On September 17th, Julian Nagelsmann, the football coach of FC Bayern, sat in the arena in Augsburg and said: “I think about everything.

About me.

About the situation.

About everything.” He and his team had just lost 1-0 to Augsburg on the seventh match day of the Bundesliga.

In the press conference you saw a man with doubts.

Christopher Meltzer

Sports correspondent in Munich.

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On September 30, Nagelsmann sat in the arena in Munich and said: "I didn't do anything differently.

Neither in the speech, nor in the one-on-one conversations, nor on the pitch.” He and his team had just won 4-0 against Leverkusen on the eighth match day of the Bundesliga.

In the press conference you saw a man without a doubt.

In the twelve days in between, in which the German football discourse was not about FC Bayern, but about the national team, Nagelsmann discussed with superiors and confidants.

The research basis:

a 1-1 draw against Mönchengladbach, a 1-1 draw against Union Berlin, a 2-2 draw against Stuttgart, and a 0-1 draw against Augsburg.

The research question:

Why haven't Bayern won a game in the Bundesliga since matchday four?

The research thesis:

The reason for the games without a win is not to be found in the structure and not in the game system of the team, but in the exploitation of opportunities.

And because a considerable discrepancy was found between the "I think about everything" press conference and the "I didn't do anything differently" press conference, one can certainly ask: Were the doubts - the basis of good research - really there?

This Tuesday (6.45 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for the Champions League and on DAZN) Julian Nagelsmann and FC Bayern start a 15-day program with the game against Viktoria Pilsen, which could be important for the evaluation of the research results: In in the preliminary round of the Champions League they play twice against Pilsen, the champions from the Czech Republic.

In the Bundesliga against fourth-placed Dortmund (8 October) and second-placed Freiburg (16 October).

And in the second round of the DFB Cup in Augsburg (October 19) - there, where the small crisis in the performance of the team and the coach had reached a climax.

It could be that Nagelsmann indicated more doubts in his emotional answers than he actually had.

At least that's how his analysis before the duel with Leverkusen ("We didn't use a few situations as well as we can") and his analysis afterwards ("We used the chances to score better") could be interpreted.

In those moments he seemed like a trainer who had certainly discussed and thought a lot in the past few weeks, but then came to the conclusion that there must be something to his research thesis.

There are several reasons why this thesis is correct.

Above all, the statistics (e.g. the expected goals, which indicate how many goals a team should have scored based on the quality of the scoring chances).

And yet you should at least keep in mind that there are probably two variables that could have falsified the result against Leverkusen - and could also falsify the results against Pilsen and Dortmund.

The first variable: Leverkusen.

Probably no team in Munich has been as inferior as the team of coach Gerardo Seoane this season.

At 0-1, Jamal Musiala sprinted away from left-back Mitchel Bakker.

At 0:2 the ball slipped under the arm of goalkeeper Lukáš Hrádecký.

At 0: 3, Sadio Mané was allowed to shoot from the edge of the penalty area.

And at 0:4 Hrádecký slipped.

"The thing that mustn't happen is that you're allowed to fall behind early on," Seoane said. "Unfortunately, that happened."

The second variable: Corona.

The leading players Joshua Kimmich and Thomas Müller will not be able to play against Pilsen this Tuesday.

They contracted the virus, which happened to Manuel Neuer and Leon Goretzka during the international break.

Because Müller and Kimmich are "asymptomatic", as Nagelsmann announced on Monday, he is "confident" for the Dortmund game.

Speaking of which: On Friday evening, Oliver Kahn, the CEO of FC Bayern, was in the interview zone and spoke about confidence.

He was "optimistic" if the attitude of the players was the same as against Leverkusen.

"It was a step in the right direction," he said - and then added: "We are all well advised not to hang that too high."