This matchday saw all four major European domestic leagues wrap up. Atlético Madrid beat Valladolid to clinch their first La Liga title since 2014, while Inter Milan, Manchester City, and Bayern Munich all concluded victorious league campaigns of their own.
Amidst the final-day action, one match which was overlooked by many signalled the end of an era in two ways. RB Leipzig succumbed to a 2-1 loss to Union Berlin. Justin Kluivert's opener for Leipzig was cancelled out by a Marvin Friedrich goal. Max Kruse would later score Union's winning goal in stoppage time.
The match was Leipzig head coach Julian Nagelsmann's last in charge of the Saxony club. One of the most accomplished young coaches in world football at just 33, Nagelsmann will leave Die Bullen and take over at Bayern on July 1.
Nagelsmann's departure from Leipzig also almost certainly put an end to what must be the greatest multi-year stretch without any silverware that there has ever been.
Since earning promotion to the Bundesliga in 2016, Leipzig have finished second and third in the league twice each. On two occasions, they lost in the final of the DFB-Pokal. Last season, they reached the Champions League semifinals before losing to Paris Saint-Germain.
Every other team to have put together a stretch at such a level won at least one trophy during it - except Leipzig. You could conceivably make a case for Tottenham 2014-19 or Napoli 2015-19, but for me, Leipzig takes the somewhat back-handed honour over both.
Leipzig's primary case over Tottenham lies in the fact that their league campaigns were dramatically more difficult. Bayern's complete domination of the Bundesliga has rendered almost every league season a race for second place. Tottenham, on the other hand, have not had to deal with such an adversary in the Premier League. Even more damningly, they only managed to finish third in the 2015-16 Premier League season - a title which they could easily have won if they hadn't lived up to the Tottenham stereotype and faltered down the stretch.
Like Leipzig, Napoli also had to deal with a domestic powerhouse; Juventus won the Serie A title in all four seasons of their trophyless run. They even came close to breaking Juve's Scudetto streak in both the 2017-18 and 2018-19 seasons. However, their cup record fell well short of Leipzig's. During this run, Napoli neither advanced beyond the quarterfinals of the Coppa Italia or the Champions League's round of 16 even once.
With Nagelsmann's departure, it would not be surprising to see Leipzig decline dramatically next season - they might even struggle to land a spot in European competition the season after. Nagelsmann is already regarded as the best coach in the Bundesliga and arguably among the top 10 in the world. If, as expected, he begins to rack up titles at Bayern, it won't be long before he will be regarded as one of the greatest coaches ever, especially if he brings another Champions League title to the Allianz Arena.
The question then becomes: what's next for Leipzig? Having already lost Timo Werner, the greatest player in the club's history, to Chelsea, Leipzig certainly find themselves in quite a bind heading into the coming off-season. Star power will be hard to come by - the city of Leipzig is not a glamorous, big-ticket destination. On top of that, Leipzig don't have any historical clout. Although they are owned by Red Bull, Leipzig's ability to spend money of players is still dwarfed by those of so many others.
The fact that centre-back Dayot Upamecano will leave for Bayern in July doesn't help matters at all. At just 22, Upamecano had perhaps the highest ceiling of all of Leipzig's young players. His departure for the club's biggest obstacle is a massive blow. A core of Angeliño, Marcel Sabitzer, Willi Orbán, Dani Olmo, and Emil Forsberg is simply not good enough to get it done.
There's no denying that for the past five years, Leipzig have clearly been punching above their weight. Unfortunately, it appears that the bubble has finally burst. After falling just short again and again, Leipzig's quest for a first piece of silverware in the club's history will likely continue for quite some time.
No comments:
Post a Comment