The sacked manager has many fine attributes but could never live up to his predecessor and Wednesday’s defeat by PSG was the final strawWhen Bayern Munich came to London in March to face Arsenal, following one 5-1 victory and just about to register another, everything seemed rosy in the kingdom of FC Hollywood. Sure, their football in the Bundesliga had hardly been edge-of-the-seat stuff, but Carlo Ancelotti spoke confidently, almost bullishly, of his team before the game in the press room at the Emirates Stadium.He talked of his side approaching their physical best and of their “real energy”. It felt like his plan to take them back to Champions League glory – the reason that he was appointed to replace...
After a season close to the abyss, Bayer Leverkusen’s rebuilding job has begun in earnest this season and is slowly showing signs of promiseFor a long time, we’ve known exactly what Bayer Leverkusen are about. They impress, they entertain, they qualify for Europe and achieve to a certain level without actually getting it over the line. The old ‘Neverkusen’ epithet from the Klaus Toppmöller days has endured well. Last season, and the summer that followed, changed all that. The Roger Schmidt era, which had given Die Werkself a firm on-pitch identity, fell to pieces and the club dropped the ball badly in appointing Tayfun Korkut as his successor – at exactly the point where a strong personality was needed to...
Now, perhaps, James Rodríguez is the way by which Carlo Ancelotti will finally impress a version of his personality on Bayern MunichThe Bundesliga’s first Englische Woche – as they call a midweek programme of fixtures in Germany – of the season always hands out a few opportunities to unlikely heroes, as head coaches mix it up in the midst of a busy programme. Carlo Ancelotti, with a prestige Champions League meeting against former club Paris Saint-Germain, is no different, and accordingly made six changes for Bayern Munich’s Tuesday trip to Schalke, the standout fixture of the round.One was enforced, with Sven Ulreich taking his position between the posts on the day it was announced Manuel Neuer would be out until...
A 5-0 thrashing at Dortmund could have been worse, even with a dubious VAR decision, and there are already fears of a situation spinning out of controlJörg Schmadtke rushed out to the Sky truck in the TV compound to pore over every possible angle – and to check his eyes weren’t deceiving him. By that point, the Köln sporting director had already been on the Signal Iduna Park pitch, shoulder to shoulder with the coach, Peter Stöger, protesting to the referee, Patrick Ittrich, over the award by VAR of Borussia Dortmund’s second goal. Before any more fingers start pointing at Effzee about an anarchic end to a chaotic week, we should add that this was a reasonable moment for both...
Protest banners provided the backdrop to victory over Schalke as fans rail against the club president’s plan to take majority control of the club with an exemption to the 50+1 ruleOn paper, it was exactly as Hannover 96 would have wanted it for their return to the Bundesliga. There was a capacity crowd of 49,000 inside the HDI-Arena for their first home game back in the top flight and by the end of it, a second win from two games sent them into the international break in the fledgling table’s top four, shoulder to shoulder with Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund and (equally improbably) Hamburg.In reality, there were more mixed feelings than euphoria as André Breitenreiter’s team extended their perfect start...