Guys, if you allow, a few remarks from a Bayern fan.
First of all: Chin up! It was just one game. Your team is better than that.
A few words about yesterdays game before I get to my main point: As you have all stated Pellegini got his strategy utterly wrong. Either he overestimated his team (resp. underestimated Bayern), or he didn’t really study properly the tapes. I cannot remember Bayern having so much space in midfield, that must have been ages ago. Bayern is vulnerable to teams that close down the midfield, stay very compact, and run breaks with skill and speed. Which is why we don’t look too good when we play Dortmund or Chelsea. But that requires all players defending, something neither Dzeko nor Kun really do convincingly. Next time, with another strategy, and different players you will look much better against Bayern.
Now my main point: Your situation now reminds me a lot on Bayern in April 2009. We won the Bundesliga the year before. We eased through the CL group stage without a loss and 14 points, we rolled over Sporting Lisbon with 12-1 on aggregate in first knock-out round. And then we ran into Barca, and got spanked like never before. They hammered us 4-0 in Barcelona but it should have been 8-0 to be fair. We were completely clueless, couldn’t get to ball, just watched them celebrating their football fest. And the worst thing about it? We thought we had a really good team!! Well, of course our manager (Klinsmann) got his strategy deadly wrong, but also we had to realize that we just cannot match them in any regard. Klinsmann got fired soon after, but that alone didn’t solve the problem. A bit later Philipp Lahm, not even captain then, moved forward and gave an interview to a big newspaper where he blaimed the whole club for not having a philosophy, a masterplan, an idea about what kind of football Bayern wants to play. This infamous interview got him a club record fine, I think in the £50,000 region. But the bosses then did the smartest thing they could have done: They hired as the new manager a “football teacher” as they called it: Louis van Gaal, nowadays the manager of the Dutch national team. Boy, van Gaal is an arrogant asshole, trust me. I’m pretty sure nobody on the planet likes him, probably not even his wife. But the guy has balls and an idea about football! He schooled the team in what he calls position play. He hired Robben in order to play both wings like Dutch teams love to do. He teached and teached. It took a bit of time but it paid off big way. Eventually he won the double and got us close to the treble before we lost the 2010 CL final to Mourinho's counter attacking Inter. One problem with him was that he did not care much about defence. And also that he pissed off exactely everybody he worked with. But he also discovered from the youth system the likes of Mueller, Alaba, and Badstuber, and also he put Schweinsteiger from the wing into the CM spot where he is shining today. Eventually he got fired in April 2011 when really nobody could stand him anymore. But he laid the ground to what essentially still is Bayern’s style of play as off today. It might be worth to mention that he did a similar thing to Barca, where he was succeeded by Riykaard and eventually Guardiola. Many people there still see him as the founder of this post-Cruyff Barca.
What I want to say is: You have a squad with a lot of very skilled players. Honestly among the best squad’s in the world. But that doesn’t make a brilliant team by default. What you need even more than skill is a plan and an identity. An idea what kind of football you want to play now and in the near future. Without that you will still have enough quality players to win a lot of games, even a cup or a championship every now and then, but you won’t build a constant force that is able to win it all. Maybe Pellegrino is too old for that, or just the wrong manager in the first place, you know better than me. From my point of view I’d think you only needed the right “teacher” and a bit of patience, just like Bayern in 2009. With this recipe we have achieved 3 CL finals in 4 years. And the world looks pretty bright at the moment.
Maybe you should check with Frank Rijkaard. I never quite inderstood why he was never again coaching a big club. A Dutch coach is not a bad thing at all, trust me. And I’m a German saying that! Mark van Bommel once was asked why Dutch coaches are so much in demand, he said: “We are a small country with comparably few players. In order to be competetive we have to think a lot about football.”
Just my two cents.
