Bayern lose control of title race after defeat by RB Leipzig
May 21, 2023
In an all too familiar tale for 2023, the serial Bundesliga champions let an early lead and plethora of chances slip away, leaving the door wide open once more for Borussia Dortmund to take control of the title race going into the final weekend.
The manner of the defeat for the hosts, having dominated the first half after Serge Gnabry's fifth goal in his last four matches, left Thomas Tuchel unable to offer any answers.
"I can explain what was lacking today and what is lacking in the team but I cannot explain to you why," the Bayern Munich head coach told DW in the post-game press conference. "It is even for me now unexplainable.
"We had everything, it was clearly working, and we are capable of winning. We are not asking for crazy stuff from the players."
'It came from nothing'
Until midway through the second half, it seemed as though the Bavarian side were cantering towards an unbeaten home record in all competitions for the season.
Thomas Müller, who played a full 90 minutes in consecutive league matches for just the second time this season, was continually gesturing and yelling from the first minute for the front line to maintain a high press.
It forced the visitors into misplaced passes but having taken the lead Müller's teammates seemed to lose sight of their captain.
"Thomas (Müller) also wanted to position the team more compactly forward," an exasperated Tuchel told Sky Sport Germany. "They didn't do it. Either they were tired in the head, or they were not convinced."
But it was not just Müller that Bayern's players were refusing to follow instructions from.
Laimer sends shockwaves through Munich
Tuchel's own efforts to command and berate his side to be more compact just 90 seconds before Leipzig equalized were ignored and left the head coach stood in dismay and shock when Konrad Laimer netted against his soon-to-be new club.
"Our field got too big in the second half," he told DW referring to his sideline gesturing. "It’s a lack of movement from the last line to keep the field together.
"The amount of easy mistakes, unforced errors, was way too high and I felt no change of rhythm in our game.
Tuchel continued: "After 30 minutes we didn't move enough when we had the ball. We stopped helping ourselves, we stopped playing bravely.
"And to play bravely does not mean you need to crazy stuff. You need to play reliably; you need to adapt your behavior to the situation.
"It came from nothing, within the game it came from nothing and if I look at the last two weeks, it came from absolutely nothing," he added.
Uncertainty reigns from top to bottom
The exasperation at Bayern's collapse was not Tuchel's alone, with CEO Oliver Kahn equally aggravated.
Questions over Kahn and Hasan Salihamidzic's decision-making this season have put them in the firing line, as their inability to adequately replace Robert Lewandowski have left the team deficient in front of goal.
And sacking Julian Nagelsmann in March while the team were still fighting for three trophies, albeit having slipped behind Dortmund in the league at that stage, undoubtedly unsettled the team.
Less than a month later, Bayern had crashed out of the German Cup and Champions League and now require Edin Terzic's side to slip up in order to pick up any silverware this season.
'We didn't play intelligently'
After months of uncertainty, the collapse proved less surprising to Kahn.
"You have the feeling that everything collapses when you concede a goal or when the situation becomes difficult, when resistance arises," Kahn admitted.
"It was clear that that would happen today, that we might equalize, or we might fall further behind. But I didn't have the feeling that we had much to counter after the 1-1.
"We didn't play intelligently. I've rarely seen anything like that, because we lead 1-0 and they have a counterattack, four-on-one situation of our own making.
"We still had a lot of time to score the 2-1 but I didn't have the feeling that we had enough in the tank to be able to beat Leipzig."