Matthias sammer ruffles team feathers, uli hoeneb ruffles sporting board – pep guardiola won’t let it bother him at the kickoff of FC bayern’s next historic venture.
115 days after the champions league triumph in london’s wembley stadium, munich’s stars want to start victoriously in the "most gentle competition of the season" (guardiola) against ZSKA moscow, unencumbered by the friction in the boss’s office. After the magnificent triple, the german soccer record champions are aiming for the next unique coup: never before has a team been able to win the champions league title again the following year.
"We don’t start a competition to be a participant. We want to achieve the highest possible, and accordingly, if possible, defend the title," explained sammer, who was criticized by hoeneb, in the "kicker". However, sammer would like to see a "different" performance from the 2-0 win over hannover against the russian champions. He had recently called for "service by the book", "football without emotion" and a hiding behind the coach.
The sports director promptly received a reprimand from the club’s patron. "We will certainly talk about it, because an impression of FC bayern is created, which is not good. You get the impression that out of five games we’ve lost three and drawn two, but in dortmund they’re laughing their heads off," hoeneb complained in the "bild" (monday).
And guardiola? The spanish star coach was relaxed before the coach’s return to the rough european fubball stage. "The most important thing is that the players do what i say," said the 42-year-old. He was not surprised that the sports board had publicly expressed its opinion. "Here in germany it’s normal," explained the spanishman. "I have to adapt in this situation."
Guardiola did not comment on sammers’ criticism, nor did goalkeeper manuel neuer or midfielder toni kroos. "Matthias sammer is our sports director, he follows almost every training session and is absolutely in a position if something strikes him to address it," said the national player. "I think that somewhere it is a warning."
All the clearer was there hoeneb. "I understand that matthias wants to put his finger in the wound. However, I do not think we have a wound," the club patron found. "We all have to be careful. This always further, always higher will be dangerous at some point, if we go along with it. The pressure from auben is already enormous after the triple win, we don’t need to increase it internally," hoeneb warned, although sammer did not deny the team’s will and only identified a lack of "two, three percent".
"Matthias has to be careful that he doesn’t overdo it. If you do something like this every week, you’ll eventually get burnt out. The enemy is outside, not with us. Our situation in the bundesliga is not dramatic, plus the outstanding game in the supercup against chelsea," stressed hoeneb.
Despite the lack of personnel and difficulties at the start of the season, the ambitious sammer was not pleased with the team’s performance. Like almost a year ago in the 2:0 in bremen ("we weren’t really wide awake, we weren’t really gallant. We were too traipsing") the sports director raised his voice admonishingly. At that time, there was a rebuke from coach jupp heynckes ("we don’t need populism"); and in the first league match after that, there was a 3-1 defeat at BATE borissov in russia on the second matchday.
"Parallels I have not seen at all," explained kroos. Unlike last year, the munich team will start the season as defending champions and not as losers in the final – and with a different kind of motivation. "We know what it was like to win the title and we have this goal in mind again," admitted neuer. They simply wanted to take the momentum from the super cup win against chelsea FC with them.
AC milan was the last team to win europe’s most coveted club trophy twice in a row: 1988/89 and 1989/90. At that time, however, the competition was still called the european champion clubs’ cup. It’s too early to start thinking about titles, guardiola stressed. "The most important thing is to play a good group stage and qualify for the next round"."Statistics give confidence: the german record champion has won all of its last nine opening matches in the konigsklasse, seven of them even without conceding a goal.