FC Bayern basketball players: The pain after losing the championship against Alba – Sport

Euroleague playoffs, cup victory and title defense: That was the task for FC Bayern’s basketball players – things couldn’t be smaller in this club. However, this is in the job description for every player, coach or official who gets involved with the Munich glittering club. In this respect, the report card for the season that ended on Sunday evening can only be: unsatisfactory! The President himself had often reminded people of the goals, only to gradually reduce them. Before the decisive fifth championship final game of the best-of-five series against Alba Berlin, Herbert Hainer said that the national title would bring the club a reconciliatory end. But then the Munich basketball world got out of hand.

Hainer could no longer be spoken to. This also applied to Uli Hoeneß, who initiated the club’s basketball project 15 years ago and wanted to attend the championship celebrations in the magnificent arena in the Olympic Park, which was sold out with 11,500 spectators. The playing staff also quickly left, only Niels Giffey tried to explain the inexplicable, which turned out accordingly: “We are all extremely frustrated with how we handled it. I can’t say why. The entire season was very hard and is now leaving behind frustration. Frustration is now the first emotion, because we had it in our hands.”

Bayern lead by 20 points at halftime and, like in the fourth game in Berlin, collapsed completely

Indeed, the Munich team led by 20 points at the break. They also confidently fended off the first attack from Berlin, who had found their way back into the game in the third quarter (46:52), and went into the final quarter with a still impressive 66:53 lead. The game went well, the defense worked snappy, and Andreas Obst, the most important points provider in Bayern’s system, once again did his job in an exemplary manner with 24 points. But then Berlin fought back again, and with every successful three-point throw, Munich’s self-confidence disappeared like a red balloon.

Coach Svetislav Pesic also couldn’t give any impetus from the sidelines. He admitted in his last and remarkable press conference that he had not been able to “form a team,” as he put it, out of the ensemble of highly talented people. A unit that knows how to pull itself together in difficult moments and come back, as the opponent had demonstrated. When they lost the cup in their own stadium against Bamberg, Munich looked like the winner for a long time, but collapsed completely in extra time. To the 76-year-old Pesic’s credit, he had nothing to do with the composition of the squad: that was still a matter for his predecessor, world champion coach Gordon Herbert, and sports director Dragan Tarlac. Herbert had to pack his bags at Christmas because of a disastrous series of defeats in the Euroleague, Tarlac will be replaced by Ulm’s sports director Thorsten Leibenath.

Pesic, who was world champion as a coach in 2002, represents the old Yugoslavian school; the most important parameters of his work are identification, discipline and enthusiasm, as he explained in the SZ interview. He likes to talk about “so-called modern basketball,” which he believes places too much emphasis on spectacle. Defense is at the center of his game idea. And if there is a bump in the attack, which is usually the case when world and European champion Andreas Obst doesn’t score, the players reach their limits. Then one after the other gets bogged down in individual actions, which strong opponents in the Euroleague know how to take advantage of. Or the Berliners.

Players like Isaiah Mike and Justinian Jessup have been out of form for weeks, while Justus Hollatz and Nenad Dimitrijevic were unable to turn things around in difficult moments. Pesic has fallen out with veterans Xavier Rathan-Mayes and Stefan Jovic, who hasn’t even been in the squad for weeks. The coach said he did his best, but some players had “certain habits” that he didn’t allow: “Individual quality is important, but basketball is a team sport.”

A new team will lead the rebuilding of the Bayern basketball team

Harsh words about what is undoubtedly the best selection in the league, by far the most expensive squad. This squad will now change its face: Rathan-Mayes, Jovic and Dimitrijevic will go, which probably also applies to Leon scratch and David McCormack. Rokas Jokubaitis, who tore his cruciate ligament at the European Championships in the fall and was missing the entire season, will be in charge of the game in the future. In Johannes Thiemann, another world and European champion has been confirmed as an entry. A new team should lead the rebuilding: Sports director Leibenath has earned merits in Ulm, including the championship title in 2023. In addition, the move of coach Anton Gavel, 41, from Bamberg can be considered almost certain despite a valid contract, which would complete the Ulm champions. Gavel could be someone like his football colleague Vincent Kompany: young, dynamic, hungry for success and with the right mix of authority and player proximity. One of those “so-called young, modern coaches,” as Pesic used to say with a mocking undertone. And Gavel knows the club: from 2014 to 2018 he played in Munich, where he ended his active career in 2018 with the championship title. As a coach, he became champion with Ulm and cup winner with Bamberg in February.

The recent background noise that the former Bamberg patron Michael Stoschek caused in an interview should be put to rest with a transfer fee. At least that’s what Uli Hoeneß indicated at halftime on the Dyn microphone. The world of Munich was still in order back then.