Manuel Neuer has attacked Bayern Munich club leaders over the dismissal of goalkeeper coach Toni Tapalovic. The 36-year-old said that he considered leaving the club "as this was a heavy blow for me as I was already lying on the ground."
While the 2014 world champion is recovering from a skiing accident leading to a broken leg, Bayern announced that they had sacked 42-year-old Tapalovic due to disagreements with head coach Julian Nagelsmann.
The Bayern keeper is sidelined for at least until the end of the 2022-2023 season. Neuer said he "thought about everything, including my future with the club."
The 2020 treble winner talked about the feeling his heart had been ripped out, saying the club's action was the most "brutal thing I experienced in my career."
Tapalovic not only had been Bayern's goalkeeper coach since 2011 but also is a trusted family friend of Neuer. The German international said the surprising action felt worse than the hostility from the club's supporters he faced when joining Bayern in 2011 due to his past in the shirt of Schalke.
Neuer questioned the club's claimed family atmosphere expressed in the slogan "we are what we are." "Bayern is claiming to be different from other clubs, as a fact like a family.
Then something unbelievable like this happens, I have never seen before," the goalkeeper said. Bayern officials assured him that Tapalovic's dismissal wasn't meant to target him personally.
"I told them I don't accept the reasons they are talking about, and I had the feeling my perspective was heard," said Neuer. The keeper said his future working relationship with Nagelsmann will be carried out on a professional basis, as German media assumed the relationship between the coach and keeper has been damaged.
Neuer spoke about his feeling "of a guilty conscience" due to his skiing accident. "It felt like a lump in my throat, and I cried. I can hardly deal with the fact to disappoint people around me," he added.
Reports speak of an open fracture causing a long recovery process with an uncertain outcome. Bayern have signed Swiss international Yann Sommer from Moenchengladbach.