No, Alphonso Davies wasn’t to blame for the first goal. He let Gerard Moreno pass and played inside, but at that moment there wasn’t much of a goal. It took a few players to follow Davies and his passivity as an example. After all, the Canadian was the first in a Munich chain of mistakes, which, however, did not correspond to the main role that Julian Nagelsmann had intended for him.
Davies, 21, only plays on the flank but is at the center of many considerations for his coach. That was a realization of this game even before it had started. The young Canadian was out of the game for almost four months after a corona infection and subsequent heart muscle inflammation, and a centuries-old industry wisdom says that players are slowly introduced after such a long break. Nagelsmann threw Davies right back into his starting XI, which says a lot about Davies, but even more about his coach. It was ironic that evening that Nagelsmann finally had the staff for his Nagelsmann football together again – and this football didn’t work at first.
Bayern are interested in the Dutchman Mazraoui – a guy like Davies
“We want to play different formations today and Phonzy is the best way to make this switch,” said the coach before the game. Translated from Nagelsmann’s into German, this means that left-back Davies both in front a threesome as well in can play in a four-man defense chain and thus enables the coach to use his beloved asymmetrical play structure. Davies is so fast that he can overrun any opponent going forward, and if he gets stuck while overrunning, there’s still enough speed to recover the lost ball with a short, crisp sprint.
Nagelsmann would like to have a double Davies – if he had the same type of player on the right side, he would be a happy coach. On the right, however, he lacks such a hybrid talent; on the right, his squad offers him either offensive (Gnabry) or defensive players (Pavard), but no switch players like Davies – which explains the interest in Dutch right-back Noussair Mazraoui, 24, from Ajax Amsterdam, whom Bayern scouts suspect Davies.
It was not without risk to send the young man into this quarter-final after a long break and indeed Davies’ game seemed less fluid than usual at the beginning. It was all the more astonishing to see how the Canadian got warmer and warmer with every minute of the game. His pace and enthusiasm did Bayern extremely well and culminated in that high-speed tackle with which Davies prevented the 0:2 (57th). It is quite possible that Nagelsmann will not let his switch player play against Augsburg at the weekend – he urgently needs him at full strength next Tuesday in the second leg against FC Villarreal.