The timeline that led to Hansi Flick’s resignation from Bayern Munich — Part 2: Going downhill fast

As we saw in Part 1, things did not start off swimmingly between Bayern Munich’s Hansi Flick and Hasan “Brazzo” Salihamidzic.

Take a look at where things evolved from there per Bild.

March 1, 2020: An extremely displeased Flick allegedly demanded a “veto right for transfers” and told Sport Bild, “I would like to put it this way: Timo can play for many top teams,” when asked about Timo Werner.

March 25, 2020: Just over a year ago, Sport Bild used the phrase “power struggle” to describe the Flick-Brazzo relationship. Oliver Kahn was brought in to mediate and everyone agreed to play nice. Uh...that didn’t really happen as planned.

Photo by Marcio Machado/Getty Images

June 2020: Timo Werner officially signed with Chelsea FC and Bayern Munich was not active in the bidding.

July 2020: Brazzo gets his man as Leroy Sané officially decides to leave Manchester City for Bayern Munich.

August 2020: After winning the Bundesliga and the DFB-Pokal, Bayern Munich clinches its second-ever treble under Flick. (Editor’s note: That was PEAK FLICK)

End of August 2020: Flick is bitter because he was “promised” Chelsea’s Callum Hudson-Odoi, but all he got was a beaten down Douglas Costa. And...for good measure, Flick and Brazzo can probably at least agree on this: Their “preferred” midfielders were both bad this season. Salihamidzic wanted Marc Roca, while Fick wanted Tiago Dantas. Neither player has made an impact in Bavaria.

Early November 2020: Bayern Munich president Herbert Hainer hit the airwaves to let everyone know that the club was withdrawing its proposal to David Alaba. Flick was super-annoyed because the squad was prepping to face RB Salzburg and Borussia Dortmund — and even said so to the press. Flick hated that the situation went public at such a key juncture.

November 18, 2020: The DFB first starts considering Flick to take over for Joachim Löw and Bayern Munich CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge is concerned enough to invite Flick in for some coffee to talk over the situation. Flick did not reportedly let on that he was already considering leaving Bayern Munich if the DFB job opened up.

Part 2 Analysis

Flick clearly was annoyed very early in his tenure with his lack of a say in squad planning and that really only snowballed over time. It seems as if there was a severe lack of communication and alignment on a number of issues including budget, rosters, etc.

The telling piece of this part of the timeline is just how concerned Rummenigge became almost immediately after Flick first became linked to Germany.

Again, there are so many things that seem preventable from this view of the saga, but the prevailing theme is that it all basically comes down to two very stubborn men who could not find a compromise on how to work together for the long-term.