Louis van Gaal’s tenure as Bayern Munich coach was on a knife-edge on Saturday after the German giants lost 3-1 to Hanover and his chairman lambasted the team’s performance as a “low point.”
Their third consecutive defeat left Bayern fourth in the league, seven points shy of second and automatic Champions League qualification and a full 19 points behind leaders Borussia Dortmund.
Van Gaal had already indicated that defeat to Hanover could cost him his job, but prevaricated when asked afterwards about his future, saying only: “I am not in a position to answer this question.”
Photo: EPA
“I have always had the support of my board. They decide whether to withdraw this support, not me,” he said.
The chairman of that board, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, said the result and the manner of the defeat was “the low point of the season,” but said he would avoid a knee-jerk reaction.
“Of course we are all disappointed, but I think we have all been around long enough to know that after such a game, you need to have a night’s sleep before you consider what to do,” he said.
The home side took the lead on 16 minutes as Mohammed Abdellaoue latched on to a cross from Konstantin Rausch and lashed it past a helpless Thomas Kraft.
Bayern looked woefully short on confidence and barely threatened the Hanover goal in the first half.
And whatever van Gaal said at halftime, it had little effect as the defending champions found themselves two down after 51 minutes.
Rausch again was the architect of Bayern’s downfall, drilling a piledriver of a shot towards the Bayern goal that took a slight deflection off the head of Mario Gomez.
Bayern hit back almost instantly through their star combination of Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery. After a goalmouth scramble, the Frenchman lifted a cross over the defense for Robben to head home.
However, midfielder Sergio Pinto sealed Bayern’s fate with a 30m shot on 62 minutes that Kraft failed to gather, the ball evading his grasp and dribbling into the net.
Before the Hanover game, the German giants had endured a torrid few weeks in which their dreams of repeating last season’s league and cup double were dashed.
First they suffered the humiliation of losing 3-1 at home to Dortmund, then four days later, they were dumped out of the German Cup after a 1-0 defeat by Schalke.
Way off the pace in the league, their hopes of salvaging the season lie in securing second place as well as in the Champions League where they hold a 1-0 lead over Inter.
Meanwhile, Dortmund took a huge step toward the Bundesliga crown with a 1-0 win over Cologne on Friday, Robert Lewandowski’s strike giving Jurgen Klopp’s side their 19th win of the season.
Bayer Leverkusen lead the chasing pack, their 3-0 hammering of VfL Wolfsburg closing the gap to 12 points.
The two bottom clubs both won, VfB Stuttgart beating Schalke 1-0 and bottom side Borussia Moenchengladbach giving themselves some hope with a 2-0 win over Hoffenheim.
The relegation dogfight between Eintracht Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern, delayed after crowd violence, ended 0-0.
Meanwhile, four goals by Christian Eigler was enough to secure three points for Nuremberg in their clash with St Pauli.
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