After the equally long and Bayern’s embarrassing search for a coach it goes for Vincent Kompany finally started. The new coach of the Munich team celebrates in DFB Cup its premiere, Second division promoted Ulm is the opponent.
The Belgian will make sure that the titleless big club takes the little one seriously – a Cup-Blamage as has happened to Bayern several times before, would immediately reignite the whole drama surrounding the coaching position.
Ulm started with Rangnick
Ulm also remembers one of the coaching candidates who did not end up at FCB: From 1997 to 1999, the young Ralf Rangnick led the club from the southwest to the top for the first time.
After that, it was back to amateur football, and now Ulm is facing its biggest game in a long time. “Not just for us as a team. Also for us as a club, for the city of Ulm, for the entire region, for our fans,” explains SSV coach Thomas Woerle. “We are really looking forward to it.”
After his time in the House of Commons, Wörle says: “It is crazy what development we have taken.”
17,400 spectators – Rangnick received an invitation from his former club for the game – in the sold-out Donaustadion hope for a sensation: “A very small chance of winning the cup could become a little bigger. We will fight for that.”
Wörle also knows FC Bayern very well personally: the now 42-year-old won the championship with the Bayern women in 2015 and 2016.
The Ulm team knows how to knock a clearly favored Bundesliga team out of the cup: In August 2018 beat the then fourth division defending champion Eintracht Frankfurt with 2:1.
Where does Laimer play?
From an Austrian perspective, it will be exciting to see whether Endurance runner Konrad Laimer will also be set at Kompany – and in which position: In the centre of midfield, or at right back, where Bayern again seem thinly positioned?
As in the previous year, some transfer targets were not achieved. Xavi Simons prefers to stay in Leipzig rather than come to Munich, hurts the club’s great self-confidence.
About defense chief Jonathan Tahn Leverkusen continues to advertise.
The angry Managing Director Fernando CarroLeverkusen’s manager ranted at a fan meeting towards Bayern’s sports director: “So, I think nothing of Max Eberl, absolutely nothing! I wouldn’t negotiate with him.”
The next day the Spaniard apologized “as an emotional person” for Eberl.