It didn’t take long for all the good vibes to vanish. Bayern Munich’s honeymoon phase with new coach Thomas Tuchel has abruptly landed in the rear view mirror, with Tuesday’s DFB-Pokal quarter-final exit to SC Freiburg a stark reminder that there’s much work ahead.
“A very bitter defeat. It’s not easy to analyze the game, in the end everyone will talk about the result,” veteran Thomas Müller said after the game (from Das Erste, via @iMiaSanMia). “I thought we didn’t play a bad game, we had chances but lacked precision and efficiency in the final third.
“We know Freiburg is a team that fights and works together. We put pressure on them and pushed them back especially in the second half. As I said, we missed something in the final third. It’s very disappointing.”
Indeed, credit to the visitors must be balanced against a run of near misses and almost-chances — par for the course this season for Bayern’s sometimes sputtering, sometimes overwhelming attack. It didn’t matter against Borussia Dortmund, where the lack of a fifth, sixth, or seven goal was irrelevant. Against Freiburg, Bayern were made to pay for not putting it away. And they did have chances.
“We only scored one goal, that wasn’t enough for the dominance we had,” lamented midfielder Leon Goretzka (via Az’s Maximilian Koch). “We didn’t manage to go to Berlin again. It’s deeply rooted, it’s a bitter pill.”
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