Now that flick has been fired after the unquestionably disappointing stint as the NT coach, what do you think his legacy will be¿? Will he be remembered as the great manager who won a sextuple or an average manager who couldn’t adapt his tactics after a successful spell?
A thing I’ve seen a lot is people looking back on his time at Bayern less fondly, saying things like “2020 UCL was only because of Lewy & Gnabry’s finishing” and “His system was falling apart by the second season”, which isn’t all true. I am interested to see if he continues in management, and where he goes next.
I think it’s more an issue of his extremely high pressing, high line tactics are high risk and high reward and when he used it in 2020, the aggression caught teams by surprise and completely chocked their play. Later when terms started hanging back and exploiting the high line in the counter, flick seemed unable adapt adequately. What didn’t help was that 3 players (alaba, boetang and Thiago) who were experienced playing with such a high line all left. It was a similar story with the NT. We struggled against low blocks and our defenders are nowhere good enough to handle such a high line leading to a lot goals conceded from counters.
I myself am torn. When they worked, flick’s tactics were breathtaking. The 8-2 demolition of Barcelona will always be etched in my memory as will be the entire champions league run that year. But his work with the national team has really damaged his reputation in my eyes. He has brought the team to its lowest point in several decades