The Champions League defeat to Paris Saint-Germain is still a major talking point for FC Bayern. While there was much discussion in Munich about the referee after the semi-final, Lothar Matthäus believes the team’s performance was the main reason for their failure. The record international is now calling for targeted reinforcements for the Bayern squad
After the spectacular 4:5 in the first leg , FC Bayern could not get past 1:1 in the second leg against PSG. Ousmane Dembélé’s early goal in particular quickly put Vincent Kompany’s team under pressure
Although Munich tried hard after that, the German record champions were rarely really compelling. Harry Kane managed to equalize in stoppage time, but the goal came far too late
Afterwards, discussions about several controversial refereeing decisions dominated the headlines, with the possible yellow card against PSG defender Nuno Mendes in particular causing great anger among many Bayern fans
However, Lothar Matthäus did not want this debate to take center stage on RTL: „The refereeing was not pro-Bayern. But I’m putting the issue behind me now. I only listen to referees. There was also a soccer match,“ explained the former Bayern captain
For Matthäus, the main problem was clearly on the pitch, with FC Bayern not playing at their usual level
„They can be disappointing, but they never found their game and had few chances to score. There was no killer instinct,“ analyzed the 64-year-old
Matthäus calls for a stronger Bayern squad
Despite the bitter semi-final exit, Matthäus did not draw a fundamentally negative conclusion about FC Bayern’s season in the Champions League, saying that the Munich team had represented German soccer strongly at international level and had played a good Champions League season overall
Nevertheless, the former world footballer sees clear tasks for the future. Above all, the width of the squad must be improved. „Make the squad even stronger across the board, if possible,“ demanded Matthäus
In the two games against PSG in particular, some Bayern stars did not reach their usual top form, with Matthäus explicitly focusing on Harry Kane and Michael Olise
Although Kane „scored a nice goal“, he was rarely really dangerous overall, while Michael Olise was almost completely taken out of the game by PSG
This is precisely where Matthäus sees a decisive difference between the two teams, as PSG managed to largely control Bayern’s most important attacking players and at the same time strike efficiently themselves
For the TV pundit, it is therefore clear that it was not the referee’s decisions that decided the semi-final – but the quality of the opponent.