MUNICH (AP) — Bayern Munich signed goalkeeping coach Michael Rechner from Bundesliga rival Hoffenheim on Wednesday to replace the fired Toni Tapalović.
The Bavarian club said the 42-year-old Rechner was joining the team's staff, but didn’t give any details regarding the length of his contract.
Bayern fired Tapalović on Jan. 23 because of what sporting director Hasan Salihamidžić said were “differences over the ways and means of working together.”
It led to strong criticism from injured goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, who had been working with Tapalović since they were both at Schalke. Neuer and Tapalović joined Bayern together in 2011 and Neuer said his dismissal was “the worst thing I’ve experienced in my career.”
Tapalović did not get along with Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann, whose relationship with Neuer is reportedly cool.
Rechner, a former goalkeeper for VfR and Waldhof Mannheim, Sachsen Leipzig, Schweinfurt and others, started coaching with Hoffenheim’s under-19 team in 2008. He switched to the club’s under-23 team five years later and took over as the senior team’s goalkeeping coach in 2015.
“We really regret his departure,” said Hoffenheim sporting director Alexander Rosen, who described Rechner’s move to Bayern as “the end of an era.”
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