Lukas Klostermann had to feel a little kidded. The international, 26, is one of the leading and fastest full-backs in the country. His name may not be the best known, it always sounds a bit like the family business around the corner, but he stands for reliable defensive play at a high Bundesliga level.
After an hour of the game against FC Bayern, Klostermann had already sprinted after some Munich attacks, his defense was often in great confusion, so Munich’s best offensive player left the field: Jamal Musiala was substituted. In addition, as Klostermann’s new opponent with fresh legs: Kingsley Coman, Champions League final scorer, one of the nimblest wingers on the continent. It took little more than five minutes for the Frenchman to initiate Bayern’s fourth goal of the evening.
Half an hour later, the game for the German Supercup between cup winners RB Leipzig and the series champions from Munich ended with some hype and the result of 3: 5 (0: 3), the Leipzig stadium announcer, who specialized in loud roars, was allowed to do everything again give. But the fact that Leipzig came within a goal in the final minutes almost seemed like a secondary aspect of the evening, on which Bayern also won this small, first title of the season for the tenth time. The main topic was the five goals of an offensive that has had to do without the world footballer since this summer, and which the opposing coach Domenico Tedesco described as follows: “The arrows come from everywhere.”
RB coach Tedesco is impressed by FC Bayern
In terms of atmosphere, Robert Lewandowski’s move to FC Barcelona continues to occupy FC Bayern. Sports director Hasan Salihamidzic had a phrase that he repeated almost exactly in every interview: His parents taught him never to close the door “with his butt” when saying goodbye, “Robert is well on the way to doing exactly that “. The striker recently said that Bayern Munich had not told him the truth about the club’s plans.
In terms of sport, at least in the first competitive game of the season, it didn’t seem as if it would take a long time to internalize the absence of the outstanding striker of recent years. “No longer classic, I call it stiff,” said Joshua Kimmich, no longer with Thomas Müller’s ten and Lewandowski’s nine in front of it between two wingers – that’s what Munich’s plan looks like now. When asked whether he had sometimes thought of a pass to Lewandowski out of habit, he denied, almost irritated.
Why so serious? Marco Neppe, Bavaria’s technical director, and Hasan Salihamidzic in Leipzig.
(Photo: Alexander Hassenstein/Getty Images)
The new attack should be “variable”, a keyword that has been heard repeatedly by everyone involved in the past few weeks since Lewandowski’s departure. “You could see that we are extremely dangerous. That we have a lot of fast players, a lot of dangerous players, who are all capable of scoring goals. And that’s the idea,” said Salihamidzic.
Of course, Sadio Mané, the most spectacular entry of the summer, occupies a central place. He formed a dual leadership with Serge Gnabry, sometimes one came towards his colleagues to pass, sometimes the other. A row behind, Müller and Musiala were at least as agile. What was striking was that there were no crosses in the direction of the penalty area, but they didn’t seem to be necessary, at least on this evening, as the Munich team adapted so often when they were outnumbered. And the people of Leipzig seemed so confused. Two Munich goals came from corner kicks.
4-2-2-2 is how the basic order is usually described, which coach Julian Nagelsmann often chose when he was in Hoffenheim and Leipzig. However, the order is particularly relevant in defensive phases without the ball. In the phases with the ball, the idea is more of a kind of coordinated loss of order, which repeatedly presents a defense with similar problems, after all the striker types are similar; but they keep popping up somewhere else whenever it makes sense to them. Or as Musiala said of the first half: “We were completely free, had a lot of control, everything was very easy.”
Mané scored his first competitive goal for Bayern, Gnabry went ahead and scored himself, and Leroy Sané also impressed with almost angry-looking enthusiasm after his late substitution and scored to make it 5-3 in the eighth minute of stoppage time, which is well worth seeing. But it was the 19-year-old Musiala who stood out from Bayern’s new attack: with his goal to make it 1-0, with his assist to make it 3-0 through Benjamin Pavard, and he also started Mané’s 2-0. Once he spun out of the grip of two opponents on first contact with the ball – and that was just one example of many similar scenes. “World class”, praised Nagelsmann and said: “If he plays like today, he is indispensable.”
How the coach organizes his first eleven, which national players he puts on the bench, that’s one of the interesting questions in the coming weeks. For the storm, at least in perspective, the 17-year-old Mathys Tel will be added, who was not yet eligible to play on Saturday, but has already warmed up. Another new striker of a different type should not come, “usually we have completed our planning there,” said Salihamidzic in any case.
Regarding the defensive performance in the second half, the sports director understandably said that he lacked the “compactness”. The defense, in which the new boss Matthijs de Ligt also played in the end, will probably only be discussed in more detail if Bayern don’t score five goals.