UNDER then-manager Niko Kovac, Bayern Munich had a mediocre start to the Bundesliga 2019-20 season, failing to win half of its 10 opening league matches.
The last straw for Kovac was a 5-1 thrashing at the hands of Eintracht Frankfurt, which meant he had to leave the club by “mutual consent.”
Assistant coach Hansi Flick then took charge, and what was intended as a temporary appointment led to a three-year contract, owing to an incredible run by the German club.
By season’s end, Bayern Munich had won everything that was laid down its path: a treble in Germany, the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Super Cup.
Roughly translated, that means that for 2019-2020, Bayern Munich emerged as the best club on the planet.
In an ideal universe, Flick would have been acknowledged as the world’s best manager owing to his club’s achievements.
But in the oftentimes weird wild world of Fifa, that wasn’t to be: Flick lost to compatriot Jurgen Klopp of the English Premier League’s Liverpool FC as Best Fifa Men’s Coach during awarding rites held last week.
Of Klopp’s win, the Fifa website gushes: “The Reds won the English Premier League with a club-record 99 points—the second-most in the competition’s history—and did so playing a bold and exciting brand of football. More importantly, they ended the club’s 30-year wait for a top-flight title, offering yet more evidence—were any still needed—of their German coach’s managerial talents.”
True, Klopp’s historic run with Liverpool last season is nothing to sneer at, but when placed side-by-side with Flick’s achievements in the same season, any human being with the bare minimum of reason and logic would know who did 2019-2020 better.
Only Liverpool fans would remember those 99 points or end of a 30-year wait, but every follower of Champions League football will recall with wonder how Bayern crushed FC Barcelona 8-2 in the semifinal with its superhuman brand of football that encapsulated the club’s dominance under Flick.
It’s no wonder many a football fan has cried injustice for denying Flick the honors that he deserved.
Even the Liverpool manager agrees: I don’t know why people voted for me. Flick deserved it for his titles.”