Reuters Soccer Blog

Are United and Bayern already under pressure?

Manchester United and Bayern Munich opened the defence of their respective league titles with draws, prompting worried looks among supporters.

Normally it would be silly to judge a side on the first match of the season, but in United’s case there was clearly something missing in the 1-1 draw with Newcastle…a certain Cristiano Ronaldo.

United fans will be relieved that he is only absent through injury and not because of a departure to Real Madrid. 

However, the lack of a cutting edge in the final third and Chelsea’s impressive 4-0 drubbing of Portsmouth has heralded renewed calls for United to up their efforts to sign Tottenham’s Dimitar Berbatov.

Bayern were equally unconvincing in a 2-2 home draw with Hamburg in Juergen Klinsmann’s first league match in charge. Supporters are already counting the days until injured duo Luca Toni and Franck Ribery are back fit.

Real Madrid, who start their title defence at the end of the month, lost the first leg of the Spanish Super Cup 3-2 at Valencia.

Is the world order about to change? Let’s leave it a few more games to decide.

Klinsmann to shake up Bayern

Anyone who has any lingering doubts whether Juergen Klinsmann is determined to be an agent of change at Bayern Munich should have a word with the city’s photojournalists. 

All 20 photographers accredited for Klinsmann’s first news conference on Wednesday stood up and walked out in a silent (and somewhat silly) protest because of a new rule limiting them to three minutes of pictures at the start.

Just as Klinsmann was a catalyst for change in his two years shaking up some of the antiquated structures in the German FA from 2004 to 2006, it seems abundantly clear the former Germany striker is not going to be satisfied with the status quo in Munich. 

They might have won the Bundesliga and German Cup last year, but that’s not enough for Bayern.  

In a refreshingly open 45 minutes, Klinsmann sketched out his ideas about Bayern’s direction — candidly saying the goals are a German domestic double and reaching the final of the Champions League — and kept referring to the centrepiece of his masterplan, a new Hochleistungszentrum (high performance centre).

He’ll be expecting his players to spend all day — from 9:30 to 5:30 — on site and use the few hours between morning and afternoon training sessions to work on their language skills, fitness abilities or learn about new things.