Bayern Munich’s preparations for the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final with Porto have been majorly disrupted after four of the club’s medical team staged a walkout.
The team – led by Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt – were blamed by boss Pep Guardiola for the 3-1 first-leg defeat in Portugal, prompting their resignations. Muller-Wohlfahrt’s son Kilian has also quit the club along with Peter Ueblacker and Lutz Hansel.
A statement from Muller-Wohlfahrt was obtained by the Daily Mail, and read as follows:
“After the Champions League match of Bayern Munich against Porto, the medical department was for some inexplicable reason made primarily responsible. The bond of trust is damaged.”
The Mail explain that Guardiola appeared to scapegoat the medical staff following the loss, blaming them for the fact that he only had 14 senior players fit to face Porto. Key members of the squad Franck Ribery, Bastian Schweinsteiger, and David Alaba were amongst those missing for the clash, as well as the influential winger Arjen Robben.
20 year-old Ivan Lucic was one of two goalkeepers selected on the bench, with Gianluca Gaudino and Mitchell Weiser the other young players also named in the squad.
The injury crisis appears to represent the final nail in the coffin for the relationship between Guardiola and Muller-Wohlfahrt – which certainly seems to have been a difficult working relationship over the past few weeks. At the start of the month, the former Barcelona boss was shown sarcastically applauding the 72-year-old – who has spent the last 38 years with the German club – after Medhi Benatia got injured during a German Cup clash with Bayer Leverkusen, and it seems the two parties have finally reached breaking point.
Watch that moment in the video below:
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