Mediocre Bundesliga rivals deliver title to Bayern on silver platter

The Bavarians are a brilliant team but the attitude of their rivals leaves a lot to be desired, while Barcelona face up to life without one of their most important players.

Too many teams in the Bundesliga are satisfied with mediocrity. It suits the rest of the field to paint Bayern Munich as some sort of super-team, incapable of being caught. To do anything about Bayern running away with the league with seven games to go would be too much like hard work.

Bayern have been dominant plenty of times before. They have won the Bundesliga about once every second season since its inception. German football has traditionally been about Bayern versus someone else; Borussia Monchengladbach, Hamburg, Borussia Dortmund. This rampaging supremacy is not new.

But the surrendering is. It's inappropriate for opposition coaches to give up and say they are too good. "We see you, but actually we need a telescope," Dortmund's Jurgen Klopp told German media after the insipid 0-0 against Schalke midweek.

There is now a culture of acceptance about the Bundesliga. Bayern are too good so let's not bother even trying. Yes, Bayern are good. But they are not supermen. They are playing highly-effective football and playing it diligently. Is what they are doing really that far beyond the reach of other teams?

By ascribing this invincibility to Bayern, clubs in the Bundesliga have absolved themselves of the responsibility of actually doing anything about it. Yes, the Bundesliga is easy for Bayern. But Bayern are not the ones who have made it easy. They have been handed their mandate to rule through the attitude of defeatism on the part of their so-called rivals. That is why they are dominant.

Considering all four German teams emerged from the Champions League group stage, what's holding them back from competing domestically or making waves in Europe? There is a great untapped potential within the Bundesliga. There are clubs on top of potential goldmines. But at the sharp end the teams continue to pick the wrong men to lead. Inept, inexperienced, incapable coaches. All except Bayern. Their last three coaching appointments have been men of pedigree, Champions League winners.

Jens Keller's rudimentary tactical failings have left Schalke punching below their weight. His players are better than their recent humiliations against Bayern and Real Madrid suggested. Real are good but not 9-2 good as Sevilla showed recently.

Sami Hyypia is learning on the job at Bayer Leverkusen. They are a Champions League team with a novice at the helm and have been treated as such by Manchester United and Paris Saint-Germain.

What are Wolfsburg hoping to achieve appointing Dieter Hecking to coach an ambitious and talented group of players? He's kicked around the Bundesliga for years with no great impact.

Lucien Favre was the man to steady the ship at Borussia Monchengladbach but has repeatedly failed to make an impact in Europe with them.

Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola aside, these are the coaches at the top teams. None of them are in demand. None of them proven, title-winning coaches.

Beneath the huddle of top teams, Markus Weinzierl at Augsburg and Thomas Tuchel at Mainz are evidence of clubs doing things the right way. They are, in a sense, serving coaching apprenticeships at clubs which suit them perfectly. The clubs and coaches will serve each other well until one outgrows the other. Those two are going places and to have put them in charge of bigger teams before their time would have been damaging.

It's at the clubs of a higher footing where the relative novices need to be dispensed with. The Bundesliga has an admirable player development record and a sensible transfer policy for the most part but it falls down in finding the right coaches for its clubs at the top end. It is commendable that indigenous coaches are given the opportunity to work straight away at clubs in the league but look at, say, Brendan Rodgers and Roberto Martinez. They have earned their way into those jobs at Liverpool and Everton.

What is the barometer of success? Hanging on Bayern's coattails, hoping to finish at most three places behind them and emerging from the group stages in Europe? Because if it is, that is cowardly. It's one thing running clubs like businesses but on a sporting level the bar must be set higher.

The German league has made great strides in recent seasons. There is a lot of virtues to extol and a lot to be proud of. But let's not have a one team league and pretend it couldn't be any different.