Compassion in Anglo-German relations is currently at an all-time high: Deutschland feels sorry for Harry Kane!
When the England striker moved to Bavaria last summer, sceptics were quick to complain about his age (30) and price tag (£81m). However, Kane has delivered: he’s the first Briton to be Torschützenkönig, top scorer with 36 league goals, the second-highest tally ever.
“Hopefully my goals will mean something by the end of the season,” he confided to TNE’s Matt Ford back in March (TNE #382). They didn’t.
Kane, who came to Germany in pursuit of a trophy, is left empty-handed again, the season’s tragic hero. The odds were in his favour: Rekordmeister Bayern München are our 33-time champions, had a stranglehold on the title since 2012 and boast six European Cup victories.
Yet, this season, FC Bayern came third – third! – in the Bundesliga. Real Madrid sent them packing in the Champions League, and third-division Saarbrücken defeated them in the Cup’s second round.
Their season ends sans title and sans head coach. At present, Germany’s most prestigious club is pathetic. And many revel in its misfortune.
You see, they may have the largest following across Germany, but most other Fußball-Fans unite in disdain for Munich’s sporting and commercial success, their confidence and their Mia-san-mia (Bavarian dialect for “we are who we are”) pride flaunted in Lederhosen, traditional leather pants. This dislike incited another pair of trousers, a punk band called Die Toten Hosen, to write a chart hit with lyrics vowing “we’d never go to FC Bayern München”.
In this, they are joined by what seems to be every available high-level coach in Europe. They, too, avoid Munich, and the list gets longer day by day, turning Bayern’s attempts to replace luckless and outspoken Thomas Tuchel into a farce.
The candidates to have declined Bayern’s advances so far include:
Xabi Alonso, who stayed at Leverkusen and completed the Bundesliga’s first-ever unbeaten season;
National coach Julian Nagelsmann, who hasn’t forgotten how he learned from the press in 2023 that Bayern had sacked him to make room for Tuchel;
Ralf Rangnick, the veteran coach who prefers running the national team of football super-power Austria to Bayern (who’d have thought it!);
Oliver Glasner, 49, who is staying with Crystal Palace;
Roger Schmidt, 57, who extended his contract at Benfica;
And even Tuchel, 50, who was told he was leaving Bayern after this season, but then, in a desperate management U-turn, was asked to stay until 2025 (eyeing the end of Jürgen Klopp’s sabbatical and Alonso’s contract). Tuchel declined.
After Aston Villa and even West Ham successfully courted other potential Bayern candidates, football pundits are suggesting Bayern should resort to a lottery. While Liverpool quietly found a replacement, Bayern have failed to do so extremely publicly. Anyone, please?
Whoever ultimately gets the job will be a makeshift solution but still, after their final defeat of the season, the club’s director of sports, Max Eberl, boldly declared that “the best is saved for last”. This sparked rumours about talks with the legendary Zinedine Zidane. There aren’t any, though, and the reasons touch on the core of Bayern’s fruitless head coach quest.
Succession planning is one of them.
The man chiefly responsible for Bayern’s recent success is former president Uli Hoeneß. He and CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge took the club to top European level, despite a lack of real competition at home and having substantially less financial backing than the Premier League clubs.
However, they came up with boardroom successors who pale in comparison. Among them is Oliver Kahn, who moved from national goalie to Bayern CEO and got the boot last year. Hoeneß, now 72, still wields considerable power. A few months ago he reiterated his principle: the club provides the players, the coach trains and improves them.
Good luck finding an alpha dog who wants to coach under those conditions. Tuchel recently hinted at his difficulties convincing the club to acquire Kane. Pep Guardiola still recalls how he lost the fight to retain Toni Kroos (who just defeated Bayern in the Champions League semi-finals). Since Guardiola’s departure in 2016, no coach has stayed for two full seasons.
Fortunately, at least Kane will stay as a player – and I wish him luck with the silverware next season. As for the Euros, our sympathy only stretches so far.
