Bayern in crisis as another trophyless year looms

Bayern Munich is in crisis mode but it could get worse before getting better as Schalke visit in the Bundesliga on Sunday

Pressure is mounting on three fronts for the Bavarians, who are facing the daunting prospect of a second season without silverware as they go through what goalkeeper Manuel Neuer says is a “difficult period.”
Wednesday's 1-0 defeat to FC Basel leaves the club's Champions League campaign on the brink, and hopes of a league title have suffered after just two wins from five games in 2012.
Bayern slipped to third last weekend, four points behind leader Borussia Dortmund, after an uninspired 0-0 draw at bottom side Freiburg.
“It's clear that the alarm bells are going to be ringing,” Bayern coach Jupp Heynckes said.
Bayern had an eight-point lead over Dortmund earlier this season, but the defending champion, which hosts Hannover on Sunday, has won its last six games to remain unbeaten in a club-record 16 games.
Schalke are the league's top scorer and is keen to turn the screw on Bayern, knowing that a win will take it above the home side into the Champions League places.
Bayern had been counting on going far in this year's competition, especially with the final to be held in Munich in May.
Progress in the German Cup is also complicated, with Borussia Moenchengladbach, which beat Munich home and away in the league this season, waiting in the semifinals on March 21.
Moenchengladbach, which took advantage of Bayern's slip at Freiburg to move second, hosts Hamburger SV to get the weekend's round of games under way on Friday.
A trophyless season seemed inconceivable going into the winter break, when Bayern had a three point lead at the top, and the collapse has spooked the bosses who oversaw an expensive overhaul of the defense.
Bayern chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge took the unusual step of speaking to the players directly after the latest setback.
“You have to wake up now, you have to get angry,” Rummenigge said. “It doesn't make sense to go onto the pitch and think things will sort themselves out—that won't be the case. … Together we have to pull ourselves out of the (expletive) we find ourselves in. And we have to start on Sunday, my gentlemen.”
His intervention increases the pressure on Heynckes, who was snubbed by Franck Ribery in Basel where the France winger declined to shake the coach's hand after being substituted.
Ribery later tried to defuse the situation by tweeting: “I dont have an argument with Heynckes. I was angry of our playstyle.”
The Frenchman also tweeted his displeasure after the display in Freiburg: “I'm so angry…champions? Never if we play like this.”
Former Schalke ‘keeper Neuer was at a loss to explain Bayern's poor form.
“You can't give a general reason for it,” the Germany No. 1 said. “In principal we have great individual players, but we're not cohesive at the moment.”
Bayern still misses influential midfielder Bastian Schweinsteiger, who tore a ligament in his right ankle, but former Bayern great Franz Beckenbauer said “it's not all down to the absence of Schweinsteiger.”
Derbies take center stage Saturday, with Bayer Leverkusen making the short trip to Cologne, Stuttgart hosting Freiburg and Kaiserslautern visiting Mainz.
Events in Munich have a tendency to overshadow the rest of the league, but all the talk in Berlin is of Otto Rehhagel, the 73-year-old returning to the Bundesliga after 12 years to save Hertha from the drop.
Rehhagel took over one week after Michael Skibbe was fired after only five games, all defeats, and will become the league's second oldest coach when he brings Hertha to fellow relegation candidate Augsburg.
Only Fred Schulz was older when he left Werder Bremen at the age of 74 years, 184 days in 1978.
Bremen host Nuremberg, also Saturday, when former Hertha coach Markus Babbel brings Hoffenheim to Wolfsburg.
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