Kahn’s Had it With All These Freakin’ Foreigners

By: Martha | December 11th, 2007

He-Man plays for Bayern Despite retaining their status as Bundesliga leaders, things are not well at Bayern Munich. Their form has dipped significantly recently, and after a goalless draw with 10-man Duisburg (who are second-bottom in the league), coach Ottmar Hitzfeld criticized his team’s focus and apparent obsession with “playing pretty football” rather than just winning. And Oiver Kahn, too, is pissed, though his criticism is a little different: The keeper recently told a German magazine that he’s sick to death of all the foreigners in the team. That’s class, that is.

Though Kahn never mentions a name over the course of the interview, it’s not too hard to guess who he’s talking about. A few sample quotes:

The new players need to get used to our high expectations. … It’s not enough to make a bright start — one or two players have to learn that two or three good games aren’t enough. … Bayern is not Marseille or Fiorentina — we are like Real Madrid, Barcelona or Manchester United.

Furthermore, it is hard to get the team together as we always need three interpreters. We aren’t playing enjoyable football anymore and every game it is getting a bit worse.

Hmm. Let’s see: New arrivals, bright starts, Marseille and Fiorentina, needing interpreters. Going through the files here, I see only two people about whom Kahn could be talking: Franck Ribery and Luca Toni, both of whom blew into Germany like they were wearing capes, but lately have cooled off significantly. (And literally, in terms of Ribery, who’s apparently been complaining about the cold in Munich. Poor baby.)

Brilliant move there, Oli — fragment your team further, just as things are at their most difficult.

Reassuringly, Hitzfeld has immediately moved to punish He-Man for his idiocy (as well as offered a wordless vote of confidence to his costly foreigners), and the mouthy keeper will find his ass on the bench for this weekend’s match against Hertha Berlin for “disciplinary reasons,” and has as been fined €25,000 for offenses that have not been made public but are abundantly obvious. Now all Bayern need is for Toni get a brace this weekend, and everything will be fine again.

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Category: Bundesliga, French Ligue 1, Serie A, World Football

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Lisa

I think Juliet's right about the motivation, he'd like to go out on top, but Kahn's an idiot if he actually thought that calling teammates out in a public way was going to help anything.

Also, I'm trying hard not to gloat about Bayern having internal issues. And failing.
Abby

I'm not sure whether this is a good thing for me or not. I'm all for Bayern fighting amongst themselves before they play us, but the last thing I want is those guys with something to prove.
Jan

Bayern Munich made a few signings this year including Hamit Altintop, Marcell Jansen, Jan Schlaudraff, Miro Klose, Ze Roberto and of course Ribery and Toni. Ribery and Toni are the only players who have no previous Bundesliga experience. This is the easiest way to explain why he picked those two.
mele419

Toni and Ribery are pretty much the most different than Kahn, so I'd say that's why he pointed them out, instead of say Podilski, since Polish, German, close enough...
Etc, etc.

Then again maybe I'm wrong here. I don't know much about Bayern, I only see a few of their games/season.

But yep, pure class this one is.
Paul

But what's the point of singling out Toni and Ribery? Why not point fingers at the whole team? Watching the last few games it has been the midfield that has been lackluster rather than any of the forwards. As a forward, if you don't get service from the midfield, you can't do anything, regardless of your work rate.