Sports Weekly all-media reporter Huang Sijun
The disparity in strength between the two teams, greater than the frustration of the Champions League exit, coupled with the blessing of luck, Bayern easily beat the penultimate Bielefeld 3-0 away on Sunday afternoon, still leading with nine points. This means that as long as they beat Borussia Dortmund at home in the next round, Bayern can achieve 10 consecutive Bundesliga titles in the first three rounds.
However, compared to the routine league title, people are obviously more concerned about what will happen after Bayern have experienced this season that is not very successful. After a season of compromise anyway, Nagelsman's attitude has gradually become clear. In a pre-match press conference away to Bielefeld, he made it clear that the team, which has worked together for a long time and has achieved a lot, "has also come to be a little new".
Good luck with the match point in hand
Bayern's morale is low after being knocked out by Villarreal in the Quarter-finals of the Champions League, but to really end the season, they will have to win at least the next two league rounds. Fortunately, in this round, the opponent is only Bielefeld, who has recently fallen to the bottom of his form and luck, Bayern is no longer willing to fight, his body is tired, and it is still more than enough to win against such a weak opponent.
Happily, Bayern changed from the habit of slow heat in recent matches after the opening and immediately launched a fierce attack, shortly after Lewandowski's inevitable close-range header was subconsciously bounced back into the field by Ortega on the goal line, Jacob Laurson blocked Alfonso Davis' cross into his own goal. Although the assistant referee raised the flag to award offside, it was clearly seen in slow motion that At the moment of Kimmich's pass, Davis was not offside, and referee Jolenbeck then changed the decision to be valid. Bayern ended four consecutive first-half no-goals decline and scored in the opening 15 minutes since the second leg of the Champions League quarter-finals, which swept Salzburg 7-1 at home on 8 March.
Although Lewandowski kicked empty, Laurson behind him accidentally slammed the ball into his own goal with his chest.
However, after Goretzka wasted another cross from Davis on the left side of the penalty area, the game saw a series of unexpected situations, with three Bielefeld players injured: First Guillelme Ramos, who was a right-back, collided head-on with Pamécano, causing bleeding from the corner of his right eye, and the game was halted for four minutes. Laurson, who then swung the oolong, was not alone, and could not continue the game due to a muscle strain on the back of his left thigh, which was delayed by more than 1 minute. Entering the last minute of the first half, Kunze was elbowed by Nyanzu Quasi during the scramble for the top, and then fell to the ground with a head injury. Nyanzu received a yellow card, and Kunze was carried away on a stretcher after his neck was secured, and the game was paused for about 4 minutes. As a result, the first half, which was originally planned to be 6 minutes of stoppage time, was finally made up for 9 minutes.
These 3 accidents, although all injured players were Bielefeld players, also interrupted the good momentum of Bayern's opening stages. So during these three injury stops, Bayern's offensive power was greatly reduced, and Okukawa Ya also scored a wonderful goal. Fortunately, when Okukawa picked up Nyanzu and Neuer to score the ball, the assistant referee raised the flag. The VAR confirmed by marking that Okukawa was indeed extremely slightly offside. Not only was it a fluke to avoid an equaliser, Bayern also assisted Gnabry again in the 7th minute of first-half stoppage time. Again, the assistant referee on this side, Kyo Shi, raised a flag to award offside; again, the slow motion clearly showed that this was a misjudgment. So Bayern entered the dressing room with a 2-goal advantage.
The action of Nyanzu Kwasi elbowing Kunze was, in Nagelsman's view, a red card.
After a very unfortunate first half, Bielefeld did not slow down after the change of sides, and Musiara, who was also substituted before the final game, changed the score to 0-3 - Levan, who failed to score, provided him with an assist. The coach said after the game: "We played very well in the first 20 minutes and we should have taken a 3-0 lead after 15 points. In the second half, it was understandable that we had more control over the rhythm. The manager replaced Nyanzu after half-time, not only fearing that he would be given another yellow card, but also punishing him for an elbow foul, "at this age, he has to learn a lesson. It was a red card in my opinion! He's a good guy, he didn't mean it, but he needs to be more careful. Even in training, he sometimes acted too aggressively. ”
On a bad luck day, Bayern may have lost the lead before half-time and went 10-11 throughout the second half. Bielefeld manager Franck Kramer complained: "There are many penalties against us today. First offside penalties, two against us, then before half-time I think it was a clear red card, and then a penalty after 60 minutes (Pavard suspected of tripping up Masaya Okukawa, who was preparing to shoot). "For Bielefeld, who have scored only one goal in seven consecutive league rounds, scored only one point, and have had players with a head injury in three consecutive rounds and were carried out by a stretcher, they do have enough reason to complain about bad luck.
Before half-time, Kimmich assisted Gnabry to rewrite the score to 2-0, which also managed to stabilize the situation.
Bayern were certainly not in the mood to comfort their unfortunate opponents, as they desperately needed the victory to ease their frustration and depression. Gnabry, who leads the Bundesliga homegrown top scorers list with 12 goals, said: "Today's game alleviated a little bit of frustration because we really want to qualify for the Champions League. Mu, who finally scored his first goal of the year, said that after the match against Villarreal, "we were a little depressed" and "now we have the match point against Borussia Dortmund." It couldn't have been better. All of us are looking forward to this game. Kimmich, who scored all three goals, pointed out: "Next week we can seal the title against Borussia Dortmund, it's a special game. But of course, we'll have to review this season after that. We were out early in both the German Cup and the Champions League. We had a longer-term plan. ”
Trust the coach and strengthen the lineup
The showdown with Dortmund is important, but this season has been a bit of an early end for Bayern. Compared with the "national derby" where commercial gimmicks are greater than competitive significance, Bayern's contract extensions with Levan, Neuer, Müller and Gnabry, and how to form a team this summer – especially after the champions league quarter-final strikes – will be determined to invest more, is much more concerned.
Sports director Salihamidzic said in a pre-match interview that a Champions League exit had nothing to do with squad strength, "We have top players in every position. Of course, this is true, after all, Bayern has players with a higher level than the "yellow dive" in almost every position. But on the other hand, Bayern did not play at the level it should have in these two legs, and there was a significant regression in the scene and results after the winter break, which was also directly related to the lack of thickness of the squad. There are top players in each position, and the gap between the strength of the main force and the substitutes in each position is too large, these two objective facts are not contradictory.
As for how to strengthen the lineup, Nagarsman and Kahn have already had an in-depth discussion.
In the past two summer windows, Thiago, Arabba and Boateng have left the team, while the only high-level players brought in at a high price are Sane and Yu Pamecano. Shubo-Motin, Roca, Sal, Nyanzou, Omar Richards, and even Zabitz, who were introduced at low prices or visa-free, were unable to give the main force enough competitive pressure.
As early as last season, when the schedule was extremely "devilish", Flick had already suffered a big loss of insufficient rotation. The elimination of Paris Saint-Germain in the quarter-finals of the Champions League is of course due to the objective factors of the injury of the main players such as Levan, and it is also related to the fact that Flick did not dare to rotate in the battle against Leipzig RB before the first leg. You know, Flick had about 16 people in the rotation lineup last season, and this season due to the departures of Alaba and Boateng, as well as the long absences of Kimmich, Goretzka and Davis (plus Tolisso was injured more frequently than last season), the rotation lineup was further reduced to only about 14 people.
For comparison, the rotation has been around 18 players during the coaching of Leipzig. And the recent "Red Bull" for a week of double matches, Tedesco can also rest assured to take turns to use 18, 19 players, basically maintain a rotation rhythm of 4 to 6 people between each game, as a guest Bayer Leverkusen This three- or four-place battle or even rotate up to 7 people, even the "thigh" Nkunku can also rotate. This is not to say that the overall strength of Leipzig's players is above Bayern, but by Leipzig's standards, coaches can use more players with confidence. Bayern, on the other hand, with players who are ranked after 14th and 15th places, simply cannot be used boldly by their coaches in key games – although these players may all be passing rotation players in Leipzig.
The current dilemma is caused by both subjective errors of judgment and objective bad luck (e.g. epidemics, player injuries). Players like Zabitzer, who should have been plug-and-play, have been unable to play a role, and potential stocks like Nyanzu, Rocca and Richards are not only starting too low, but also not growing fast enough. Even Sane and Yupa, including "Mr. 80 Million" Lucas Hernandez, are controversial in strength and performance, and cannot fully match their high transfer fees. In short, Bayern's "post-Robery" reconstruction has just hit the epidemic and caught up with the high-level change of dynasty, which is indeed difficult.
What kind of answer will Salihamidzic, whose work performance has been controversial, deliver this summer?
Since Kahn and Salihamidzic dared to sign a five-year contract with the coach (not to mention spending 25 million euros on him in a "transfer fee"), the cooperation between the two sides will certainly not be easily terminated. Kahn said: "We want to emphasize that we are completely convinced of him and we want to continue to walk with him. Two days after the Champions League, The Coach had in-depth discussions with Sally and Nepe (technical director) and Kahn on the issue of forming a military. The discussions with Sally and Nepe have actually been conducted many times in the past few weeks. Kahn revealed: "We had a deep dive because he wanted to portray what the coach thought and what I thought. ”
Sully has promised to reinforce the squad, but Bayern will never risk it in the transfer market. In Bielefeld, The Coach revealed that some of the solutions they discussed were not financially risky, "We are discussing it internally." For me, it's important to see in which direction things are going. We can't sleep at several transfer windows. Like economic things, if you want to get a top-notch product, you have to invest. If you want to stay among the top four in Europe for a long time, then we have to make a decision. ”