Everyone’s Favorite Tabloid leaked the story as soon as I decided the lines of communication would probably go dead for the rest of the night–but as of this hour, 5th place FC Bayern Munich appear committed to retaining coach Louis van Gaal through the end of the season.



Update: On Monday, the team confirmed via a press release that Van Gaal would leave at the end of the season.

A five and a half hour meeting among the upper management group apparently ended with no consensus over who could be brought in to replace him.

What has not been reported, but something I feel may be happening here, is that Nerlinger is sticking up for Van Gaal within the discussions, acting as the players’ advocate. There has been surprisingly little collective blowback reported from the players as the crisis intensified over the last 5 days.

It seems to me that this decision means there will be only 1 match worth of Champions League action in Munich next season. While it is not impossible that Van Gaal could turn the tide with the amount of talent available to him, I can’t support this decision. But if Bayern are to find new levels of motivation and focus and pull themselves up into the top 3 of the Bundesliga once again, I’ll be the first one to say in clear and certain terms that I was wrong. That’s more than you can ever expect out of Louis van Gaal..