Philipp Lahm’s Damning Verdict on Bayern Munich

Asking players or club officials during times of crisis about the reasons for their misery may be part of a journalist’s due diligence, but nobody ever expects to get an answer, that wasn’t taken straight out of the club’s prescribed dictionary: try harder, work harder, need a bit of luck, the team fully backs the coach, the new players just need a bit of time etc. We’re used to it by now and it allows for a whole striving punditry micro-economy to form alongside the clubs. The one surrounding Bayern Munich is widely expected to announce a record turnover for the first half of the 2009/2010 season. The club just can’t seem to kick into gear and has dropped to 8th place in the Bundesliga, while their Champions League campaign hangs by a thread, despite pumping €75m into the transfer market in the summer.

With the pressure mounting on Louis van Gaal, Philipp Lahm decided to back his coach and give a different type of interview for a change – dumping the diplomacy of empty phrases, reseting the preset and being blunt and honest for a change. In the unauthorized interview with German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, published just before Bayern’s home game against Schalke (1-1) on Saturday, Lahm attacked the club’s ruling aristocracy and their recent royally screwed up Real Madrid-esque transfer policy – while wielding a rhetoric chainsaw that accidentally cut off a couple of limbs of his team mates and his coach as well.

“If you want to compete with Barcelona, Chelsea, Manchester United, then Bayern needs a playing philosophy. That has to be the goal of the club.

In the past, the transfers were not always very successful … clubs like Manchester or Barcelona have a system and then you buy personnel for the system. You bring specific players and then you have a team. Something like that doesn’t exist here.

The club has to say, when a new coach comes, this is how we play … We have many players that have no position now in a 4-3-3 system that our coach would like to use, for example our strikers. We have really good forwards but if you play 4-3-3, two or three of them are always on the bench.

If you buy Mario Gomez, then you have to say, OK, we play with two strikers. We played the entire preseason with two strikers. And then suddenly, we get (Arjen) Robben, a great player who fits with us – and who prefers the 4-3-3 system. You can’t simply buy players because they are good.”

So far, so good, so true and so Philipp, where do Bayern need to make changes in the squad?

“Where are the players who can take the ball forward? Where is somebody, who can pick up the ball and move forward, play through balls and allow the rest of us to push up field. This is hardly ever happening … And then you buy e.g. Anatoliy Tymoshchuk, a second defensive midfielder – but then you begin playing with just one defensive midfielder again, following the Robben transfer.”

OK, the midfield with van Bommel and Tymoshchuk doesn’t cut it, Tymoshchuk is another case of wasted money and Ze Roberto is enjoying his time in Hamburg. But can Louis van Gaal do any better? His transfers – Pranjic and Braafheid – have been comprehensive flops as well?

“The coach may have made two transfers, that have been criticized, but he does have a good eye for what’s missing. I believe that we already have a coach who can build a team. He is probably sometimes difficult to handle for some players, he needs time, but I am firmly convinced he is a good coach.”

What do you mean with “difficult to handle”?

“A lot of players have a mix of respect and fear … E.g. we now make an analysis after every game: what did we do right and wrong? Some players can’t handle being criticized in front of the whole team: why did you play that pass? Why did you make this decision? I personally think this is a good thing and normal … (But) Some probably say to themselves: OK, I better play a backpass before I’m being criticized again for a bad pass in front of the whole team tomorrow.”

To wrap his interview up: the transfer policy has been a shambles, the midfield with van Bommel and Tymoshchuk can’t drive the game forward and players have a problem with the coach. While Philipp Lahm may have had the best intentions, and openly addressed the mistakes made by Hoeness, Rummenigge and the gang, he also managed to produce quite a lot of collateral damage by directly and indirectly criticizing his team mates and making public that the team has problems with van Gaal’s coaching methods. So the only person he may have helped here is Luca Toni. While Lahm grabbed all the media’s attention, Toni called it a day after being subbed off at half-time against Schalke and drove home early.

Bayern’s manager Uli Hoeness already made clear what he thinks of the interview by punishing Philipp Lahm with a club record monetary fine.

Do you think Lahm comprehensively summarized all that is and went wrong with the former Bavarian giants?

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Category: Bundesliga