BAYERN MUNICH SUFFER 3-2 DEFEAT TO BOCHUM AS PRESSURE MOUNTS ON MANAGER THOMAS TUCHEL
Defending Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich suffered their seventh defeat of the season on Sunday night as they fell 3-2 to a struggling VFL Bochum side. The defeat means Bayern have lost back-to-back Bundesliga games for the first time since December 2019 and are now on a run of three defeats across all competitions, including Wednesday’s 1-0 shocker to Lazio in the Champions League.
Bayern lost 3-0 in stunning fashion to league leaders Bayer Leverkusen last weekend and now fall eight points behind Xabi Alonso’s side. Leverkusen are still unbeaten in the Bundesliga this season and not only could they break Bayern’s 32-game unbeaten record in all competitions if they win on Friday against seventeenth-placed FSV Mainz but they could also move 11 points clear of the old German juggernaut in the Bundesliga table.
“If we play this game five more times, we’d win it five times,” said Tuchel about the game on Sunday. “I don’t blame the players today. We never stopped playing, we never stopped fighting.”
“We never stopped showing a good reaction and it [the performance] was enough. It was by far enough to win the game which is the big difference to the other two matches where we lost energy in the second half at Lazio, [and] where we lost the energy very early in the match against Leverkusen and for a long period. This was not the case today. We were unlucky.”
Bayern got off to a good start and went ahead through Jamal Musiala’s sixth goal of the season before Bochum pulled one back via Takuma Asano after a lengthy fan protest delayed proceedings. Bochum then completed the turn-around through center back Keven Schlotterbeck, who ran unmarked to score from Kevin Stoger’s corner just one minute before halftime.
Stoger then extended the home side’s lead in the 85th minute from the penalty spot after Dayot Upamecano got sent off for catching Schlotterbeck with an elbow inside the box. English striker Harry Kane then pulled one back for Bayern just two minutes later in a characteristic counter attack but the team fell short in the end, slumping to a second straight defeat in the league after a lengthy eight minutes of stoppage time.
Despite calls from fans for Bayern to part ways with Tuchel, the club is expected to continue with the former Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea boss after having held internal discussions on Sunday night.
“I feel like crap,” said Bayern CEO Jan-Christian Dreesen last night after the game. “The interruption threw us off our rhythm. Today, mentality triumphed over quality. I am not a fan of monstrous coach-backing statements, [as] they usually run out after a week. This [Tuchel’s future] is not an issue we’re currently dealing with. We have to focus on our next matches.”
Asked if Tuchel will still be in charge next week, Dreesen said, “Of course.”
Tuchel spoke last week about the support he’s been shown by the hierarchy at the club, saying: “I feel the support. I know my relationship with Dreesen and how we work together. He knows how much this situation annoys me and how much we are investing.”
The 50-year-old conceded after the game, however, that the Bundesliga title does not look very realistic at this specific moment in time but did not give up hope of his team being there in the end. “Right now, it does not look very realistic,” said Tuchel. “But last season we believed until the end and we were rewarded. So we will keep working at it. If you ask me, I firmly still believe me and [my] coaching staff can turn things around. Yes, [growing pressure] happens after every defeat.”
Bayern midfielder Leon Goretzka said after the game about the team’s current run: “It feels like a horror movie. Everything is going against us at the moment. We can again sit here and say we started well but now you feel stupid to limit yourself to half an hour. In the end we tried everything, so you can’t blame us.”
Bayern Munich have now lost 11 times in just 44 games under Thomas Tuchel, which is already higher than the number of defeats his three predecessors had in their entire tenure at the club. Bayern lost just 8 times in 65 games under Niko Kovac, while Hansi Flick’s team lost 8 times in 86 games. Julian Nagelsmann’s side, which also came under pressure from fans and media in the end, lost 10 times in 84 games.
Although the writing may still be on the wall regarding Tuchel’s future, Bayern are going to need a spectacular collapse from Bayer Leverkusen and nothing short of a miracle to somehow win the Bundesliga title for the 12th consecutive year this season.
Bayern president Herbert Hainer said regarding Tuchel’s future this weekend: “There are a lot of rumors being spread from the outside. At the end of the day we have to win. We win and then the topic would be over.”
-Maher Abucheri
Twitter: @pabloikonyero
Photo: Josu Orbe. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.