Four Observations from Bayern Munich’s 1-0 win against Wolfsburg

Following the anticlimactic drop that was Bayern Munich’s loss to Paris Saint-Germain, their Champions League dreams were crushed. This leaves the team with nothing to do but to focus on the remainder of their league matches and the DFB-Pokal final later this month against VfB Stuttgart.

Bayern faced VfL Wolfsburg in their penultimate Bundesliga game. In what was a rather lackluster fixture, the Bavarians emerged victorious by dint of a Michael Olise goal. Here are the observations from the game.

By the half-time mark, the Wolfsburg xG was 3.31 and by the full-time mark, their xG was 3.88. The home side was clearly intent on winning. A win here would mean they were saved from the relegation battle. However, what Wolfsburg could not have anticipated is Jonas Urbig. The goalkeeper was easily the best player on the pitch and every 10-15 minutes, he was making saves beyond the abilities of someone his age. He was diving, leaping, running and saving with his whole heart and soul. The entire credit for tonight’s clean sheet goes to Urbig, and no one else.

Despite Urbig’s incredible performance, the man of the match was awarded to Michael Olise. And perhaps with good reason. This game featured not the Olise we saw midweek — this was a man who had returned to his usual state.

Take the goal that he scored. Kimmich, in buildup, passes to Laimer right outside the box. The Austrian picked out Olise on the flank, who had only one defender to beat and made it to the corner of the box. From here, he takes a shot so immaculately angled that there was absolutely no way the goalkeeper could have gotten his hands on it.

Romanticizing the struggle

In the last section, I had mentioned Wolfsburg’s xG to be well over 3.8 by the end of the game. What makes this statistic more concerning is actually the fact that Bayern’s xG was a mere 1.97. For a team that absolutely dominated the possession with a whopping 69%, they should have never let the opposition get even a single fruitful touch on the ball. And yet by far, Bayern has struggled the MOST against bottom of the table sides.

It is almost as if the team has to turn entirely helpless against the will of a relegation candidate.

But here is the fact: Wolfsburg does NOT have the quality to dictate Bayern’s decisions this game.

So what actually is going wrong?

What really puts things into perspective, is actually Bayern’s position map from half-time. Looking at Wolfsburg’s side, it makes sense as to why they’d position themselves that way. It is understandable that they choose to crowd the middle of the pitch, be as compact as possible, so they can slow the progression of Bayern’s game. Which is great until you realize that Bayern adopts the exact same shape.

Bayern’s central players — both the midfielders and the centrally positioned attackers were all practically sitting on top of Wolfsburg’s defensive zones. Instead of stretching out Wolfsburg, they kept them in their exact safe positions. Which makes absolutely no sense. Further, the Bayern defense is literally on the same horizontal line as Wolfsburg’s wingers — instead of being way higher up. This may have to do with Tom Bischof turning into a midfielder in progression, forgetting that he was asked to be at left-back, and Josip Stanišić having a conservative style in general.

What happened as a result was Bayern holding their (midfield) doors open for Wolfsburg attacks.

Why is a world-class team with all the personnel to position themselves like a serious attacking side, trying to emulate their opposition?

The answer? Merely my own speculations. Following the nightmare that was the PSG loss, Kompany may have realized that his team had taken such a drastically attack-forward approach that they had completely neglected the defensive side. This may have resulted in him asking his team to take up a more conservative positioning. But what this resulted in, was a new system that simply carried the same old problems as always.

Have Bayern lost their bite?

Remember a few seasons ago, when Alphonso Davies was so incredibly inverted, and yet he would chase down his opposition to make a recovery run?

Yeah, that is a thing of the past.

Every single Wolfsburg attack came from an incredibly hard-to-watch midfield battle, and resultantly, the attacker would carry the ball all the way to the top. Bayern players can somehow beat the Wolfsburg attackers in a foot race, and yet refuse to get the ball back. There were multiple instances wherein Stanišić would be well ahead of his opponent, but simply not recover the ball back. This would lead to the attack being progressed further into the box. This pattern formed a majority of the attempts that Wolfsburg took.

If I could, I would avoid talking about the midfield tonight. Kimmich and Goretzka were practically just shuffling the ball across in horizontal —which explains their phenomenal passing accuracy. But it also explains why Christian Eriksen and Patrick Wimmer could get the ball and hold it for long enough to cut through the lines with virtually no pressure. The only time the either of them did anything situationally appropriate, was the tackle that Goretzka made in the first half.

Frankly, there is so much more to discuss from tonight’s game. However, the four points are good enough. For now.

Miscellaneous Observations

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, Spotify, Apple, or any leading podcast distributor…

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