When it was all over, when the first FC Bayern players dropped disappointedly on the grass a few meters away, Julian Nagelsmann first grabbed a bottle, a water bottle.

The coach took a long gulp before rising from his seat on the Munich bench and doing what needed to be done that evening.

To congratulate the opponent from Villarreal, to cheer up their own players - and to think about a few answers to questions that are unavoidable when the German record champions have missed the second title chance of the season.

Like last year, Bayern failed in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, but this time not against Paris Saint-Germain and thus a club from the European top floor, but against FC Villarreal, a small-town club without any big stars, which despite the reputation it has acquired in the competition , to be an uncomfortable opponent, was considered an outsider.

After the 0:1 in the first leg, the Munich team didn't manage to defeat the Spaniards in the second duel either.

Nagelsmann called the 1-1 in the Munich Arena, which was sold out in a premier class game for the first time since the end of 2019, “one of the best games of the past few months”.

But he had no explanation as to why a side of Bayern's class failed to score more than that one goal by Robert Lewandowski in the 52nd minute.

Instead, the Munich team conceded a goal shortly before the end by Samu Chukwueze (88th), because initially Gerard Moreno had not been attacked enough and then Alphonso Davies canceled the offside.

A punchline is that both Chukwueze and Davies had only recently been brought on as a substitute.

"They Tried Everything"

"I don't know what to say," said an otherwise rarely speechless Thomas Müller.

"The course of the game didn't actually mean that this game ended 1-1.

We pressed, pressed, pressed.” Nagelsmann also saw his team as having a clear advantage, they were “tactically disciplined, tactically good too, defensively and offensively”.

And this performance put the first leg "in a worse light".

The Bayern coach may still find a few deficits in the Munich game with a little distance, because despite all the dominance and toxicity in the duels, there was only a short phase after the break, when the opening goal was scored and then Müller another very good one The chance was missed, the momentum going forward, the esprit it would have taken to break through the Spaniards' defense.

"I don't think you can blame the team," said CEO Oliver Kahn.

"You tried everything."

Anything that Bayern are capable of at the moment.

And that's not quite what they've shown a couple of times this season.

In the group stage of the Champions League, for example, when they beat FC Barcelona 3-0 twice - and were then traded as the top favorite for the European crown.

But the closer the decisive phase of the season got, the more inconsistent the performances became.

It may have something to do with the many injuries, with the long absences of Leon Goretzka or Davies in the second half of the season, for example, with the many changes due to the personnel situation and with smaller or larger dents in the form of key players.

But maybe a few unresolved contractual situations like Lewandowski or Müller have distracted from the essentials.

Nagelsmann doesn't want to know anything about the fact that this disturbed the concentration or even caused unrest in the team.

“That would be too much of an alibi for me,” he says.

He will learn his lessons from the failure at Villarreal, "but definitely not blame anyone for it".

Those responsible at FC Bayern will not give him the other way around either.

At least not publicly.

"We will not burst into tears now, but will attack again next year," says Kahn.

However, Nagelsmann knows that the evaluation of his job in the first year and that of the entire season "also depends a bit on how we shape the championship".

A prerequisite for ensuring that his image does not get any major scratches is a sovereign defense of the large lead in the Bundesliga, including victory over pursuer Borussia Dortmund in the prestige duel in one and a half weeks.

He would have a similar result as Hansi Flick last year.

"But I don't think that's enough for Bayern Munich," says Nagelsmann.

The semi-finals in the Champions League is, in addition to the championship title, "always the minimum goal".

That of the club and the team.

"And we didn't make it."