Hansi Flick is a players’ man and that meant his tenure at the club could not last longer than 18 exhilarating monthsIt had been a week heavy with a feeling of finality; first in Paris, then in Wolfsburg. Bayern Munich’s stride towards retaining the Champions League had come to a halt in the French capital, with Leon Goretzka’s withdrawal through injury perhaps the straw that broke the camel’s back in a campaign beset with personnel issues. Everything, this time, wasn’t enough.After everything that happened in the two legs with Paris Saint-Germain – the setbacks, the comebacks, the good-but-not-quite-ruthless-enough performances – it felt good to move on with a relative test against one of the Bundesliga’s surprise packages, and a likely...
Hansi Flick brought in new faces with Tuesday in mind but dropped points gave hope to RB Leipzig belowHansi Flick’s biggest expression of frustration on Saturday afternoon was saved for five minutes from the end of normal time, when a dogged Union Berlin pilfered a hardly inevitable but not exactly undeserved equaliser at the home of the champions, as Marcus Ingvartsen’s scuffed effort rolled over the line. In tandem with RB Leipzig’s easy 4-1 win at Werder Bremen, it trimmed Bayern Munich’s lead at the top of the Bundesliga to five points – an inconvenience rather than a crisis – but the keenest suggestion from hearing Flick shout “Mann!” across the turf was less the effect of the goal itself...
Should Mauricio Pochettino indulge the mercurial Brazilian in the perennial chokers’ quarter-final against Bayern Munich?The same procedure as last year? The same procedure as every year. But for how long? At some point, Paris Saint-Germain will win the Champions League and the world will be able to stop wondering if this could finally be their season. And so we go through the familiar rigmarole and ask, could this be it? Could the stars have aligned at last? Could PSG finally have found the right balance of coach and stellar players?Certainly the 4-1 victory at Barcelona in the last 16, arguably their best performance in the Champions League, suggested they could. At which point the caveats immediately kick in. This is...
After six consecutive defeats at Bayern by an aggregate of 26-3, there were mixed feelings after Dortmund’s latest Klassiker lossAs Erling Haaland sat on the bench, right boot and sock off, the reasons for his glum demeanour stretched beyond discomfort in his tended-to right foot that had contributed to curtailing his participation in Der Klassiker. It was about the pain of inevitability as he watched on, knowing his Borussia Dortmund had come so close to frustrating the champions, against the odds, only to stumble and fall with the finishing tape in sight.The young Norwegian had almost foreseen it, speaking pre-game about how it seemed as if every time he scored, Robert Lewandowski – the only centre-forward in the Bundesliga classed...
Defeats for Dortmund, Leverkusen and Leipzig opened up yet another clear path to the Bundesliga titleThey did what they always do, and it was rarely in doubt. Schalke resisted as best they could, had their moments and were several steps forward from the meek strugglers who have filled the royal blue shirts for a large part of this season. Bayern Munich, however, were always going to get it done, and not just because this was their 10th straight win over the Gelsenkirchen club. Even if the late goals by Thomas Müller and David Alaba added a slightly unfair sheen to the scoreline for the champions, their total superiority couldn’t have been clearer. Related: Ilicic puts Atalanta in title race and...