General struggles to inspire troops as Bayern flounder again

[Dr Gloom 22542]

quite an interesting piece. maybe the lads on newcastle-online should get another dossier together

 

 

Clicky

 

Timing is everything in comedy, and Jürgen L Born so nearly got it right. "Bayern have spent €70m - to be one point in front of Werder," Bremen's CEO proclaimed to rapturous applause at the club's AGM back in November. If only Born had waited another month, the Northerners (along with rest of the league) would have enjoyed his sarcastic calculation even more. €70m, it's turned out, hasn't bought Bayern any more points than their fiercest rivals could muster at all, merely a better goal difference. Both clubs are level on 36 points at the top, so the new, bigger and supposedly much better Bavarians have taken the so-called "Herbstmeisterschaft", the autumn championship, by the smallest of margins. (It's neither a proper title nor actually won in the autumn but has some psychological as well as statistical relevance - "autumn champions" end up winning the real trophy nearly 90% of the time).

 

Their 0-0 draw away to an exhaustingly defensive Hertha - Bayern's fourth scoreless draw in seven league games - felt more like a defeat on Saturday. The Berlin wall stood firm in the face of eager but woefully clueless attackers. On the rare occasions they actually made it into the box, Ottmar Hitzfeld's men still couldn't work the keeper. Genuine attempts to get behind the defence soon gave way to desperate long-range shots. Daniel Van Buyten, their Belgian centre-back, nearly took out a flock of migratory birds with one effort. "We dominated the match and I'm very happy with finishing first," said Uli Hoeneß. "We have to stop being dissatisfied all the time". It was a nice bit of play-acting, meant to divert attention from the y exacerbated the team's fatigue.fact that the story hasn't quite followed the script. Once again, they are turning into FC Hollywood: arguments and intrigue overshadow (relative) success on the pitch.

 

Before the season, Hoeneß had predicted a massive gap between his team and the competition. "They will need binoculars to see us," he had claimed, with only a hint of irony. But it is Bayern's general manager who has been peering enviously through the looking glass in recent weeks: his team are now miles away from the compelling form they had shown at the beginning of the campaign. The gulf between aspiration and reality has become so wide it threatens to gobble up Bayern's entire season. Ever since Kevin Davies scored Bolton's second equaliser at the Allianz Arena back in October, a palpable air of crisis has pervaded Säbenerstrasse. "There is so much pressure that the club's about to burst," said Oliver Kahn last week.

 

This downward spiral started with Karl-Heinz Rummenigge undermining Hitzfeld's authority ("football is not maths") in the wake of the Bolton debacle, continued with Hoeneß's rant against critical fans at the AGM ("who do you think you are?") and culminated in the suspension of captain Kahn for the Hertha game. The keeper had criticised a lack of effort from Luca Toni and Franck Ribéry ("Bayern is not Florence or Marseille, they need to do more") but then left the club's Christmas party a couple of hours too early: he had told Hitzfeld he had to get home to take care of the kids, only to turn up in a club with his on/off lover instead. Hitzfeld fined him €25,000, claiming that such lack of discipline could not be tolerated, lest they would all "end up in a madhouse". Kahn was perhaps merely careful to avoid the pitfalls of hanging around too long: a few years ago, president Franz Beckenbauer famously fathered a child with the club secretary on the very same occasion.

 

Anyway, French (read: impulsive and moody) right-back Willy Sagnol, who was supposed to inherit Kahn's armband next season, is unhappy and wants to leave. In addition to that, local tabloids have exposed a rift between Germans (including Mark van Bommel) and José/Jacques/Gianni Foreigners, pronounced the tragic death of the "Poldi and Schweini" double-act - "we are actually very different and hardly see each other off the pitch," Schweinsteiger confessed recently - and hinted at players being envious of Toni and Ribéry's special privileges.

 

Dozens of articles point to a lack of clear leadership from Rummenigge and Hoeneß, who are evidently nervous about their investment of €100m, wages included. "Bayern: a palace without a roof," is Frankfurter Rundschau's verdict; the Berliner Zeitung sees the club as "a giant building site". The two architects must indeed shoulder the main portion of the blame, albeit for slightly different reasons.

 

Rummenigge and Hoeneß's real mistake was not being radical enough last year. They embarked on a cultural revolution - by spending big on big players - but unwisely chose the safest pair of hands to be its leader. Hitzfeld, the hungry, ruthless moderniser: it was always wishful thinking, a contradiction in terms. When the 58-year-old was reappointed 11 months ago, he was advertised as a revitalised man who had bravely caught up on all the latest training regimes. An initial flourish of attacking football moved Rummenigge to call him "the perfect manager for Bayern", but Hitzfeld's dignified, non-confrontational management style soon ran into trouble again. At Dortmund and during his first time in Munich, he had been unable to motivate teams that had won everything. When this team began to believe they were going to win everything, Hitzfeld uttered public warnings but obviously could not find the right words in the dressing room.

 

Even more worryingly for the bosses, the players have shown little, if any tactical development under his tutelage. Everything seems contingent on individual sparks of genius; they haven't developed any discernible system of play. Free-kicks and corners have been embarrassingly harmless, too. And even Hitzfeld loyalists can't figure out why the manager never seems to make any decent substitutions. Against sheepish Hertha, he needlessly persisted with two holding midfielders until the very end and made his first and only change in the 82nd minute: a striker for a striker. Maybe he's a prisoner of the past and has developed a bad case of cainophobia as a result of terrible experiences: in the Champions League final of 1999, he put on Thorsten "mis-hit of the century" Fink for Lothar Matthäus with five minutes to go, whereas he took off Ribéry much too early against Bolton. But whatever the reason, the strange paralysis on the touchline has certainl

 

Hitzfeld's shortcomings have only been discussed obliquely by the press because "the General" is an eminently nice, decent guy, whereas the brash pair of Kalle and Uli are much easier targets. The point is, neither party wants to continue the relationship beyond May 2008: the classic lame duck scenario looms large, as well as a long, complicated search for the next manager. Bayern will still win it, of course, mainly because Bremen are more open at the back than a diarrhoeic humpback whale. Please come back in six weeks to find out the details. Frohes Fest und guten Rutsch.

 

Results: Cottbus 5-1 Hannover, Hertha 0-0 Bayern, Bremen 5-2 Leverkusen, Karlsruhe 1-1 HSV, Wolfsburg 4-0 Dortmund, Bielefeld 2-0 Stuttgart, Schalke 2-1 Nürnberg, Rostock 2-0 Bochum, Duisburg 0-1 Frankfurt.

Edited December 17, 2007 by Dr Gloom

[Ally 0]

Should spend less time on the golf courses tbh.

 

I want to read that dossier again, has anyone got it?

[Guest alex]

http://www.hitzfeldforthetoon.info/ottmarhitzfelddossier.pdf

[Dr Gloom 22542]

all 30 pages worth

[Ally 0]

http://www.hitzfeldforthetoon.info/ottmarhitzfelddossier.pdf

 

Get in.

[Dr Gloom 22542]

got to love those golf courses

[peasepud 59]

Its all gone horribly Pete Tong

 

wheres the golf courses and invention of the light bulb gone?

[Guest stevieintoon]

http://www.hitzfeldforthetoon.info/ottmarhitzfelddossier.pdf

 

Get in.

I'm sure I'm the only one who doesn't know, but what was the story behind HTT wanting to batter someone, and posting their address on his forum as "revenge". Genuinely I don't know.

[Guest alex]

http://www.hitzfeldforthetoon.info/ottmarhitzfelddossier.pdf

 

Get in.

I'm sure I'm the only one who doesn't know, but what was the story behind HTT wanting to batter someone, and posting their address on his forum as "revenge". Genuinely I don't know.

Ask Peasepud.

[Guest stevieintoon]

http://www.hitzfeldforthetoon.info/ottmarhitzfelddossier.pdf

 

Get in.

I'm sure I'm the only one who doesn't know, but what was the story behind HTT wanting to batter someone, and posting their address on his forum as "revenge". Genuinely I don't know.

Ask Peasepud.

Did Peasepud take the piss?

[Guest alex]

Peasepud faked a Hitzfeld interview with a German newspaper and HTT fell for the joke and lost his blob. Peasepud will recall the details better than me. Or just ask Chris. *laughs*

[Guest stevieintoon]

Peasepud faked a Hitzfeld interview with a German newspaper and HTT fell for the joke and lost his blob. Peasepud will recall the details better than me. Or just ask Chris. *laughs*

 

Hitzfeld would probably have been a good choice as toon boss. Regards N/O though, it's amazing how many sheep there are, I think of some of the posters more like computer programs than people.