Game over... 2 Late Penalties gives us an automatic Champions League spot. That was pretty ugly though. I hope Reus will be Ok for the Final we will most definitely need him
Great game by two teams who wanted the win. Many happy faces on the pitch. Auba really wanted to be top scorer, Bartra is very emotional.
Securing automatic qualification is certainly a lift off everyone's shoulders I think. Overall a disappointing league campaign, though. Next season needs to be better, whether it be with Tuchel, Favre, or anyone else.
Also we lost out on 2nd place by 3 points. FFS how disappointing is that? Just one victory of the many unnecessary losses would have likely secured us a 2nd spot. That's annoying af.
Overall I consider the "baseline", or average, BvB season to be: 2nd in the BL QFs of the CL Finals or semis of the Pokal In the CL, we achieved QFs, and I honestly have a difficult time judging the Monaco tie given the extraordinary circumstances surrounding it. I'd say it was ultimately positive, but not great, especially given the fact that we battled Real to a draw twice and topped the group. In the BL we achieved third by the skin of our teeth. Not where we should be. Ultimately this was a bad, but not catastrophic, league campaign. Putting it in the context of losing three key players, we should've expected some regression. Whether we suffered too much regression is in the eyes of the beholder IMO. In the Pokal we can either find something good to count on moving forward, or we can cement this season as a failure. It'll really set the tone for this season IMO. We'll see.
Looking at PEA weeping, it's obvious that he's leaving. Gotta hope we get more than 70M from China or Milan.
This was one of those games that brings a massive smile to your face throughout and after. Absolutely quality football.... end to end excitement, and a huge victory. Love this club! Watching Bartra be celebrated by the yellow wall raising up his cast gives you goosebumps. That guy has a huge heart for this club. After the match it's hard to see how there is a rift between the players and Tuchel. He seemed to genuinly be engaged with the key players. During Tuchel's embrace with Aki, Aki looked disinterested and wanting no part of it..... which just reiterates why I personally want Aki out. Congrats Auba on the top-scorer!
Yeah, I believe that there's definitely a rift between Tuchel and management as personified by Watzke, but I don't buy at all that Tuchel has lost the locker-room.
This. They likely found one or two players on the fringe to speak up. I'm sure players don't always love their manager, but let's look at it this way: 1. Undefeated at home in 2yrs. 2. Yr 1 we end up with our highest points total ever. 3. Yr 2 (with an incomplete and young squad), but make the Qtr finals of the CL, the Pokal Finale, and secure CL football. The club has a lot of work to do, and there are some things Tuchel does that I don't agree with (ie: Durm). However, from the looks of it..... Tuchel is not a primary problem.
Lets not forget that we had that bus attack, damaging injuries to Bürki and Raphael, no Götze most of the season. These plus incomplete squad are all out of TTs control.
I think if we had a more capable backup than weidi we would have at least had the 3 points we would've needed to tie RB and come in second
Absolutely. That hand injury cost us 3 points. I mean if we could have turned a couple of ties to wins we would have beaten RB. In 2012, we had a thing squad. And now 5 years later it's exactly the same. We lost Raphael, Bürki and Weigl and either we dropped points, couldn't move the ball forward or completely lost the midfield. Apart from signing promising youth, Watzke can't do shit when developing our squad.
In the beginning of the season, given the 3 players we lost, I thought that this should be a "redevelopment" season, in that the goal is to get to CL and go past group stage in current CL.. and then I joined this forum, and everyone was hoping for 3 points every game and a title challenge. That would definitely explain people's disappointment