The creators of most of the lineup graphics were either outrageously lucky or really knew their way around. About an hour before the start of the Champions League game between Benfica Lisbon and FC Bayern, you suddenly had an unexpected, difficult task to solve: Who should you note under the heading “coach” at FC Bayern if the coach is missing? Julian Nagelsmann could “unfortunately not sit on the bench due to a flu-like infection”, announced FC Bayern before the game, which immediately raised the question: Who of Nagelsmann’s assistants should you report as a coach, Dino Toppmöller or Xaver Zembrod?
The chroniclers chose Toppmöller, and rightly so, because a look at his vita brings to light an astonishing fact: At the beginning of his career he served as player-coach for a Luxembourg first division team, the name of the club: FC RM Hamm Benfica. In fact, the club from Luxembourg expressly refers to Benfica Lisbon in its name and emblem – which already brought the Luxembourgers legal entanglements with the original from Portugal, which the Bavarians received on Wednesday evening.
Anyone who thought that was the strangest number of the evening had never seen this game. It was like a funny target shooting at the Oktoberfest, in which the targets only fall very, very, very at the end: Bayern won 4-0 in a game that was a long time on the way to a 0-0 crazier variety to develop. With this success, the Munich team now have a five-point lead over Benfica – they almost won the group. “It was fun in an unusual role. The boys continued today what they started in Leverkusen,” said Toppmöller after the game.
The handwriting of the trainer Nagelsmann could be deciphered from the beginning despite his absence due to the infection: Again the Munich presented the asymmetrical formation that regularly made right-back Benjamin Pavard the right-winger. The Frenchman even had the side largely to himself, because Nagelsmann / Toppmöller / Zembrod allowed the usual right-winger Serge Gnabry a breather after recent outstanding performances.
Co-trainer Dino Toppmoeller managed the business in Nagelsmann’s absence.
(Photo: kolbert-press / Christian Kolbert / imago images / kolbert-press)
That did not apply to Bayern as such, they did not see at all why they should take a breather. They started almost as they did on Sunday against Leverkusen, after just two minutes Robert Lewandowski urged Benfica goalkeeper Vlachodimos to make a nice save – the fact that he was offside did not take Bayern’s will. That Leon Goretzka (cold) was missing? Regardless, in his place Marcel Sabitzer tried himself as a doubles partner of Joshua Kimmich and saw Leroy Sané just miss the far post after a chic solo. What looked like a nice start should set the style for this game that was supposed to challenge the statisticians again: Who can count so many scoring chances?
The Benfica expert Toppmöller may have suspected it soon: Benfica is not Leverkusen. The Portuguese were not intimidated, they used the power of their audience and played several classes better than any Luxembourg first division team. Kingsley Coman forced the Benfica goalkeeper to do another artistic act in his first starting XI after his heart surgery (10th), but the game became more and more a steep affair. Neither team wanted to cross passes, both played straight forward, and after all, Benfica kept Bayern so busy that they hardly got their dominant ball relay. The game was a bit structurally weak, but entertaining.
A duel between the goalkeepers even developed temporarily. Another excellent action by Vlachodimos (29th, against Coman) did not want Manuel Neuer to sit on him. Neuer’s reflex against Darwin (33rd) suggests that he might become world champion or even world goalkeeper. Vlachodimos’ reaction to this was particularly mean: he applauded when the video referee disallowed a Lewandowski header (42nd) – because it turned out to be an upper arm goal.
Sané breaks the spell with a free kick
It was the appropriate bouncer scene from the first half, because the second went on exactly the same way. First Pavard hit the post (47th), then another Bayern goal was withdrawn by Thomas Müller, because Coman was previously offside by the width of the tunnel (52nd); shortly thereafter, the budding world goalkeeper Neuer parried against Goncalves. The game was now like a huge jello, but it contained a lot of wonderful chocolate chips – but of the kind that neutral viewers find delicious, but not necessarily the coaches, who see less the chocolate, but more the jelly. Coaches want chances that arise from controlled cultivation and not that result from a momentum of their own that can turn against their own team at any second.
This game really had a sense of humor, because after 100 hectic scoring chances, the breakthrough goal fell from a dormant situation in the end: Sané sent the ball over the free-kick wall in such a distinctive curve that even Lionel Messi might be jealous (70th). It was the goal that triggered a domino theory: Substitute Gnabry prepared the 2-0 (own goal Everton, 80th) and the 3-0 by Lewandowski (82nd), finally Sané met again (84th). It was the grotesque end to a grotesque game: In the end, the result looked like Bayern had played against a team from Luxembourg, or of course against Leverkusen.