The reunion with ex-Bayern coach Hansi Flick is the focus of FC Bayern‘s duel with FC Barcelona. The day before, there was another emotional encounter in the team hotel.
Julian Buhl reports from Barcelona
As goalkeeping coach, Toni Tapalović was still part of the German record champions’ entourage when FC Bayern traveled to Barcelona for the away game in the Champions League almost exactly two years ago. One day before the new edition of the premier class clash on Wednesday, Tapalović, who now works as assistant to head coach Hansi Flick at FC Barcelona, suddenly appeared as a surprise guest at the Munich team hotel.
t-online caught the 44-year-old on Tuesday evening entering the lobby through the side entrance right next to the revolving door at around 8:40 p.m. Did Flick send a spy on a secret mission to the five-star Sofitel Hotel on the sea promenade, where the Bavarians are now staying again, as they did two years ago?
No, Tapalović was already expected by an old acquaintance: ex-national goalkeeper Manuel Neuer was standing there in a white training outfit and greeted Tapalović with a warm hug. The two chatted briefly and then disappeared together towards the basement, where Neuer and the rest of the Bayern team were just sitting together having dinner together.
The 38-year-old Neuer and Tapalović have known each other since their time together at FC Schalke. In 2011, Tapalović moved to Munich as a goalkeeper coach together with Neuer and worked there for twelve years until 2023. Tapalović is still one of Neuer’s closest confidants in his private life and was even his best man.
The reunion with Bayern’s sextuple coach Hansi Flick, who has been the new head coach at FC Barcelona since the summer, is undoubtedly the focus of Wednesday’s duel. But the meeting with the former head coach is not the only reunion for the Munich team.
Tapalović, who in addition to his work as goalkeeping coach at Bayern under Flick also took on other important assistant coaching tasks, knows many other Bayern players well besides Neuer. This also applies to Marcus Sorg, who, alongside Heiko Westermann, now works as Flick’s assistant at FC Barcelona and was previously Flick’s assistant coach with the national team from 2021 to 2023.
