Bayern Munich: the strange secret meeting to find Thomas Tuchel’s successor

This is one of the big issues at the end of the season on the football planet. But who will take over from Thomas Tuchel at the head of Bayern Munich? For several weeks now, the presses have been torn between several profiles mentioned in numerous rumors. There was long propaganda around Xabi Alonso before the Spanish coach announced he was staying at Bayer Leverkusen. Then came the period of Julian Nagelsmann, who finally extended his contract at the head of the German selection. There was also the sweet dream around Zinedine Zidane. And finally, the attempt to attract Unai Emery who also renewed his lease at his club Aston Villa. Failures are therefore becoming more and more legion in the Bayer offices and even the listed plan Bs are falling through. From now on, the search for a coach at the Rekordmeister continues and a hot trail leads to Austria.

New priority for Bayern Munich for its bench, Ralf Rangnick (65 years old) is for the moment still the coach of Austria. Under contract until June 2026 and engaged this summer during Euro 2024 with his selection, the former coach of Schalke 04, RB Leipzig and Manchester United is very popular with the Rekordmeister to replace Thomas Tuchel who will leave at the end of the season. For this, it will be necessary to pay fees to the Austrian federation to recruit him but this is not the only thing that Bayern Munich will have to do since the German coach seems to require full powers to take the reins of the Bavarian ogre. He would like to have the last word on the transfer window and the sporting decisions of Bayern Munich. In other words, he wants to find himself above in the hierarchy of Max Eberl the general director of sports and Christoph Freund the sports director.

Everything can happen very quickly!

While he declared a few days ago: “I feel comfortable here. I still have a contract until 2026, and our goal and our path continue after the Euro”, Ralf Rangnick is getting closer and closer to the Allianz Arena. Indeed, according to information from the German newspaper BILDthis media release was mainly “perceived more as a courtesy towards the Austrian association than as a rejection of advances from Bavaria”. Moreover, still according to the indiscretions of BILD, an important meeting with Rangnick took place this weekend. Since then, he has been thinking intensively about the proposal made by the Bayern management. If all this progresses in the right direction as planned, the final details could be settled as early as this week. There will be another meeting at Bayern planned this week where the other names will be discussed again, with the aim being to find consensus between the leaders.

The German newspaper adds that “the old dispute between Uli Hoeneß (72) and Ralf Rangnick, who once called him a ‘know-it-all’, has long been resolved”. This is enough to start off on a very good basis if the negotiations were to be concluded in the coming days. There have been contacts several times in the past, in 2017 he was mentioned as a sporting director, and in 2019 the Munich team were interested in him as a coach, and there had discussions. In addition, the German coach also rubbed shoulders with sports director Christoph Freund (46). Both worked in Salzburg between 2012 and 2015, Rangnick was then sports director and Freund sports coordinator. Eberl and Rangnick also have a good relationship. There are therefore no bickering or harmful elements known to date that would prevent Ralf Rangnick from taking the helm of Bayern Munich.