Pep Was Never Loved in Munich; Ancelotti's Bayern Showing He Should've Been

It's the line he'd probably like to have back and one that, if Bayern Munich aren't careful, he could struggle to live down. "Bayern will win the Bundesliga without even taking their hands out their pockets," manager Carlo Ancelotti said.

From the Italian, that line didn't come last week or last month, or even when he was appointed in Bavaria. Instead, it came more than 12 months ago in October 2015 in a chat with La Gazzetta dello Sport (h/t Goal), when Ancelotti was enjoying time out of the game. Bayern Munich were busy bulldozing their rivals in Germany to open the 2015-16 season—a 4-0 win over Cologne that weekend their 10th straight—and only one outcome looked possible in the Bundesliga, just as it had for years. 

"I must confess," Ancelotti added, "that I cannot enjoy Bayern's games. There is simply too little real competition."

Only there is. It turns out the Bundesliga isn't so easy and nor is steering a superclub. A year on from saying there is no competition, Ancelotti has discovered there is plenty. After 12 rounds, Bayern sit second behind RB Leipzig and just three points ahead of Hertha Berlin and Eintracht Frankfurt in third and fourth. Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen still lurk, too, and Bayern know it. 

After falling to Dortmund last weekend, Ancelotti's men scraped by Leverkusen 2-1 on Saturday, and "scraped by" is the term. The hosts at the Allianz Arena were sluggish in possession and stale in attack; the winner from Mats Hummels came from a set piece, and the centre-back was fortunate not to give away a penalty soon after for a handball in the Bayern box. 

In the closing half an hour, it was Leverkusen who were the more threatening side, and though the final whistle brought a sense of relief, it didn't bring a lot else. Ancelotti's face as he shook Roger Schmidt's hand said much. The downbeat look of his players said the same: Bayern right now don't look anything like the Bayern of the last three seasons. 

That Bayern, of course, was that of Pep Guardiola. The Catalan is long gone from the Allianz, but with each passing week, his reign there is looking better and better. For a man who delivered a hat-trick of league titles, it's absurd that there's room for improvement on that front, but there was, and there is. 

Though Guardiola was highly respected in Munich, the line goes that he was never loved. The football his team played might have been exemplary, but there was a warmth that was missing. Fans saw a man who was wedded to his job but not necessarily to the club or to the city; a man whom they perceived never quite got them, or, worse, didn't try to get them. 

That's part of Guardiola. The dominant manager of the last decade has a coldness to him in public that's difficult to see beyond. He expresses himself quietly and rarely elaborates when given the chance. He can be frosty with the press, which he is perfectly entitled to be, but for a fan, it's hard to ever feel like you know him as a result. It feels as though he is distant.

For Bayern, though, it wasn't just that. The nature of his departure, announced with months still to go in his final season, grated with many. The absence of a Champions League trophy didn't help, it being the one thing that maybe would have created a connection. 

But this is one of the issues superclubs create. Everything starts being taken for granted, targets become obligations and, from a distance, dominance is viewed through the wrong prism—through that of rivals' perceived weaknesses rather than that of Bayern's strength. And that strength was extraordinary, which is becoming clear now. 

Now under Ancelotti, the Bavarians have lost something. They have dropped points in the league to Dortmund, TSG Hoffenheim, Eintracht Frankfurt and Cologne; in Europe, Atletico Madrid have hustled them and FC Rostov have embarrassed them. But it's about more than results; their essence is fading. 

Ancelotti's arrival was welcomed because the Italian was supposed to introduce a freer, less demanding environment. After three years of Guardiola's relentlessness and pushing to the extremes, the club needed a new stimulus was needed, something less fanatical. But this is the knock on Ancelotti. 

A widely held theory is that the Italian lacks the day-to-day and week-to-week intensity that's required to build elite teams. He's spent two decades managing the biggest-spending clubs in Europe—Juventus, AC Milan, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid before Bayern—but he has only three league titles in that time.

Ancelotti has, of course, won three Champions Leagues, but they reinforce the point: The Italian's sides are capable of the intermittent brilliance required for tournament football but lack the extra edge needed in the marathons that are league campaigns. 

The Italian's Real Madrid sides were a perfect illustration. They were dashing at times but equally flawed. Part of that was due to the president's transfer activity, but part of it was Ancelotti's doing, too. His teams were explosive but struggled to react tactically or stylistically when challenged, a variation was missing, and they often felt as though they were coasting, almost becoming personifications of the man in charge. 

Bayern now look similar. It's still only early, but the men from the Allianz are slumping in almost every major statistical category compared to last season: goals, points, shots, shots on target, goals against, shots conceded, average possession and total passes. 

	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17
Points	2.65	2.32	2.59	2.25
Goals	2.76	2.35	2.35	2.17
Shots	18.7	17.2	18.4	17.8
Shots on Target	7.6	6.9	7.7	6.1
Goals Against	0.71	0.53	0.50	0.67
Shots Conceded	8.9	7.5	7.5	7.7
Avg. Possession (%)	66.2	65.8	66.4	63.6
Passes	726.7	725.9	728.9	706.1
Key Passes	14.5	13.6	14.6	14.8

Bayern don't exude the same aura now, the same sense of supremacy. Opponents feel it, and Bayern do, too.

"The fact is that we aren't so dominant at the moment, we don't control the opposition so much," president Uli Hoeness said after Saturday's clash with Leverkusen, per the club's official website.

Thomas Muller said they are "having more difficulties than in the past."

Manuel Neuer said the team are lacking "fluidity and certainty at the moment."

Philipp Lahm said, "you could see that not everything's going smoothly."

Suddenly, Bayern look slower and less sophisticated. There's a muddled look to their method, the defence has grown shaky, their pressing has slackened and the structure or order of their play isn't the same. The ball isn't finding the forwards; Muller is peripheral and Robert Lewandowski has been cut off too often. 

That's not the Bayern of Guardiola. Last year, Dortmund manager Thomas Tuchel spoke almost in awe of the Catalan's team following a 5-1 thrashing. 

"You prepare to press and stop their passing and they play it long," he said, per Graham Hunter for the Daily Mail. "You adapt to that mid-game and they simply start passing through you again—they just have so many recourses, and their players are so adept at switching from one tactic to another that it's very hard to play against. We didn't have the answers."

It's true that the success enjoyed by Bayern in recent years could now be a problem in this respect. Perpetual motivation isn't easy. "After you've won something," Johan Cruyff once said, "you're no longer 100 percent, but 90 percent. It's like a bottle of carbonated water where the cap is removed for a short while. Afterwards, there's a little less gas inside."

It's also true that the season is still young. Ancelotti is less than six months into his tenure in Bavaria, and he'll remember that his first season in Madrid started slowly before ending with a European Cup. But he'll be aware of the task he's now facing, of the act he's trying to follow. 

Guardiola wasn't perfect, but his teams at the Allianz went pretty close to it: exhilarating, varied, clever and unrelenting. Guardiola also left Bayern with something they hadn't had before, adding new elements to their culture at an organisational level, fusing a German identity with cutting-edge thought from elsewhere. 

He may never have been loved, but as it often is even with the most complex of relationships, Bayern are finding life without him isn't quite the same.