It has been a tough go for Thomas Tuchel.
First, he might have mismanaged England during its 2-1 loss to Argentina, but there is something else Tuchel has to deal with — a challenge to his assertion that he was the mastermind behind the Harry Kane move at Bayern Munich.
Sport Bild’s Christian Falk had the report:
The guys in Munich were a little bit surprised! I had one or two calls (on the subject of Thomas Tuchel’s comments on the signing of Harry Kane at FC Bayern), and they were saying, “Who does
he mean?”
Thomas Tuchel: “When I was at Bayern, I’m still glad that I fought the fight to bring him [Kane] to Bayern Munich against some other opinions.”
What I can say – and this is 100% the truth – is that Bayern Munich were working on this deal even before Tuchel came to the club. Certainly since ex-director of sport Hasan Salihamidžić made the connection to the family. Marco Neppe, who was the former technical director at the club (but has since left the role by mutual consent), held contact with Harry Kane’s family for over a year.
There was even a secret meeting when Julian Nagelsmann was head coach. Bayern had lost against Bayer Leverkusen on the Saturday at the time (a 1-2 defeat), which prompted a decision to talk to Tuchel on the following Monday. On Tuesday, the secret meeting took place in Salihamidžić’s flat, where Thomas Tuchel was asked if he wanted to become the new coach. On this day, they also talked about possible transfers, and FC Bayern shared their future plans with Tuchel. They clearly said that they wanted to go for Harry Kane, and they asked if that was fine with the 52-year-old. Now, I heard that Thomas Tuchel said something along the lines of, This sounds nice, but let me think about it for one or two days, as he’s not the youngest player anymore. After two days, he came to the conference and confirmed that he also wanted Kane.
That information from Falk does jibe with stories a the time, but Falk has even more:
So, as it turns out, there were no arguments on the subject of signing the former Tottenham hitman – and it was Tuchel who needed time to think about it! That’s why it’s all a bit strange. But there are always guys like this; special guys – geniuses even – who have a slightly selective memory! I’m sure Thomas absolutely believes what he says, but perhaps there’s been so much time since then that things have just become slightly blurry.
I can say: there was not a single Bayern boss who said no to the idea of signing Harry Kane. I know how they worked on this. The CEO, Jan-Christian Dreesen, fought for this, flying three times to meet the boss at Tottenham, Daniel Levy. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, Uli Hoeneß, Oliver Kahn, Salihamidžić… everyone was focused on this deal and committed to paying a record fee to make the transfer happen. So, I don’t know any other person who could have an influence on proceedings who didn’t sign off on the move for Harry Kane. Everyone was keen!
What a tough time for Tuchel, but — surely — he has bigger fish to fry at the moment.
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