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The clash against unbeaten league leaders Bayer Leverkusen was a game to “drop your pants and put your cards on the table”, Bayern Munich’s optimistic coach Thomas Tuchel had said. But instead of the desired display of skill, Saturday’s big reveal was a truly pitiful spectacle.
His Bayern had little attack and a dangerously exposed defense. His hand turned out to be seven deuces, the two worst cards in poker and, incidentally, the same two numbers that summed up all his helpless misery better than a thousand words: a paltry 0.27 expected goals in a 3-3 loss. 0 is all. They achieved it in the most important game of the national season.
Seeing serial champions getting outclassed on an occasion of such magnitude was barely believable. For 11 years in a row, they have always appeared when it mattered against whoever was closest at the time, but their defeat at the BayArena was reminiscent of the 5-2 rout suffered by Jurgen Klopp’s Borussia Dortmund in the 2012 DFB Cup final, past year. his hegemony began.
In the league, you had to go back even further, to the 5-1 humiliation in 2009 at eventual champions Wolfsburg, to find such a one-sided title fight in favor of their opponents.
Unsurprisingly, the post-mortem focused on Tuchel’s striking 3-4-3 formation, practiced all week behind the gray curtains at the Sabener Strasse training ground.
The unfamiliar setup, deployed for the first time this season, was designed to mimic Leverkusen and was supposed to pit right-footed Sacha Boey on the left to deal with the speedy Jeremie Frimpong.
Tuchel could not have imagined that Xabi Alonso would also opt for a different system, moving away from his full-back dependent play and adopting a four/five hybrid at the back with the much more defensive Josip on loan from Bayern. Stanisic instead of Frimpong.
Boey had not played on the “wrong side” for four years. And going out to deny his opponents’ strengths instead of ruthlessly exploiting his weaknesses is not how things are traditionally done in Munich.
However, Tuchel was right when he insisted that attributing everything to training was “too controversial” a take. Bayern started well and controlled the game, at least for ten minutes, before a series of errors and mishaps that had little to do with the system opened the door for the hosts. But the complete lack of reaction after Stanisic’s goal in the 18th minute showed that this went much further than that.
“A team like ours should be able to adapt to a new system,” second-half substitute Joshua Kimmich rightly stated. Thomas Muller agreed, launching into a loud and angry tirade about the players “lacking the balls” to play with the kind of freedom and cunning they usually displayed in training.
“We don’t have to attack the coach, it’s not about tactics,” said the 34-year-old. “We had enough international quality players. But I’m talking about making decisions with the ball, playing with intelligence, making runs and understanding situations. It’s okay to feel the pressure. But that pressure must be converted into energy.”
In addition, he criticized that his team made too many safe passes and that they did not advance the ball. “We’re overcomplicating things,” he said.
Muller’s remarkable intervention described the problem well, but stopped short of providing an explanation. How come such good players don’t play with more fluidity and confidence? Is it because many of them have lost their hunger after all those championships, as some suspect? The malaise is certainly not new: a lack of energy and confusion affected Bayern’s possession game long before Tuchel’s arrival last March.
But the manager must also assume certain responsibility. Tuchel, not for the first time, attributed the offensive problems to the players not beating their men on Saturday. One of his guiding tactical ideas, influenced by Pep Guardiola, is to isolate defenders one on one.
Given that Bayern’s players are, by definition, better than their Bundesliga rivals, that should be a promising strategy. But injuries to Serge Gnabry and Kingsley Coman have reduced the overall impact on the flanks, while Leroy Sane and Jamal Musiala have lost momentum since the winter break, like everyone else.
Too many players are struggling with their form to play with the kind of personality and presence expected of an experienced Bayern starter, while their outspoken and critical coach has also not done much to boost their self-confidence. Just look at midfield duo Leon Goretzka and Kimmich, who have been undermined by the former Chelsea manager’s public search for a specialist holding midfielder.
Worst of all, though, there doesn’t seem to be a collective backup option in Tuchelball. It is based on individualism and therefore cannot function properly if many of the individuals in question seem preoccupied with its shortcomings.
Against Bayer, Bayern were so incredibly forceful in attack that one wonders if Harry Kane’s goals so far have been nothing more than a mirage of offensive competence.
This situation will not be tolerated for long in the Bavarian capital. The last Bayern Munich coach to lose to Alonso’s Leverkusen, Julian Nagelsmann, was fired five days later.
Things are not as bleak for Tuchel as they were for his predecessor eleven months ago; not yet, anyway. But it will take a good run in the Champions League to ease the impact of Bayern’s least Bayern-like performance in a potentially decisive title match in 15 years. If he fails to quickly instill more confidence in his lifeless squad, the inevitable summer shake-up may not be limited to the squad.
(Top photo: Stefan Matzke – sampics/Corbis via Getty Images)