Thomas Tuchel is the manager of Bayern Munich, a football team which is currently at the top of German’s Bundesliga. He recently made an admission that he has been having sleepless nights ahead of playing Manchester City in the Champions League since he only won 3 out of 10 meetings against any side coached by Pep Guardiola. He also said he will try to go to bed early so that he can catch some sleep before the big game.
Getting enough sleep is the best way to prepare for something, but sometimes it’s hard when your mind keeps coming up with ideas. This morning I woke up really early and couldn’t get back to sleep so I decided to practice instead.
Last year in 2021, Tuchel (the manager) won a really important game against Guardiola’s team and got Chelsea their first of three trophies that he would win over the course of 20 months at Stamford Bridge.
City have beaten Chelsea twice in the Premier League before their coach Tuchel left. They haven’t played Bayern since 2014 when they beat them 3-2 and made it to the next round of games.
Tuchel is now the coach at Bayern, who are in first place of the league, and he feels his team needs to play their best if they want to win against City – who have won eight games in a row!
“I don’t think I’ll be able to learn much from other games that I’ve played against Pep,” he said.
“He does something special and we’re going to try to figure out how to beat him by playing our best game possible.”
He added: “It’s definitely a big challenge in front of us. I was just looking at the Etihad Stadium, which is kind of like the gold standard for us right now.”
“We want to reach the same level of excellence, and the team is feeling very confident because they have been doing really well in Champions League. We are playing in a bit like an underdog role, which isn’t bad news. We just need to keep believing in ourselves and do our best.”- Guardiola says it’s similar to being as good as legendary athletes like Nicklaus and Jordan.
On Tuesday, when Bayern compete against Manchester, Joao Cancelo will return for the first time since he left in January. He is 28 years old and from Portugal. He was not doing too well with Manchester so he moved to Germany until summertime. In the summer, Bayern has an option where they can buy him for 70 million euros (about £61.4 million). Even though this seems likely, Coach Tuchel said that nothing has been decided regarding if the move will be permanent yet or not.
Tuchel said when Cancelo is playing against his old team, he needs to manage his emotions and not get too excited or nervous. He then added that just knowing something isn’t enough, it’s important to put knowledge into action. It’s like how many people know smoking is bad for them yet they still do it.
