BERTI Vogts feels Bayern Munich made a grave mistake in dispensing with the services of Carlo Ancelotti but has ruled out the chances of the Scottish champions shocking the Bavarian giants when it comes to next week’s Champions League clash.
Speaking exclusively to the Sunday Herald, the former Scotland coach, who played alongside Bayern’s newly appointed replacement coach Jupp Heynckes in the Borussia Moenchengladbach engine room for a decade or so, reckons Celtic are quite simply travelling to Germany at the wrong time. Or at least they would be if the scheduling of the match didn’t also allow the club’s supporters to sample the delights of Oktoberfest.
“I cannot understand why Bayern got rid of Carlo Ancelotti,” Vogts said. “He has won the European Cup twice and won the league last season. And he was right when it came to leaving Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben out of his team - one of them is 33 and one of them is 34. There is a big difference between having them playing at home and playing them away from home at a place like Paris St Germain in the Champions League.
“So I think he made the right decision to leave them out, and also Jerome Boateng wasn’t 100% fit so he played another good young player who plays for the national team, Niclas Sule at the back instead.
“The only problem was that you saw players from the French team who were much quicker and stronger than the German team. Carlo Ancelotti knew that, he said the time is not right for Ribery and Robben so we start with young players. But they lost 3-0 and now Ancelotti has to go.”
Surely this disarray and chaos means Celtic have at least an outside chance of the win which would blow Group B in this season’s Champions League wide open? Well, not exactly.
“I think Celtic has no chance in Munich,” said Vogts. “This really is a must win match for Bayern. If they can’t win their matches against Celtic they won’t reach the last 16 so I am afraid that it is just too important to then. The new coach has come in so I really think it is a bad time for Celtic to play Bayern.
“In fact, I can see Bayern winning both matches against Celtic, because they know if they win both matches they are through to the next round.”
For all his concerns about the messy end of the Ancelotti era, Vogts doesn’t foresee much in the way of risk in the appointment of Heyncke. Currently five points behind a resurgent Borussia Dortmund at the top of the Bundesliga standings, this 72-year-old and former treble winner arrives in Munich for his fourth spell in charge, a supposed safe pair of hands to steer this superclub through these unusually choppy waters.
Vogts sees him as a paternal, old-school figure, rather than the vogue for what he calls ‘lap top’ managers – if not Ian Cathro, then perhaps two of the German equivalents who were linked with the post, Julian Nagelsmann and Thomas Tuchel. “Jupp has a lot of expertise and had success when many of the laptop coaches were just being born,” said Vogts. “He knows what a player feels and needs. He loves football and just wants to help Bayern. I am firmly convinced that FC Bayern will become German champions. You never know in football but just I didn’t think they would be one of the young managers like Nagelsman or Thomas Tuchel.”
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