It was only short, but had serious consequences: top teams in the Bundesliga in particular are having major problems finding their form again after the winter break.
If you talk to football coaches in private away from the microphones, the desire to play through a season in one go is often expressed, as is the case in most other sports. It’s difficult to say that publicly because it doesn’t fit into the discussion about the ever-increasing burden on players due to ever-increasing international schedules. Would you like to take your breather around Christmas and the turn of the year? At least difficult.
The coaches in particular also know about the pitfalls of this winter break. Your players don’t lose so much in fitness, but in form. When the preparation starts, it starts almost from scratch in terms of football, the automatisms have to be practiced again and players are no longer in their flow. And there are actually always teams that don’t do well at this restart – this year it affects some of the best teams of the first half of the season.
FC Bayern has a training face and a playing face
This led to FC Bayern Munich losing a game against Werder Bremen (0-1) for the first time in 15 years on Sunday (January 21, 2024). The 3-0 win at the start of the year against TSG Hoffenheim was nowhere near as convincing as the result sounds. Thomas Tuchel repeatedly emphasized how well his team was training. But what happens in the games shows how little that says.
“I’m tired of saying that we’re training well. Nobody believes me anymore. You don’t have to be top on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, but especially on Sunday,” said the Bayern coach after the Bremen embarrassment . His team played “as if we were leading the league by ten points and had a Champions League game on Tuesday. We wanted to play a Bundesliga game between high spirits and slow pace,” said Tuchel.
Leverkusen as a Bayern role model
The 50-year-old tried to counteract a possible low in performance after the winter break with an unusual measure. Like almost all Bundesliga clubs, Bayern completed a training camp abroad, but they only traveled to Portugal for a few days after the Hoffenheim game. In view of the Bremen appearance, it seems as if this measure did not work. On Wednesday, Munich must make amends in the catch-up game against Union Berlin – or the already tense situation threatens to escalate.
Especially since Bayer Leverkusen is increasingly increasing the pressure on the record champions. The championship leader is now seven points ahead of his pursuer. And the Werkself are showing Bayern how to prevent the onset of winter. Xabi Alonso’s team no longer plays as overwhelming football as they did before the break, but they win their games with real shows of strength. Both at FC Augsburg (1:0) and at RB Leipzig (3:2) the decision was made in stoppage time.
Leipzig has forgotten how to win
Leverkusen is not only a reason for Bavarian nervousness, but also for the sadness in Leipzig. Because RB not only lost this game, but had also previously lost out against Eintracht Frankfurt (0-1). The last vague title hopes are gone and now qualification for the Champions League is in danger. Before the winter break, Leipzig had won four of the last five competitive games (one draw), now Marco Rose said: “We have to learn to win football games.”
And as quickly as possible. The RB coach’s approach for the upcoming game at VfB Stuttgart on Saturday: “We have to develop the feeling that we’ve had enough. That it hurt us enough to lose twice at home.”
Stuttgart coach Hoeneß wants to “keep the phase short”
What sounds like a top game is more of a crisis duel. The third hosts the fourth, but: Like Leipzig, Stuttgart has not yet scored a point this year. And the opponents were Borussia Mönchengladbach (1:2) and VfL Bochum (0:1), plus two teams from the bottom half of the table. The euphoria of the first half of the season? Gone. The damage caused by the winter break is most blatant in Stuttgart. A not uncommon phenomenon for surprise teams like VfB this season.
VfB coach Sebastian Hoeneß
“These phases exist. Now it’s important that we have a good balance of coolness and unity as well as an awareness that you can’t just get through these phases. We have to work hard on ourselves if we do all this, I am convinced that we can keep this phase short,” said Stuttgart coach Sebastian Hoeneß. But in Leipzig and Munich they will also aim to ensure that the onset of winter is only short-lived.
2024-01-23 00:30:57
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