Welcome back, for the fourth time this season, Bayern Munich and Bayer Leverkusen faced off and for the first time under Xabi Alonso, Leverkusen lost to Bayern, convincingly.
If you wanted two heavyweights lugging it out, this was not the game for you.
In the first half it was all Bayern. Leverkusen never really had any control of the game and despite playing six defensive minded players, there were major gaps in Die Werkself’s set up, and that was just the first 10 minutes. Leon Goretzka had an early chance cleared by Mario Hermoso before Bayern would grab the first goal of the game when Michael Olise was left in a lot of space and his cross into the box was met by the head of Harry Kane (Wow, Kane scores in a big game, for once). Kane beat Nordi Mukiele to the header and that seemingly dented the Frenchman’s confidence as he looked on the ropes for much of the first 45.
Leverkusen did have one good chance when underhit Dayot Upamecano pass was intercepted by Jeremie Frimpong but he was unable to beat Manuel Neuer 1v1. This is becoming a common theme in regards to Frimpong, despite Alonso saying that the Dutchman works on his finishing in training, it is not obvious, for well over a year now, Frimpong is still not consistent in front of goal and this is holding his game back massively.
In the second half, Leverkusen imploded. First a standard cross from Bayern was dropped by Matej Kovar with Jamal Musiala ready to pounce to make it 2-0. Then Mukiele’s night went from bad to worse as he was sent off for a second yellow card after a foul on Kinglsey Coman. Then Alonso would sub on Edmond Tapsoba, who would then give away a rather pointless penalty which Kane converted.
At the end of the day, this score line was not really due to how good Bayern were but more due to how bad Leverkusen have been, they legitimately SHIT THE BED.
Like Stuttgart on Friday, Leverkusen gifted Bayern two goals and on top of this created nothing meaningful in front of goal.
Just like the 0-0 draw in the league just over a month ago, this defeat is mainly on Alonso once again. His decision to keep Mukiele on despite him clearly struggling, then the decision to continue with the game plan that was clearly not working, and then to not sub on a striker once again until the 80th minute despite the Leverkusen’s forward line screaming out for some sort of presence all played a part in this loss. If we are being honest, an argument can be made that as good of a manager Alonso is, his decision making in recent weeks has been very poor and he has seemingly adopted the trait of Pep Guardiola to overthink everything. Non-decisions like these are great reasons for Real Madrid to look elsewhere for a head coach.
The tie is all but over, if we are being honest.
When the lights were brightest, Leverkusen crumbled and Alonso will need to call on his experiences of Istanbul in 2005 to give Die Werkself any hope of a comeback in the second leg. Maybe Leverkusen can use the visible frustrations on the bench to turn things around and produce a great performance on Tuesday, or maybe they crumble once again,
or maybe then Alonso will finally decide to play a striker.
Bayern Munich:
Manuel Neuer (5), Konrad Laimer (5), Min-Jae Kim (5), Dayot Upamecano (5), Alphonso Davies (6), Joshua Kimmich (6), Leon Goretzka (6), Michael Olise (7), Jamal Musiala (7), Kingsley Coman (6), Harry Kane (8)
Others: Jonas Urbig (-), Josip Stanisic (5), Leroy Sané (5), Eric Dier (-), João Palhinha (-)
Bayer Leverkusen:
Matej Kovar (2), Nordi Mukiele (2), Mario Hermoso (5), Jonathan Tah (3), Piero Hincapié (4), Jeremie Frimpong (4), Granit Xhaka (5), Exequiel Palacios (5), Alejandro Grimaldo (5), Amine Adli (5), Florian Wirtz (4)
Others: Edmond Tapsoba (4), Patrik Schick (-), Aleix Garcia (-), Arthur (-), Emiliano Buendia (-)
GGFN Man of the Match: Harry Kane (8)
For the first time in his Bayern career, Kane turned up in a big game. This wasn’t just him scoring a penalty to satisfy is 1:1 goal to game ratio either, he actually looked good. Kane stretched Bayern’s play and his presence caused plenty of issues for Leverkusen’s already fragile defence. His performance could also be seen with the fact that he continued to press Kovar late into the game. This was probably one of Kane’s best performances for Bayern, not in terms of output.
GGFN | Jack Meenan
