How Bayern lost 5-0 and what it means for the Bundesliga
Romance isn't dead, you're just looking in the wrong places
Bayern Munich are gunning for a tenth consecutive Bundesliga title but have lose in the DFB Pokal second round in consecutive seasons. How did Borussia Mönchengladbach beat them 5-0 and what does it mean for German football?
It’s the sort of thing that can happen to any team once in a season. Therein lies the problem. It really does happen just once or twice per season. Everything seemed to go wrong for Bayern Munich in midweek and the result, a 5-0 defeat, was their worst since 1978.
Individual performances in almost every position were really poor and the fact Julian Nagelsmann wasn’t present, having tested positive for coronavirus, surely only made things worse. Maybe he would have made adjustments after Bayern went one, then two, then three goals down before half-time. Maybe that would have made a difference.
Or maybe not. Bayern Munich don’t have many bad days and that’s why the Bundesliga title is likely to end up in their hands again this season, for a tenth year in a row. Nobody can keep up over 34 games. As long as that is the case, the importance of the DFB Pokal only grows. Bayern still win it more than most but a second successive second round exit means someone else will again be collecting silverware in Germany this season. Come the end of the season, Bayern will have won the cup in ‘just’ three of the previous six campaigns. That’s a lot but it’s nothing compared to the way they dominate German football’s league format.
Bayern’s only previous defeat under Nagelsmann was a smash and grab carried out by Eintracht Frankfurt: Kevin Trapp made more saves in that game than any goalkeeper had against Bayern since May 2019. They’ve won 12 of their other 14 competitive matches including the DFL Supercup, scoring 4.54 goals per game (3.92 per game when we remove a 12-0 cup win over Bremer SV) and conceding just 0.62 goals per game.
The two games they failed to win both came against Borussia Mönchengladbach. We can talk about Nagelsmann’s absence and Bayern having an off day but die Föhlen deserve enormous credit for Bayern’s midweek collapse and it was no one-off. Gladbach may have had more success this time around but they approached the game with the same aggression and ambition they showed in the 1-1 draw between the sides in August.
For whatever reason, Gladbach look like the only club in German football who see a game against the champions as an opportunity, something to be grasped, not something to just suffer through.
Football is all about space and the space against Bayern is behind the backline. The best place to win the ball is in their third and the best way to hurt them, to stretch them, is to make runs in behind and play the ball quickly, before they have time to reorganise. It’s the best way to hurt most sides, especially dominant teams, but it’s easier said than done. On the few occasions teams can win the ball from Bayern and access the spaces in behind, they tend not to throw everything forward, worried about the consequences at the other end, instead leaving one, or maybe two, players to make all the right decisions and punish the German champions.
Gladbach, though, have played Bayern twice this season now and given them huge issues by pressing them high early in games and sending runners in behind the defence as soon as they win the ball. Gladbach marked Bayern tightly back in August, pouncing on loose touches or imprecise passes.
Before springing away into the space behind the backline as soon as possession was won.
The approach led to a number of openings, especially in the first half, including the first Bundesliga goal of the season.
And they were at it again on Wedenesday, attacking in numbers. A sloppy Alphonso Davies pass saw Gladbach win possession just outside the area with just over a minute on the clock. It was a gift Manu Koné made the most of, jinking away from Joshua Kimmich and looked for the runners in behind before tucking the ball home when it landed back at his feet.
As Koné shot, he was one of five Gladbach players in the Bayern area.
There was more to follow. Gladbach players ambitiously drove forward whenever it looked like a team-mate might have the chance to find them in behind. Either Bayern had to keep their high line and the vulnerability that came with it as Gladbach ran deep and across the entire width of the pitch or Bayern could choose to drop deeper defensively, opening more space between defence and midfield for Gladbach to exploit. They didn’t really settle on either and Gladbach kept working themselves into threatening positions.
Which led to the second goal, as Gladbach again occupied the width of the pitch with multiple runs to drag defenders out of position …
… and also led to Breel Embolo winning a penalty.
And just like that, the usually untouchable Bayern found themselves three goals down.
Truth be told, they didn’t play badly after that. They are one of the best teams in the world (if not the best) and they will never look out of sorts for an entire 90 minutes.
Still, a 5-0 defeat, the club’s biggest since 10 years before Julian Nagelsmann was even born, was far from undeserved and rightly sent some shockwave through German football.
Plenty of teams will lose and lose heavily if they try to take Bayern on like this but, well, everyone loses heavily against them anyway. And as midweek showed, it might be the only way to stop them picking up every trophy German football has to offer.