more pertinent criticism is that they have neglected to replace Robert Lewandowski adequately this summer. After attempts to lure Harry Kane or Erling Haaland to Munich proved futile, they signed Sadio Mane with a view of creating a more flexible, fluid attacking formation. That clearly hasn’t worked out.

Nagelsmann, who had expressly supported the new-set up after clashing with Lewandowski over tactics in the previous season, wanted to emulate the approach of Liverpool and Manchester City (before Haaland’s arrival) but he quickly realised that Bayern were better off with Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting leading the line.