As for the big occasions, it is at the Allianz Arena that Bayern presented Saturday noon Tuchel, its new coach until the summer of 2025, because the small press room at the headquarters of the Munich club at Säbener Strasse would have struggled to accommodate the twenty cameras.

The day before in the evening, Bayern had announced the sidelining of its coach Julian Nagelsmann, under contract until 2026, after an average series in the Bundesliga (five wins, two losses and three draws) and the chair of leader ceded to Borussia Dortmund after a defeat in Leverkusen on Sunday (2-1), nine days before the end of the season.

On Saturday at 12:30 p.m., Thomas Tuchel entered the auditorium, alongside sporting director Hasan Salihamidzic and CEO Oliver Kahn, and confessed his astonishment during the first contacts with the Bayern management, which began only Tuesday evening and ended a little more than 48 hours later.

"Whether you believe me or not, I was a little circumspect in the first thirty seconds of our first discussion. I didn't know what we were discussing. It became clear pretty quickly that it was for now," explained the technician, winner of the Champions League with Chelsea in 2021.

"Obligation to win"

All smiles, dressed in a dark blue jacket over a dark blue T-shirt, Thomas Tuchel said he had rather left to pursue his career abroad, with interests according to the media of Real Madrid and Tottenham, when the Munich phone calls began. "As I said, there had been no contact before."

Oliver Kahn and Thomas Tuchel in Munich on March 25, 2023 © Christof STACHE / AFP

With Bayern, "the DNA is known, there is the obligation of victories," insisted the native of Krumach, a hundred kilometers from Munich. "It is an obligation, there can be no misunderstanding."

"The group is one of the most talented and one of the best in Europe at the moment. It's a huge challenge," he insisted. For him, when you sign for Bayern, it is to join the fight for all the titles and "win as many as possible".

The club is still involved in three competitions this season, in the Champions League with a double header against Manchester City in the quarter-finals, in the German Cup with a quarter against Freiburg, and in the league where they are only one point behind Dortmund.

After a first training on Monday with the players not selected in the selection, "TT" will recover its internationals to prepare its first match on the Munich bench, against Borussia for a "Klassiker" scheduled for Saturday, April 1 (18:30), decisive in the attribution of the title.

"This is THE match in German football," said the Munich coach, who spent time with Dortmund between 2015 and 2017, before signing for Paris SG (2018-2020) and Chelsea (2021-2022).

Before presenting their new coach, Oliver Kahn and Hasan Salihamidzic justified, mines closed for a good half hour, their "unpopular" choice to part with Julian Nagelsmann, while denying a "panic reaction".

After the defeat in Leverkusen (2-1, on two penalties conceded), the leaders analyzed the situation and came to the conclusion that the "performance curve" was oriented downwards. "The relationship between the coach and the team was no longer working," Salihamidzic said.

© 2023 AFP