“Bayern’s championship fight enters hot phase with crucial match against Mainz 05”

What looks like a mandatory task at first glance has the character of a top game with a decisive influence on the title race. Thomas Tuchel, who coached the 05ers from 2009 to 2014, believes it will be a “brutally difficult task”. “They’re on a roll, they’re overperforming, and they’re doing it at an extremely high level.”

Tuchel’s adjustment period, just four weeks and six competitive games in office, is finally over. What does the 49-year-old need now? Quick solutions to a multitude of problems, otherwise he will be the first Bayern coach since 2011 to cross the finish line without a trophy.

Tuchel has to give an injection of motivation

However, the coach has to give the 24-year-old a mental helping hand. “Open, appreciative and still critical” he will deal with Upamecano. Confidence in the central defender’s abilities is still there, especially since he was “actually our best and most in-form player in the games against Freiburg and Dortmund”.

Tuchel should also make a targeted speech to the wingers Sadio Mané and Serge Gnabry, who are currently well behind their colleagues Leroy Sané and Kingsley Coman in terms of their performance. He senses “an insecurity, an unrest that paralyzes us a bit to act freely and creatively,” said Tuchel. His approach is to “calm things down and not open a big barrel”.

In the same round, Bayern also failed in the Champions League for the third time in a row. “It is inappropriate to speak of a crisis,” says Tuchel. Knowing full well that it won’t be easy to swear your stars to Mainz, Hertha and Werder Bremen instead of the big semi-finals against Real Madrid (Champions League) and RB Leipzig (DFB Cup).

The darn nine

For the remaining six game days in the championship, however, Tuchel has to work with the attackers he has. Means: Choupo-Moting should be set for the end of the season after surviving a knee injury – and the veteran has impressively proven that he can fill the role. Ten goals and two assists in 18 league games are absolutely presentable.

Colleague Tel is available as a backup. “He has an incredibly good goal finish,” said Tuchel. What also characterizes the 17-year-old is his carelessness and fearlessness.

Whenever Tel came into play, he convinced – and has already accumulated four league goals, although he has never played more than 90 minutes. If it runs normally, then it stays that way for the time being. Tuchel said he intended the teenager to “play the role of substitute”.

After both the 34-year-old Choupo-Moting and Tel, who is half his age, are fit again, the nine-pointer problem should have been solved (for the time being).

Let the Thomas Müller games begin

Of course, Tuchel knows that Müller is considered untouchable in Munich – and coaches who see it differently (Niko Kovac, Julian Nagelsmann) will sooner or later get into trouble. Accordingly, the current FCB trainer emphasized that he himself was a “big Thomas Müller fan”. And: Apart from Manchester City, the other games are of course Thomas Müller games.

The 2014 world champion, who contributed six goals and seven assists in this Bundesliga season, should be back in the starting eleven, especially since he dealt with his temporary bank position “exemplarily”. In training, Müller “simply accelerated and pulled the team along,” said Tuchel. One definitely wants to benefit from the “undefinability in world-class form” of the offensive star in the title fight.

Tuchel has to clarify the system question

The in-form Matthijs de Ligt was flanked by Upamceano and Benjamin Pavard or Josip Stanisic. Worked splendidly, the exquisite Parisian offensive featuring Kylian Mbappé, Lionel Messi and Neymar remained goalless in 180 minutes.

The “main idea” of a back three at Bayern is to have one more midfielder against deep-lying opponents “to play balls from the wing back into the center,” Nagelsmann once explained.

A view that should not be alien to Tuchel, as he repeatedly relied on the back three at Chelsea. Another advantage: Pavard, one of the most consistent Bayern pros this season, would no longer have to play the (unloved) full-back and could take his favorite position in the centre.

However Tuchel sets up his defense and decides in midfield and attack – the most important mission is: He needs a system, a concept with which the insecure team feels comfortable again.