Bundesliga
Sadio Mane: Eclipse of a star at Bayern Munich?
It seems Sadio Mane’s move from Liverpool to Bayern Munich has not paid off for any party involved.
The Reds lost one of the cornerstones of their attack, while Bayern did not acquire a player who could at least partly fill the void left by Robert Lewandowski’s departure to Barcelona.
Mane has not performed to the level we saw during his days at Anfield by any means.
So far, the 31-year-old has scored 11 goals in 32 games. What might be shocking is that Mane has come off the bench in eight of these appearances this season. He serves as a bit-part player instead of a key man.
To make matters worse, Mane and Leroy Sane got into a physical altercation in the dressing room at the Etihad Stadium following Bayern’s 3-0 loss to Manchester City in the first leg of the Champions League quarter-finals.
The two already started arguing on the field when, during one of Bayern’s few attacks, Sane intended to play a short pass to Mane who instead made a deep run.
Moments later, Sane confronted Mane over what he considered to have been a mistake by the substitute, who had been on the pitch for only 14 minutes.
Once the pair returned to the dressing room after the game, Mane complained to Sane about the way he was spoken to on the pitch, which led to the altercation and left Sane with a swollen lip.
As a result, Bayern’s executives decided to suspend Mane from the Bundesliga game against Hoffenheim on Saturday and fine him. While Bayern do not intend to terminate the forward’s contract, they were convinced serious punishment was needed.
Bayern manager Thomas Tuchel stated that, in his eyes, Mane has received enough punishment, yet the clash has disturbed the team.
“I haven’t seen the incident myself, as I was in the coaches’ room,” Tuchel said at a press conference on Friday.
“It was important to me that we resolve that matter before the next training session. We did that yesterday morning. We cleared the air. We are not the first team where something like that happens, and we won’t be the last.
“It has caused a cleansing atmosphere.”
Since his arrival at Bayern in late March, Tuchel has maintained a ‘Mr Positivity’ persona. He even found many words of encouragement after the decisive loss at City, saying he is “shocked in love” with his new team.
But Tuchel is aware he has to worry about Mane.
“You need time to acclimatise after changing clubs even at that age,” he recently said. “Strikers like Sadio are sensitive, that is the key. It is about trust and patience so he can come back into a flow.”
Finding a flow usually requires feeling comfortable in your role on the field. Mane, however, has not found a role that suits him perfectly since his summer arrival from Anfield.
In the early stages of the season, former boss Julian Nagelsmann, who left Bayern on 24 March, used Mane up front in an attempt to find a replacement for Lewandowski.
But Nagelsmann realised Mane was not the kind of target player the Poland international had been for years.
Mane moved back to the wing but also struggled to discover his sweet spot in Nagelsmann’s oft-used 3-4-2-1 system.
If that wasn’t enough, an inflamed head of the fibula prevented Mane from playing for Senegal at the World Cup in Qatar and sidelined him for six weeks after the restart of the Bundesliga season.
Mane lacks the confidence of old
Tuchel seemingly prefers to use the former Liverpool star on the left side in a 4-3-3, or as one of a group of four floating attackers who try to crowd around the centre and break man-to-man coverage by switching positions.
Regardless of any discussions about tactical roles, Mane’s issues seem to go deeper than that.
He appears to have lost the confidence that once made him go into one-on-ones with any defender in the world. His creativity and unpredictability are, besides his goalscoring skills, what made Mane a special player.
However, since his arrival in Munich and particularly since he missed the World Cup, Mane often looks dejected. Even some of his team-mates are puzzled by the lack of intensity the frontman shows in training and games.
What exactly caused Mane to become a shadow of his former self is subject to speculation. But something is certainly off and which, reading between the lines, Tuchel has acknowledged.
The new manager has also mentioned trust and patience – two attributes that might not come to mind immediately when thinking about Bayern, who fired their head coach Nagelsmann despite a winning ratio of 73%.
Bayern are a club in uproar and Mane is a supposed star name on the downslide. It could be a toxic marriage.
-BBC
A masked fan unplugged a VAR monitor during a German second division match on Sunday in an audacious act of sabotage that left the referee looking at a blank screen when he was called to review a potential penalty.
The bizarre incident unfolded during the Bundesliga 2 clash between Preussen Muenster and visiting Hertha Berlin, when referee Felix Bickel was summoned to the pitchside monitor only to discover that someone had yanked out the power plug.
According to Muenster’s website, a masked supporter had infiltrated the interior and unplugged the VAR monitor, sabotaging the review process. German media reported that at the same time, home fans displayed a banner reading “Pull the plug on VAR”.
With Bickel unable to view the replay, VAR official Katrin Rafalski in Cologne was forced to make the decision remotely, ruling that the challenge was indeed a foul, prompting Bickel to award the penalty, which Hertha duly converted.
The Berlin side eventually won the match 2–1 with a stoppage-time goal.
Muenster later said the incident appeared to have been a planned action and that the club would do everything in its power to identify those responsible.
-Reuters
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German football powerhouse Borussia Dortmund has officially launched the BVB International Academy Ghana, marking the club’s first international academy on the African continent.
The academy, which will commence operations in Accra in February 2026, is based at Achimota School and has been established in partnership with Accra Shooting Stars FC. It is designed to provide structured football development for boys and girls aged 6 to 18.
In a statement announcing the project, Dortmund described the initiative as a major milestone for youth football development in Ghana and part of the club’s expanding global academy network.
Young players enrolled at the academy will be trained under Borussia Dortmund’s internationally recognised methodology, which emphasises discipline, leadership, education, nutrition and holistic personal development, while remaining aligned with Ghana’s vibrant football culture.
Benedikt Scholz, Director of Internationalisation and Commercial Partnerships and Managing Director of the BVB Football Academy, said the launch reflects the Bundesliga side’s longstanding relationship with Ghana, forged through former players such as Otto Addo and Ibrahim Tanko.
He described the academy as a “strong statement” of intent and noted that the club’s objective is to build sustainable youth development structures in close cooperation with local partners.
Academy Director Teddy Hiadzi explained that the project is inclusive by design, offering pathways for both recreational and elite players.
“Every child’s football journey is different,” Hiadzi said, adding that the academy’s priority is to provide quality coaching, clear developmental structures and a safe environment for growth on and off the pitch.
Former Dortmund midfielder and Black Stars legend Ibrahim Tanko has been appointed ambassador of the BVB International Academy Ghana. He described the academy as a special opportunity for young Ghanaian talents, noting that the country’s passion for football makes it an ideal environment to instil the mindset and discipline required to succeed at the highest level.
The BVB International Academy Ghana will operate as an official member of Dortmund’s global International Academy network, which already includes academies across Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean. Enrolment for the first intake is underway, with information sessions and football camps scheduled in collaboration with local schools.
The launch further strengthens Dortmund’s footprint in Africa and underscores Ghana’s growing reputation as a hub for structured youth football development on the continent.
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Bayer Leverkusen kept pace with Bundesliga leader Bayern Munich by beating Hoffenheim 3-1 on Sunday with goals from Victor Boniface, Patrik Schick and Jeremie Frimpong.
Leverkusen finished with 10 players after Álex Grimaldo’s sending off with half an hour to play. New signings Emiliano Buendía and Mario Hermoso made their debuts as Xabi Alonso’s team stayed six points behind Bayern two weeks before the top two clash in Leverkusen.
Bayern defeated Holstein Kiel on Saturday.
Boniface scored with his first shot at goal since his proposed move to Saudi team Al-Nassr collapsed. The Nigeria forward started for his first game since early November after recovering from a thigh injury, and he scored in the 15th minute with a shot that Hoffenheim ’keeper Luca Philipp should arguably have stopped.
Frimpong made it 2-0 four minutes later after Aleix García sent the Dutch wing back through.
Then Robin Braun became the first referee to announce a VAR call to fans in a Bundesliga game when a penalty he awarded to Nathan Tella for a foul by Hoffenheim defender David Jurasek was taken back — video replays showed the Leverkusen attacker was coming from an offside position before he was fouled.
Leverkusen’s match was among five in the 20th round trialling the NFL-style announcements, a change league officials hope will make the much-maligned VAR system more popular among fans.
Buendía went on for the injured Tella to make his Bundesliga debut before the break, and Schick went on for Boniface after it.
Buendía surged through the Hoffenheim defence only to see his shot saved by Philipp, but Schick was there to tuck away the rebound for 3-0 in the 51st. It was the Czech forward’s 14th league goal of the season.
Then Grimaldo was shown red in the 61st when Hoffenheim substitute Gift Orban went on for the visitors. Orban pulled a goal back a minute later.
Buendía made way for Hermoso to compensate for Grimaldo’s sending off. Though tempers flared at times, Leverkusen’s 10 men contained the visitors for the rest of the game.
Third-placed Eintracht Frankfurt drew with Wolfsburg 1-1 in the early game.
-AFP
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