By Ben McFadyean.
The first round of the Bayern Munich v Borussia Dortmund rivalry on Saturday was always going to be telling in a league where the two sides have been tied on points at the top since matchday 4, and even more so for one that is crying out for a change after one team has won 9 out of 10 Meisterschaften over the past decade.
The late kick-off, which ended 2-2, turned out to be one of the most enthralling ties between the two at the Allianz Arena, since the first ever in which Dortmund ran out a 2-0 winner in 64/65, but were Bayern critically hobbled by the absence of Vincent Kompany in the dugout? Or was Dortmund’s resilience a sign that things might really be hotting up to be one of the competitive Bundesliga seasons?
Niko Kovac undoubtedly once more implemented tactics which demonstrated his ability to get bold tactical, high-intensity pressing out of the side, and to boot, decisive second-half substitutions of bringing on the revitalised Nicos Karetsas for the misfiring Maxi Beier and doubling down on the offence by bringing in Fabio Silva for Felix Nmecha and adding holding depth with the substitution of Carney Chukwuemeka for Marcel Sabitzer. The determination and bullishness of the Dortmund side forced Bayern on to the back foot. Few in the league will want to see more of the gamesmanship on display last in the season ahead – was the Bayern side absent of Vincent Kompany’s steer really a realistic reflection of Bayern’s prowess?
Interviewing the UK’s leading Bundesliga TV expert, Raphael Honigstein, ahead of last season’s Klassiker, on the Dortmund Fan Club London Podcast, he was asked why German clubs are so reluctant to hire international coaches without experience in the Bundesliga. His response, which rang out like a shot, was telling: “the language, for one,” the Munich-born presenter and author elaborated: “When a coach comes from abroad, say Diego Simeone for example, they also bring with them lots of ‘mini Simeones’, so it’s hard for the German club to keep an overview, especially if the coaching staff doesn’t have a real command of German.”
The TV presenter, who now spends most of his time as a certified football agent, underlined his point: “The club want to be fully on top of what the coaching staff are doing, and the language is obviously paramount”. After 8 games, the lead at the top of the Bundesliga table is closer than it has been for years; are Bayern currently hobbled by language challenges in the coaching team?
When the coach of a recently relegated Burnley side was appointed manager, albeit a former world-class player who had swept everything before him in the club game, and came with good German skills and two seasons at Hamburger SV, some in the game met the appointment of Vincent Kompany with surprise.
Uncharacteristically for one of the most respected clubs in the game, the appointment to replace Julian Nagelsmann dragged out over a long three months. What’s more, during the search they were rebuffed by multiple top candidates, many of whom publicly. Among those approached, Xabi Alonso, Unai Emery, Oliver Glasner, as well as former Bayern coach Thomas Tuchel all declined the opportunity to manage the Rekordmeister.
The period since 2019 has been unusually unsettled, with five managers taking the reins in almost as many years again. Even Thomas Tuchel and Niko Kovac, who have won fifteen major trophies between them, both lasted little over a year in the hot seat of the 35-time Deutsche Meister. Will a relatively inexperienced coach in the form of the Belgian be able to break this trend? And how significant is this German El Clásico really for German football?
A farmer’s league?
A constant criticism of the Bundesliga is that it’s a farmer’s league, or a one-club league. Looking back over the last 12 years, in which the South German team have won all but 1 of the titles, it would be hard to disagree. But the picture is far from as one-sided as it looks. In 8 of the last 20 seasons the gap between first and second has been less than 8 points; in three it was less than 3.
Der Klassiker is, from a historical perspective, little more than a catchy moniker coined by the advertising industry for the official Bundesliga channel to bring the glamour of La Liga to the German league; even in the last 20 seasons, 7 different clubs have finished in the top two; those clubs include Stuttgart, Schalke, Leipzig, Wolfsburg, Leverkusen, and yes, of course BVB.
Since the Bundesliga was introduced in 1963/64, 29 of the 64 Bundesliga seasons were not won by the club from the Allianz Arena, and only 8 have been won by Dortmund; so how is Der Klassiker, which leans on a Spanish league in which Real Madrid and Barcelona have won 70% of the titles since La Liga was founded in 1929, a reflection of the reality of German football?
Much less since the German football Meisterschaft was first played, there have been 26 different champions, and not all even from Germany. Rapid Vienna won the Meisterschaft in the 1941-42 season in the short spell when Austria was occupied by Germany during World War II, since inception in 1903/04.
Indeed, if Germany had not been divided into two countries between 1949-t990 there could have been many more Meisterschaft winners, but that still does not take away from the astonishing achievement of Bayern Munich, especially in the modern era.
Bayern’s dominance is impressive but not all-conquering
Between Bayern’s first title in 1932 and their second, there was a huge gap of 37 years. Likewise, there was a 15-year gap between the Rekordmeister’s European Cup win in 1976 and their next in 2001.
To call the Bundesliga a two-horse race or even worse a farmer’s league similar to La Liga or Serie A is to do an injustice to the considerable achievements of other German clubs that not only excelled domestically but also in European competition.
Think of the great eras of clubs like Borussia Mönchengladbach, who between 1969 and 1979 won it all, winning not just five Meisterschaften but also three cup titles, two of which were the UEFA Cup, the predecessor of the Europa League. Or the era between 1934 and 1942 when Schalke 04 won six championships and the DFB Pokal, the German FA Cup.
1 FC Nürnberg, who are known as Der Club, also led the way with 6 national titles and 3 cup wins between 1919 and 1939. Whilst Werder Bremen have only four Meisterschaften, they too have won 11 national trophies, of which 5 came between 1987 and 1999, and the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1992. Hamburger SV likewise were a veritable power house of the German in the 1970s and 80s, winning two European Cups and gaining 5 domestic honours.
The main eras of domination of the Bavarian giants have been between 1969-1974, with four national titles, and the same number of Pokal titles, and notably 3 European Cup, the predecessor of the Champions League, titles. 1984-90, in which four of each of the national titles and cups were won. The age of massive domination by Die Roten has therefore really been from the 2000s onwards, when they have won all but 6 national titles.
The pressures at the helm of Bayern Munich are telling
A picture is painted of the expectations on any coach taking on the Bayern Munich hot seat, one which is do or die. Any coach who does not bring home Silverware, or more to the point, the Meisterschaft, at the very least, will not last long. That fits perfectly for the Bayern of the 2000s, and even the almost mythic reputation of the 86-time Belgian international, Kompany, doesn’t isolate him from that pressure.
The recent news that Vincent Kompany was taken to hospital last week after collapsing at the Säbener Straße, the club’s first-team training ground, and the follow-up reports of a diagnosis of stress-related conditions, including a reported inflammation of the brain as a result of a severe viral infection, came as a shock to admirers of Kompany’s career as a player, where his indomitable performances in defence over a long seventeen-year career earned him the nickname “Comcrete”. The resulting layoff, which leading publication Sport 1 reports could be as long as “two to three weeks”, will undoubtedly also put the players under additional pressure but is entirely understandable.
Even for a club as used to success as “die Roten” Kompany’s astonishing ascent from relegation with Burnley to a stunning triple of Pokal and Meisterschaft, and the Pre-season Super Cup, in his first season came as an overwhelming suprise, not just for the 16 point gap over second place Dortmund, but for matching the achievements of the incredible seasons of 1986/87 and 2012/13 when the side lost only a single game all season, but also reaching the semifinal of the Champions League, missing out only narrowly to eventual winners Paris Saint Germain.
What’s more, prior to Burnley, Kompany, who only turned 40 in April, was limited to just 2 seasons with Anderlecht, in which the 34-time champions of Belgium’s only real achievement was UEFA Conference League qualification, and a fourth-placed finish in a 4-year contract which ended abruptly after just 2 in 2022. Even based on his runaway success of the EFL Championship title in 22/23 with Burnley, the appointment by the 5-time European champions was a bold one.
The absence of the gaffer, however, also presents an opportunity for his support team, including forty-three-year-old Birmingham-born Aaron Danks. The UEFA Pro-licence holder who stood on the sidelines with the Belgian manager at Anderlecht before departing for Aston Villa to be assistant to Stephen Gerrard for 21/22 in a season when the club finished 14th, gaining a one-off appearance on the sidelines in a 4-0 win over Brentford before being replaced by Unai Emery.
England’s Aaron Danks in a rare class of his own in the German league
The sight of the British coach taking questions from German media in English at Bayern’s press conference before the Klassiker, the club’s twice-annual league match-up against the 8-time champions Dortmund takes the reader full circle back to the words of warning of Bayern Munich season ticket-holder and club member, top TV analyst Raphael Honigstein: “a foreign coach like Diego Simeone also brings with them lots of mini Simeones, which is hard for the club, especially if they don’t speak German” – the exact situation the South German club currently find themselves in.
Of the four-man assistant manager team made up of former Rochdale analyst and New York City manager Daniel Fradley, former Dortmund and Leeds United assistant manager Rene Maric, and former Sparta Rotterdam defender who supported Kompany as assistant manager at both Anderlecht and Burnley, Florian N’Galula, although Fradley has a fair command of the language, only Maric speaks German completely fluently.
The 3 games Kompany has been sidelined have resulted in a brutal 6-1 thumping of second-tier Magdeburg in the Pokal and a resounding 3-1 win at what is always a trying destination Freiburg’s Europa Park and a very hard-fought and ultimately for Danks team dissapointing draw against Borussia Dortmund at the Allianz Arena, only the second time the black and yellows have gained points on the road in Munich in 12 years.
Recent Ballon d’Or winner Harry Kane does not miss many penalties, and a disallowed goal and equaliser in the dying minutes left yesterday night’s tie in front of the highly partisan crowd at the Allianz Arena feeling highly deflated, especially as it came against Dortmund, and with a challenging trip to Atletico’s Estadio Metropolitano on Tuesday, may leave many clamouring for a return of Vincent Kompany to the dug out; however, the recovery is, according to media reports, expected to take as long as three weeks.
Vincent Kompany’s return eagerly anticipated at the Allianz Arena
With Werder, Freiburg, Leipzig and Dortmund all within 3 points at the top, even with what can be expected to be a guaranteed 6 points in games at Mainz and Cologne coming up in the next weeks, for the Englishman on the sideline can be rewarding, but former Bayern manager Niko Kovac’s Schwarz-Gelben will be quick to take advantage of any further weaknesses.
In terms of British predecessors among managers in the German top tier, there is little to go on, even with the Eredivisie title with an unfancied Twente side in his sails, Steve McLaren won just 5 games out of the 21 played under his tutelage at VfL Wolfsburg in 10/11, and Scottish manager Mark Fotheringham stood in for former Fulham boss Felix Magath on the sidelines for one game at Hertha in 22/23 – albeit a resounding 3-0 win over Hoffenheim – that’s it.
Der Klassiker has earned its right to be ranked alongside the great rivalries, including Barca v Real, Manchester United v Liverpool, Fluminense v Flamengo, and tonight’s River Plate v Boca Juniors, but as outlined, it is also a vast oversimplification which gives little to no acknowledgement of the rich history and vast heritage of the fans’ league of choice – the league that the Manchester City legend whose achievements at the Etihad earned him the rare honour of a statue aside the East Stand has chosen to attempt to make his name in.
COMMENTS