Bello and Hacki played in the central defense of FSV Mainz 05, while Stachi played in the defensive midfield. Sille played right defender, although that is not entirely certain because some people said Silli to him. It is very clear, however, that Johnny was playing in the storm.
It’s ghost game time in Munich again, the soccer games are turning into radio plays again. A year and a half ago, at the beginning of the corona pandemic, the Bayern professionals could be overheard for the first time in the empty stadium and learned a lot about the internal hierarchy, meanwhile the lessons have become a bit more colorful. On this Saturday we learned, for example, that Thomas Müller calls “Lewa” when he means Robert Lewandowski, while Manuel Neuer addressed a long ball to “Lewy” a little later.
In Munich they prefer to play with spectators rather than without, even in Munich they need the money, but Bayern are considered particularly talented ghost players. In the triple season under coach Hansi Flick, Bayern made the very best of the quiet stadiums: The players coached each other loudly on all titles. In this respect, it was very significant that you could hear the Mainz players in particular calling their names on this Saturday. Bello (Stefan Bell) and Hacki (Alexander Hack) made it very difficult for Lewa / Lewy, Silvan Widmer (Sille or Silli) opposed Alphonso Davies, and Johnny (Jonathan Burkhardt) even prepared the goal that Mainz in The lead was achieved by Karim Onisiwo (22nd), whom everyone surprisingly calls Karim.
Mainz coach Svensson complains about a missed penalty
“An arduous win,” stated coach Julian Nagelsmann later, it was one of those Bayern-win-stop-Bayern-successes that have been experienced three million times in Bundesliga history – also because it was again there was a scene in which the Bayern opponent felt disadvantaged. In the 19th minute, Mainz’s Jae-Sung Lee fell in the Munich penalty area after contact with Dayot Upamecano, which was a “clear penalty” for Mainz coach Bo Svensson. After consulting independent experts, he wasn’t really clear, but Svensson was right when he took up the big topic of the past weekend again: “I don’t understand that the referee won’t look at it again.” Just “because I was 70 meters away”, he did not complain loudly in the game, said Svensson, “if I had seen the repetition like the dear referee in the video room, it would have been difficult for me to get out of here without a yellow card.”
Nevertheless, this 2: 1 (0: 1) against Mainz 05 differed significantly from those legendary Bayern-Dusel victories, which were mostly secured by Makaay or Pizarro with scornful dusters in the 87th minute. The Munich team scored two excellent goals that afternoon against Mainz, and if Nagelsmann is to be believed (and why not), the first Munich goal in particular was the opposite of Dusel, namely exactly the way it was planned. “We said at halftime that we needed more depth,” said Nagelsmann, and eight minutes after the break Corentin Tolisso hit a pass from his own half into the deepest depth. Kingsley Coman then appeared at this depth and scored to equalize (53rd). And Jamal Musiala’s winning goal (74th) resulted from a movement that not many other than Musiala can do.
Bayern know from their own history how difficult autumn can be
The modern FC Bayern has other means of reaching the finish line on somewhat more difficult days. In addition to the individual quality of the players, a collective mentality is added at the right moment, and this obviously also on days when mentality guarantors such as Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka are missing. Tolisso and Musiala were a rather unusual duo in the defensive midfield center, neither of them has a particularly robust mandate – but the fact that the two of all people played a decisive role in the two goals appealed to their coach quite well. “You can tell that we have a lot of players who have to play a lot of minutes,” he said, calling the first half “pretty sluggish”. In the second half, however, the team “showed a great reaction, it was really sharp”.
Bayern know from their own history how difficult autumn and early winter can be, even in the triple season under Flick, they lost two times during this period. The national players in particular are suffering from tired legs these weeks, a luxury disease, but one that Augsburg and Mainz like to encourage to get cheeky. It’s the time of year when Bayern can’t always act the way they can and want, and it’s traditionally about not being offended and annoyed, but simply replacing the missing action with a reaction. It is exactly such jerk reactions that can add up at the end of a season: The game against Mainz was enough to increase the lead over Borussia Dortmund from four to six points.
A reporter wanted to know from Julian Nagelsmann whether that had been a good weekend for FC Bayern, and the eloquent coach might wonder whether he should start again with a longer answer garnished with three punch lines. Then he replied: “Yes”.