Julian Nagelsmann was fired as coach of Bayern Munich last Thursday. The last straw that broke the camel’s back was the 2-1 loss to Bayer Leverkusen.
In light of a string of outcomes that fell short of the high expectations the Bavarian club had set for itself over the years, the club’s motivations were solely sports.
But, as of late, the publication ‘Bild’ has revealed that as many as six key players in the locker room were completely cut off from the coach and had no personal connection. Nagelsmann was fired for a variety of non-sporting reasons in addition to the outcomes, as MARCA revealed following his dismissal.
The six players that “made the bed” for Nagelsmann during his time as Bayern coach are listed in the German publication. Considering that Joao Cancelo has already voiced his dissatisfaction with the coach, there might even be seven.
‘Bild’s’ ‘blacklist’ has Manuel Neuer and Sven Ulreich as the first two players mentioned. The Bavarian club’s former goalkeeping coach Toni Tapalovic was supposedly fired, which was the cause. They both took a stand against Nagelsmann because they found this decision to be inexplicable.
Apart from the pair of goalkeepers, the former coach of Bayern had minimal interaction with the players and included heavyweights like Serge Gnabry, Leroy Sane, Jamal Musiala, and Sadio Mane in the squad.
Cancelo, who joined Bayern in January but was not given the position he had anticipated, also felt uneasy with Nagelsmann. He expressed his annoyance and aggravation with the circumstance even during a training session.
It’s true that not every member of the Bayern team was against the previous coach; in fact, Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka publicly opposed Nagelsmann’s firing. Still, the ‘Nagelsmann era’ at Bayern ended with a few bad games and far too many non-sporting concerns, and Thomas Tuchel’s period started there.