PSG Embarrasses Bayern; Ancelotti Ousted
The Qatar-based owners of Paris-St Germain made no secret that a Champions League trophy is their top priority.
Dudes definitely put their dinar where they dreams were when they shelled out mega-dosh to pry Neymar away from Barcelona.
With that sorta firepower -- and then some -- PSG was the last club FC Bayern needed to see in their state of inner turmoil.
The German juggernaut hasn't looked that way in the early going this season, and all signs indicated they were cruising for a bruising like the one Les Rouge-et-Bleu laid on them in Paris.
3-0. Autsch!
What followed was so predictable that veteran Dutch international Arjen Robben didn't even try to be diplomatic:
| The lineup is the coach’s business. I will say nothing about it. Every word in this case would be one too many. |
Well, Bayern legend and current chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge used two words, actually.
One of them was You're.
It didn't help manager Carlo Ancelotti's case when Les Parisiens only needed 84 seconds after kickoff to grab the lead.
FC Hollywood was a step slow on that one and never recovered:
The knock on Ancelotti has long been he rides on the talents of high-value signings rather than leads them.
As an example, Bayern's season last year looked much more like the departed Pep Guardiola's side than his. Near manic attention to detail was replaced by virtual anarchy on the pitch.
Thus, the farther Die Roten got from Guardiola's system, the less prepared they looked. It seems to have caught up with them in the Bundesliga already, which meant a Champions League match against another super-club would not bode well.
Rumminigge was not about to tolerate a further deterioration. It was more than clear that Ancelotti had lost the squad.
Look for Hoffenheim's Julian Nagelsmann to be approached sooner rather than later. His side conquered Bayern, 2-0, earlier this season.
With any change, Bayern will welcome a return to some sort of order.
Whether that results in a quick return to domestic dominance, much less being competitive again internationally, is still an open question. It's up to Rumminigge to provide the answer.