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Julien Laurens, Correspondent
MUNICH — Bayern Munich coach Thomas Tuchel was in a really good mood on Tuesday before his team’s Champions League semifinal first leg against Real Madrid. Relaxed, smiling, affable, he hugged and patted on the back a few ex-pros and journalists who were pitchside at the Allianz Arena doing their prematch analysis. There was a lovely embrace with Matthias Sammer, his former Borussia Dortmund boss. He shared a joke with ex-Madrid and Liverpool star Steve McManaman. He also told ESPN that he “had a good feeling about the game.”
Where did the good feeling come from? Everyone had the Spanish giants, who Tuchel called a “myth” as he lavished praise on them in his prematch news conference, as favourites in the tie. Tuchel will leave Bayern at the end of the season, having been well-beaten to the Bundesliga title by Bayer Leverkusen, and he was heavily criticised by Bayern supremo Uli Hoeness in a German newspaper at the weekend. His club is actively looking for his successor and there was more talk in town before the game about Ralf Rangnick, who is in the frame to replace him, than about Tuchel himself.
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But Tuchel loves being underestimated. So he prepared another tactical plan, like he had done many times before in the Champions League when people didn’t believe he could get a result. He did it at Paris Saint-Germain when he took the team to the final in 2020. He did it the following year with Chelsea where he outsmarted Pep Guardiola in the final to beat Manchester City and lift the trophy. And he did it against Real Madrid on Tuesday. Bayern were the better team on the night and it was only because of two mistakes from centre-back Kim Min-Jae that led to a 2-2 draw.
Tuchel had prepared it all, as he explained after the game. His 4-4-2 formation was designed to keep Jude Bellingham quiet, with Eric Dier doing a great job on his fellow Englishman, while Konrad Laimer would help Joshua Kimmich deal with Vinícius Júnior on the right. With the ball, Tuchel wanted a 2-2-6 formation to put the Real Madrid back line under pressure, and Bayern started well. The first 24 minutes were all theirs, but they just couldn’t break their opponents down. After Kim’s first error, forced and exploited by Vini Jr., Tuchel changed everything.
He had a plan B ready to execute in case Bayern fell behind. At half-time, when trailing 1-0, as soon as his players came back in the dressing room Tuchel he told Leroy Sané to get back out on the pitch with an assistant coach to warm up on the right wing for the second half. He also announced that Raphaël Guerreiro would replace Leon Goretzka in midfield. Goretzka had defended well but now that the Germans had to fight their way back into the game, he was too deep and too horizontal in his play. Guerreiro, who is usually a left-back but had begun playing in midfield last season while still at Dortmund, would be more direct with his runs forward but would also be important in building up the play for his team. Tuchel also switched Jamal Musiala from the right wing to the left, with Sané moving to the other flank.
The tactical changes surprised Madrid boss Carlo Ancelotti, and the impact was immediate. Bayern equalised in the 53rd minute through Sané and went ahead four minutes later via a penalty won by Musiala after a run by Guerreiro. Plan B worked perfectly. And despite Kim’s second costly mistake allowing Los Blancos to draw level, when his foul on Rodrygo led to a penalty which Vini Jr. scored, Tuchel was very happy.
“Everything we planned worked,” he said in his postmatch news conference. “We started very well until their first goal. They had two chances and scored two goals. This is what they do and we are not the first team to experience it. But we responded so well. We had opportunities to score a third goal as well at 2-1.”
In private, he was buzzing even more. He felt that his team controlled pretty much everything, including Bellingham and Vinicius. He believed that he beat Ancelotti tactically and that, more importantly, he proved again to all of his detractors that he was a world-class manager. After Bayern’s second goal, in his celebrations, he seemed to look toward the stands, perhaps looking for Hoeness.
In a summer when Tuchel will be looking for a new job after he leaves Bayern, no matter what happens between now and the end of the season his tactical performance on Tuesday was a great reminder of what he can still do. Of course, he is not always easy to deal with. He can be demanding, impatient. Hoeness had basically accused him of being a bad loser and always asking for new players instead of developing the ones he already has. It’s not totally true, but Tuchel regularly has issues with the people at the top, as also happened at Dortmund, PSG and Chelsea. However, if you are Manchester United, AC Milan or Napoli and need a manager in the summer, can you really overlook Tuchel? He is a proven winner, and one of the best tacticians out there. And on Tuesday, he clearly repositioned himself on the managerial merry-go-round.
“It’s 50-50 now. We are ready to fight over there. It’s a really hard place to win but that’s what makes it so exciting,” he said, looking ahead to a delicately poised second leg at the Bernabéu next Wednesday. He will need another perfect plan to succeed in Madrid. “I already have an idea in mind,” he said later as he was leaving the Allianz Arena. Of course he has.