Some Bayern Munich fans know who Dr. Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt is. He was Bayern’s long-serving club physician, joining the club in the early 1990s and leaving in 2015. The doctor recently revealed the reason for his initial resignation: a dispute with former Bayern coach Pep Guardiola.
“It was April 15th, a terrible day. We had lost the first leg of our Champions League quarter-final against Porto (3-1 away). Afterwards, in front of the entire team in the dressing room, I was blamed for the defeat.
They said we had too many injured players and that I was letting players recover for too long. That was completely absurd. I refused to accept that.
“I was outraged by the misjudgment, because top athletes from all over the world come to me because my diagnostics are more precise, the recovery process is often faster than elsewhere, and because my medications have no side effects,” Müller-Wohlfahrt continued. “However, the recovery wasn’t fast enough for Pep Guardiola. He was apparently used to having the final say on medical matters at Barcelona, but things were different in Munich up to that point.
“I always enjoyed the respect and trust of the respective coaches. Dettmar Cramer once described me as ‘a stroke of luck for German football.’ Udo Lattek often waited until the last minute to announce the lineup and said: ‘The doctor has the final say.’
“Uli Hoeneß, who always stood by me, was in prison at that time. Had he been at the club, the falling out with Guardiola would not have happened, I’m sure of that,” the doctor concluded.
It’s honestly unsurprising how Pep reacted that day, given how he can be a bit of a control freak at times. But blaming Dr. Müller-Wohlfahrt for the result and doing it in front of the players is absolutely the wrong move. Pep then moved to Manchester City in 2016; Dr. Müller-Wohlfahrt would eventually return to the club in 2017 and depart a second time for good in 2020.
