When Bayern Munich fail to win for two games in a row, you know what is coming next. Particularly on a Saturday night showcase, against the sort of good domestic opposition that tend to bring the best out of the champions. It had been a frustrating week, domestically and continentally, in two games on the road.
On both occasions they had been caught cold, conceding the Bundesliga’s fastest goal at Augsburg and going 1-0 down in less than 90 seconds in Stavanger. Vincent Kompany’s low profile on the Allianz Arena touchline, sat almost motionless in his seat on the bench as his team rattled a flurry of goals past poor RB Leipzig, had nothing to do with any lingering chagrin connected to those slow starts from his team. The sporting director, Max Eberl, who stood in for his coach in the post-match press conference, explained that the Belgian had been ill, not to mention Kompany’s current hip problem that had made the move from dressing room to pitch side slow and uncomfortable.
It was good he did not attempt to get up from his vantage point every time his team scored, or he would have been extremely sore in the morning. This was what Kicker referred to as a “Trainingsspiel in der Allianz Arena”. Had it not been for the goalkeeper Maarten Vandevoordt performing creditably, Leipzig’s club record defeat – a 7-0 loss to Manchester City three and a half years ago – would have been comfortably surpassed.
For Leipzig and their coach, the former Bayern man Martin Demichelis, this 6-1 defeat was the starkest of reality checks. The media reaction was the same, a sense of disappointment that a supposed competitor to Bayern could offer so little in terms of resistance. Yet there needed to be a recognition too that this was Bayern being their brilliant best; piqued, prickly and poked into action by a potential challenge that they felt compelled to prove wasn’t much of one.
This was a furious clearing of frustration on a number of levels; the need to defend Manuel Neuer after his early error at Augsburg, the industrial scale of chances frittered away in that game, the first-half punking by Viking in midweek, the concession of a late equaliser having come back and the red card for Michael Olise (Eberl had memorably called Viking’s captain, Zlatko Tripic, a “scumbag” for systematically winding up the France midfielder to the point at which he picked up two bookings in the blink of an eye, the second for gently lobbing the ball in Tripic’s face, forcing the latter to throw himself to the ground). And how that feeling was expelled from the very beginning. Harry Kane called Vandevoordt into action in the opening seconds, but it was only a temporary let-off for the visitors.
Luis Díaz steamed on to a Joshua Kimmich pass to fly through the centre of the Leipzig defence and give Bayern the lead in the 12th minute. The Colombian created a second with a delicious pass for the onrushing Aleksandar Pavlovic just before the half-hour, and just after a stunning collective move finished with Kane carving a chance for Olise to finish imperiously. The move that led to the Pavlovic goal began with Kane steering the ball left from a quarter-back position, maybe 10 to 15 metres in front of his own penalty area.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
