Matchday 13: Hitzfeld’s heavy Rotation under heavy Criticism

By: Jan | November 12th, 2007

Now, that Bayern Munich stopped winning each and every game by a three to five goal margin, it’s time to analyse, what surely has to be a crisis by Bayern Munich standards. Focus of all criticism is Ottmar Hitzfeld’s rotation policy. As chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge remarked “Football is not mathematics. You can’t calculate everything”. Hitzfeld is probably in this business for too long, that this type of feedback wouldn’t be part of his calculations as well - at least he probably expected it. Anyway, here’s a little overview of what the English press had to say about the latest trouble at the Allianz Arena.

One of my former managers, Joe Fagan, once remarked that football was a simple game with simple explanations and simple team selections. The easier you make it, the easier it is to go on long winning runs, but it is all down to simplicity of selection.

Ever since the Dortmund result, though, Bayern manager Ottmar Hitzfeld has continued his rotation policy by making four or five changes for every game that his team play. Rotation is great when you are winning because nobody can criticise it, but once you start struggling, people will automatically go and look for the reason why and, during those last four games, Bayern have never had the same team twice. - Alan Hansan - Telegraph

The big thing about rotation is, while it might look straightforward, only managers really understand it. There are certain comparisons that can be made with everyday life. For example, “managing” the contents of your fridge can present similar problems. If I’ve got a luxury Marks & Spencer fisherman’s pie (Klose) which keeps until Tuesday, should I save it and eat the unappetising cannelloni (Podolski) that goes off tomorrow, or even just settle for a Pot Noodle (Schlaudraff)? If so, will I end up feeling empty and dissatisfied a few hours later (five dropped points in a week) and say oh well sod it let’s eat the pie too (Miroslav Klose implausibly wheeled out in the second half against Stuttgart) in what would be a classic case of fridge mis-rotation? - Barney Ronay - The Guardian

That his endless permutations jar the sensibilities of lavishly paid footballers is hardly in itself a cause for complaint. Readiness to let the millionaires in studded boots know who is the boss should be a prerequisite of taking charge of a major club. Unfortunately, the line Hitzfeld obliges his men to toe seems too frequently to trace an incoherent, impractical and ultimately self-defeating pattern. The impression conveyed is of a regrettable triumph of convoluted theory over established realities. Specifically, Hitzfeld appears intent on belittling the traditional concept of team-building, the well-tested principle that, having painstakingly identified a group of exceptional and complementary talents, a manager gains much by developing them as a regularly functioning unit, providing sufficient experience of playing together to engender psychological cohesion, mutual trust and a honed coordination in the execution of their skills.

Every truly great team in the history of the game grew from that foundation. No squad, however expensive or carefully recruited, can have a democracy of abilities. There must be an elite and it makes sense to field that elite as often as possible, using the depth of the squad to compensate for loss of form, of fitness or of competitive edge by the best players. - Hugh McIlvanney - Times Online

Well, obviously the English media doesn’t care enough about the Bundesliga, to feel motivated to write long eloquent analyses of what is going wrong at Bayern. I just replaced Rafa Benitez with Ottmar Hitzfeld and Liverpool with Bayern Munich. Give or take a couple of TV millions, football is still all the same everywhere.