Bayern Munich Fans Send Detailed Open Letter of Complaint to Club

By: Daryl | August 24th, 2009

The big story in Germany right now is – as usual – Bayern Munich. The club has made a rocky start to the 2009/10 Bundesliga, with no wins, two draws and a defeat. Not exactly what Bayern fans are accustomed to.

It’s not unusual for fans of an unexpectedly struggling team to vent their frustrations on the internets. But rather than a simple “we suck”, Bayern fans have put together a detailed analysis of what they feel has gone wrong and posted it on the Transfer Markt forum as an open letter to the club.

Luke at Bayern Offside agrees with the content of the open letter, calling it“an expert piece of analysis”. So – for those of us who don’t speak German – what exactly does the letter say?

There’s a full translated version available here.

I’ve also put together a quick summary, based on my reading the translated version. I may have misread parts of it, so any corrections welcome:

1.1 The problem child of Defense
Bayern won the title in 2007/8 because of the strong defence, but since then the club has failed to strengthen in that area, and now Lucio has left for Inter. The club needed to sign someone like Darijo Srna or Jose Bosingwa at right back.

1.2 The (mis) cast the goalkeeper position since the retirement of Oliver Kahn
Basically, Kahn has not been adequately replaced. Neither Michael Rensnig nor Hans-Jörg Butt are good enough.

1.3 Catastrophic Kaderplanung in midfield, Kreativloch, lack of counterpart to Franck Ribery
There’s a lack of class in midfield. The loss of Ze Roberto, the faith in Bastian Schweinsteiger and the failure to sign Alexandr Hleb, Diego, Wesley Sneijder or Rafael van der Vaart all contribute to this. The latter to are still available, so act fast!

1.4 Louis van Gaal – curse or blessing for FC Bayern?
The new bosses diamond formation is not popular, especially because playing Franck Ribery at the tip of the diamond (instead of on the left) prevent him from using his pace and making “inward” runs from out wide. There’s also some dissatisfaction with Mark van Bommell playing as a #6 instead of #8.

1.5 The principle of performance and his lack of application
The players need to be selected on merit, not reputation. Bastian Schweinsteiger is again the target here.

1.6 False pride during transfers, media spectacle of the Board
The club should have sold Ribery to Real Madrid and used that money to strengthen the team.

All of which may be true. And it’s always good to see fans criticize their team analytically rather than just angrily. But does anyone else think maybe Bayern fans are over-reacting with the season only three games old?