Bayern Munich have lost their aura<\/p>\n
This game should not have been close. Yes, Borussia Dortmund are second in the table, but FC Bayern outclass them man-for-man, with the sole exception of Nico Schlotterbeck. BVB have been playing two games a week non-stop for two weeks, and came into this off the back of a humiliating loss to Atalanta in the Champions League.<\/p>\n
So why did Bayern Munich have so much trouble with them?<\/p>\n
Fans of the club will have to look themselves in the mirror. This is not the team that was turning heads in the first part of the season. This is not the team everyone thinks will win the Champions League. This team looks tired, disoriented, and struggles to get out of 2nd gear.<\/p>\n
When was the last time Bayern Munich played a full 45 minutes of football without dropping quality or intensity? Maybe against RB Leipzig all the way back in January. Since then, every game has been a slog, with individual quality often being the difference. Players like Harry Kane and Michael Olise are left to pick up the pieces. The system isn\u2019t pulling its weight.<\/p>\n
Fans have been subjected to concentration errors, lapses in judgement, poor passing, and mediocre finishing \u2014 all compounded by a general sluggishness. In many ways, the team looks like a shell of its former self. The football is often slow and messy. Penalties make the difference more and more often.<\/p>\n
The question is, what will Vincent Kompany do about it? It all starts with the issues at the back\u2026<\/p>\n
Why the defense doesn\u2019t work any more<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s explain something very simple. Bayern Munich are not a traditional defensive team. So, how does the defense work \u2014 or rather, how should it work?<\/p>\n
It comes down to gegenpressing.<\/p>\n
To many Bayern fans, Kompany is a more control-oriented manager than Hansi Flick, but that couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. Vincent Kompany\u2019s team lives and dies by the press. When possession is lost, it must be regained as soon as possible. That way, defense becomes offense, as the turnover results in a counter. Sounds simple, right?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the problem. It is too simple, and thus becomes an Achilles heel. If teams beat the first man, things get out of hand very fast. Bayern Munich have no plan B if the press if beaten. There is no defensive shape to fall back into. When an opponent like Dortmund manage to make more than two passes with the ball, they will usually end up in the final third.<\/p>\n
Runners don\u2019t get tracked, because the system is designed to prevent the runner from getting the pass in the first place. The player who passes to the runner, that\u2019s the player who\u2019s supposed to get closed down by the press. So if the press fails, everything downstream is affected. There\u2019s no defensive shape, so the players keep their man-to-man style of defending. However, man-to-man styles break down when there\u2019s no pressing. So once the press is beaten, it\u2019s open season on the Bayern goal.<\/p>\n
This is a systemic issue that Vincent Kompany needs to fix. His team was incredible at winning duels in the first half of the season, but that\u2019s not true any more. Maybe teams found a trick to bypass the press, but it\u2019s more likely that the intensity he demands isn\u2019t sustainable. So Bayern need a plan B for when the press fails. Unless that plan B materializes, many MANY more goals will be conceded, especially against better opposition.<\/p>\n
Niko Kova\u010d makes things miserable for everyone<\/p>\n
Games like this demonstrate why Niko Kova\u010d has such a bad reputation despite being a relatively successful coach.<\/p>\n
Kova\u010d set the game up to maximize disruption, and it worked. There was no flow, no rhythm to how the football was played. BVB players were instructed to make obscene challenges, then slow the game down at every stoppage. Emre Can acted out a scene from Hamlet every ten minutes. Nico Schlotterbeck almost took out Stani\u0161i\u0107\u2019s ankle. Then he almost did the same to Olise.<\/p>\n
The ref let it all go, so BVB got to settle in and neutralize any attempt at buildup play. But that\u2019s the thing. They focused completely on stopping Bayern, but didn\u2019t give the same thought to their own game. Once Dortmund had the ball it was just \u2014 chaotic, really. They didn\u2019t make quality passes or mount dangerous attacks. They focused on beating the press, then getting the ball to Adeyemi up top.<\/p>\n
They were, frankly, not very pleasant to watch. They attacked when the press failed, and their goals came from Bayern blunders, but it was all opportunistic. BVB had 80,000 fans behind them, and never tried to be the protagonist. Even when they were 2-1 down and chasing, they kept the same negative attitude.<\/p>\n
To be fair to Kova\u010d, it almost worked. You could hardly expect his Dortmund team to go toe to toe with this Bayern (out of form as it is). But this sort of mentality is why no one likes him. Why his teams are so hard to watch, even when they win. And when they don\u2019t win, there\u2019s one big question \u2014 what was it all for?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the trouble with these pragmatists; it was the same with Tuchel at Bayern. They gamble everything on the result. It\u2019s all they have. So when the tactics fail, the suffering is especially acute. Football is entertainment, at the end of the day, and this type of football is not entertaining for anyone.<\/p>\n
An advertisement for the Bundesliga? Maybe not<\/p>\n
The two biggest teams in Germany met in a clash to decide the title race, and it ended in a pulse-pounding 3-2 with goals back and forth and both teams squandering a lead. This is the type of action and drama you never get from a typical \u201cbig\u201d game in the English Premier League.<\/p>\n
But there was something missing. It was not long ago that the name Der Klassiker meant you were gearing up to watch some of the best football a European league has to offer. This game\u2026 was not that. It was a sloppy, drawn-out affair, with neither team really playing particularly good football. Yes, it was end-to-end, but that was a function of the lack of quality on display rather than a testament to it.<\/p>\n
This game was an entertaining one for the neutrals. But it was a popcorn flick, a B-movie, something Marvel might produce. It\u2019s nothing compared to watching Jupp vs Klopp or Pep vs Tuchel back in the golden days of this fixture. Those games were cinema.<\/p>\n
Sadly, the Bundesliga seems to have lost that cinematic quality in recent years. This game just proves it.<\/p>\n
You know who could have helped?<\/p>\n
Sorry to push the Thomas M\u00fcller agenda in the Big \u201826, but his presence was sorely missed.<\/p>\n
M\u00fcller is a specialist at beating Dortmund, and if he were still on the team, a lot of Bayern\u2019s problems would be fixed. Let\u2019s recap:<\/p>\n
Pressing: M\u00fcller is the perfect organizer and curator of the press. With him, Kompany could even implement a zonal system rather than the man-t0-man system he uses, or a hybrid style.Defending: If the press gets better, the defense gets better.Attacking: Having a man who attacks space is something this team desperately needs. Harry Kane drops too deep, and Serge Gnabry and Jamal Musiala don\u2019t have that positional sense. M\u00fcller would have filled that role.Depth: Jamal Musiala has missed most of the season and still isn\u2019t near fully fit. M\u00fcller could have played in his stead, and he could have been a better option than Nicolas Jackson as a striker as well.Leadership: Thomas M\u00fcller is an incredible leader. He would have kept the team\u2019s intensity up during the tough phases of the game, the parts where it got all sluggish. He wasn\u2019t called Radio M\u00fcller for nothing.<\/p>\n
Honestly, the fact that he\u2019s not here is a terrible shame. Vincent Kompany has blood on his hands for what he did with Thomas M\u00fcller. He needs to win a Champions League to make up for it.<\/p>\n
Miscellaneous observations<\/p>\n
Imagine if Schlotterbeck got a red card before his goal. It\u2019s hard to understand why he didn\u2019t.Set piece defending remains a massive weakness for this team. Kompany needs to fix this.Michael Olise had one of his worst games in a Bayern shirt. Luis D\u00edaz wasn\u2019t so great either. Are they slowing down? Feeling the fatigue?<\/p>\n
If you are looking for more Bayern Munich and German national team coverage, check out the latest episodes of Bavarian Podcast Works, which you can get on Acast<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, Apple<\/a>, or any leading podcast distributor\u2026 <\/p>\n