Kuranyi gets his place.

Kuranyi is like Peter Crouch in that he can beat up little teams like Cottubs but when it counts he comes up woefully short. So unless Germany are leading by at least 3 goals he will be warming the bench. Neuville would be as always a much better shock substitute.

A bit off topic, but this question is bothering me for some time now…

It concerns Bayern Munich and their organization.

In Holland, we always make the distinction between two models:
The first I’ll call the Dutch model: one coach and one technical director. The coach takes care of the first team, the TD is responsible for scouting, youth development and contracts/signing of the first team. Coach requests types of players and the TD goes shopping. The coach reports to the TD.
Examples: Van Marwijk – Bosz (Feyenoord), Koster – Van Geel (Ajax), Van Gaal – Brands (AZ), Vergoossen – Valckx (PSV) etc etc. Sometimes it’s different but never long (Van Gaal at Ajax in the 90s).

The second is the English model. The manager is in charge of singings, team tactics and even organizational stuff, while the field coach/trainer leads the training and tactical prepping etc. Examples: Sir Alex – Querios (Man U), Grant – Ten Cate (Chelsea) etc.

What’s the deal at Bayern?

Or more specifically: what is Uli Hoeness position exactly. Hitzfeld oozes authority, but he has Hoeness next to him on the bench (looking like the chap in charge of materials and balls and stuff). Then there’s Rummenigge, there’s Beckenbauer… So, is Hoeness the boss of Hitzfeld and does Hoeness take care of signings and contracts? If so, why does Hitzfeld allow him on the bench?

In Holland, a coach will never allow the TD to close to the team.

Thanks for the clarification chaps!

Hi Jan,

the model in the Bundesliga is similar to the one in Holland. Though there’s not a particularly fixed hierarchy. Someone like Didi Baiersdorfer at Hamburg is just a sporting director, who signs players, sets up the youth systems etc. Uli Hoeness is more a hybrid between sporting director and general manager. But the separation between coach and a technical/sporting director is the norm in the Bundesliga as well. Exception: Felix Magath at Wolfsburg is a classic English style manager, though in the long run he wants to have a capable sporting director to assist him.

thanks for that. Leaves one question unanswered . Or two actually.

1. Does the Bayern coach report into Hoeness? and

2. was there never a coach at Bayern who opposed to Hoeness being on the bench?

Thanks again

1. I don’t know really. At least publicly you never hear a sporting director or coach talking about “reporting” to each other. They just talk to each other. But I don’t know how the relationship between the two jobs looks like in detail.

2. What’s your obsession with Hoeness on the bench all about? I think Hoeness offered Rehagel to stay away from the bench, because he knew that Rehagel doesn’t like that too much, but Rehagel officially invited him to stay on the bench. Hoeness probably won’t be on the bench together with Klinsmann though. He has already pointed at this possibility. But I think a lot of sporting directors watch the games from the bench with the coach. I think this is the case as well in Hamburg, Stuttgart and auf Schalke. It’s not the case in Leverkusen, where Rudi Völler is usually somewhere else in the stadium. Dieter Hoeness in Berlin had the habit to watch the final minutes of a match on the bench. But he’s now usually watching the match from his business seat. Stefan Kuntz in Bochum wasn’t on the bench either. Those are examples I can extract from my memory.