They (Bayern) have beat Bochum three times 7-0 in the last four years, but now they even lose there. I think it’s not hard to predict that Tuchel might be fired next week. I read that there’s already a secret plan to rehire Hansi Flick.
Post-match quotes:
Tuchel on the xG of 3.67 to 1.52 for Bayern: “If we play this game five more times, we’d win it five times.”
Tuchel: “The defeat was not fair today, a lot went against us”.
“We had an xG value of 3.4 and we had four, five, six top-class chances…”.
“We completely dominated the game and actually went behind out of nowhere”, told DAZN.
Kimmich crying on the bench. Kane missing two sitters. Not only are the wheels off, but the bus is on fire. They need to pull their acts together or they’ll end up in the Europa league.
That doesn’t mean much. In the past, legions of club owners or CEOs have sworn loyalty to their coach, and the next day he was gone…
Sure, true, and in my experience the word selbstverständlich sometimes just means “shut up, moron” and isn’t an actual answer. I would not be surprised to see him go.
In fact one of the surest indicators of a coach about to be ejected from their position is the club owner/president swearing loyalty to him in the media
It’s such a hackneyed trope it made a Letterman Top 10 List about forty years ago (about baseball, not soccer).
I understand all that, but weigh it against a Board that has committed so many fuck ups that they might not want to admit another for a while. End of the season? Absolutely. After a couple more losses? Sure.
End of the season indeed, but I can’t remember ever seeing a departure pre-announced like this with so many matches left.
Liverpool and Klopp just a few weeks ago?
Well, I was thinking of that as his choice, I assume they would prefer to keep him, as opposed to this “realignment”.
This news really surprised me. I expected Tuchel to be fired this or next week if Bayern don’t make the CL quarterfinals, but leaving at the end of the season in “mutual agreement” makes no sense to me. Tuchel is a lame duck from now on, and this decision makes Bayern look like they’ve already given up their goals for this season, which normally isn’t their nature at all.
I also wonder if they already secretly agreed with a successor to Tuchel. Xabi Alonso maybe? He’s the hottest new name as coaches go, and now two of his ex-clubs as a player are in need of a new coach for next season.
Xavi Hernández, Barça’s current coach, was announced to leave the club this summer. That was several weeks ago, so with even more matches left.
ETA and PS: There is talk of Hansi Flick as his successor. I hope they don’t choose Tuchel!
On another subject entirely, but also related to Barça: Dani Alves, former player, sentenced to 4 and a half years in prison for rape.
One of the fewer and fewer articles in the El País without a paywall, but of course in Spanish.
Here is the story in English in The Athletic with a lot of context. I hope it’s not paywalled.
If it is, here is the story again from The Guardian, not paywalled, from a slightly different angle.
60,500 is the announced attendance for Arsenal vs Tottenham today at the Emirates.
Welcome to the club, @EinsteinsHund. Admittedly it’s a very sad club, but at least we have the bittersweet pleasure of watching a third tier team racing to the semi finals.
I was angry yesterday, very angry, because I had predicted exactly that outcome, but unfortunately I’m not close enough to the team to have warned them 
. As I told a friend after the game, I’m hoping now that Saarbrücken will win the cup. A third league team in the Euro League would be interesting.
I bought tickets for the DC vs Miami game this weekend and it’s looking like Messi will be out injured. Ticket prices are a third of what I paid. I missed seeing him in Barcelona years ago due to a flight delay and now I might never see him live. Pretty bummed.
Ouch, my sympathies.
The closest thing to a sure thing, if you want to see Messi play, is to buy tickets for some Argentina match in the upcoming Copa America, judging from past events he’ll play those even if he has to crawl into the pitch. (not so sure now that he has won the World Cup as before, but still a safe bet)
I guess that’s technically a possibility, but I’d have to travel and/or take time off work for the weekday games and would have a significantly worse seat. Maybe he’ll dress so I can at least hope for a cameo or maybe Suarez will put on a show… ugh.
They have a friendly in Philadelphia next week too, if a little more rest helps.