Tuchel’s future and title on knife-edge as Bayern lurch towards unthinkable

T here was a sense in which you could argue that this was to be expected. This was, after all, the third time in successive seasons that Mainz had sent Bayern Munich home with a defeat in late April. “Oops, I did it again,” was the caption on the club’s social media post, featuring the inevitable Britney Spears mid-dance with the Mainz club crest on her jumpsuit.

It was the only thing that was familiar about this scenario. More accurate was the later, second attempt from the wags doing the socials for Die Nullfünfer. It featured Homer Simpson coming home – Mainz crest imposed on his suit – joyously proclaiming “I got the job!” and greeted by a proud Lisa (wearing a Bundesliga badge) telling him she always knew he could do it. Bart, rocking the Borussia Dortmund logo, joins in while sneakily turfing a cake iced with the words ‘At Least You Tried’ into the bin.

We don’t yet know if this is the game that definitively changed the course of the Bundesliga title race, with Bayern’s slip allowing Dortmund to go top with five games to go, courtesy of a 4-0 win over Eintracht Frankfurt shortly after. It is at least enough for us to believe in a thrilling end to the season, 11 years after a team other than Bayern lifted the Meisterschale (naturally, it was Jürgen Klopp’s BVB).

What we definitely know is that there is something truly, seriously wrong at Säbener Strasse. The nuclear option of removing Julian Nagelsmann and replacing him with Thomas Tuchel can be confirmed as a failure, torching the long-term for the short and making things much worse. Few would blame Tuchel himself – despite the wry suggestion of Bild’s Walter M.Straten that he could be fired now given his “catastrophic start” matching the “unbreakable” slow start