Defeat at Mainz knocked Bayern Munich off the top of the Bundesliga. After ten straight league titles, are expectations at the club becoming unmanageable?
It says something about the self-image of Bayern Munich after ten consecutive Bundesliga titles that slipping from the top of the table must have felt like the sky caving in.
It could and perhaps should have happened earlier. Last week they were held at home by Hoffenheim, and when Borussia Dortmund took the lead away to Stuttgart two minutes into stoppage-time, it looked as though this would be enough to knock FC Hollywood from the top of the table. Instead, and some might add in true Borussia Dortmund style, Stuttgart equalised in the seventh minute of stoppage-time, leaving things very much as they were by the end of the afternoon.
Having survived that weekend, Bayern’s performance at Mainz on Saturday was problematic. They took a first-half lead, but this was their only shot on target of the opening 45 minutes and Mainz’s comeback – their third consecutive late April league win against the perennial champions – was thoroughly deserved as Bayern wilted in the second half, conceding three goals in 14 minutes.
And this time they couldn’t rely on Dortmund doing Dortmund things to keep themselves at the Bundesliga summit; a 4-0 win against Eintracht Frankfurt put them top of the table by a point with five games left to play.
This will obviously draw attention towards new head coach Thomas Tuchel, for whom this was a third defeat since taking charge of the club a month ago. Over the course of that month, Bayern have been eliminated from the DFB-Pokal at the quarter-final stages after losing 2-0 to RB Leipzig, surrendered tamely to Manchester City in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, and have now been knocked off the top of the Bundesliga league table too. But for all this, it is clear that any malaise within the club runs deeper than merely the head coach.
The decision to sack Julian Nagelsmann in the first place was certainly a surprise. After all, while the team’s formed had dipped since returning from the World Cup, they’d only spent one week away from the top of the table since the end of October, and while their toothless defeat to Manchester City might have been a harsh reminder of where purchasing power truly rests within European club football nowadays, this can’t be laid at his door – he’d already gone by then – while his last result in the Champions League…
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