Bayern Munich 1:1 Werder Bremen: Match Reflections
By: Luke | August 15th, 2009In lieu of a formal match report, I decided I would hit all the important points of what I saw out there today.
At the back: It really frustrates me when a guy with Van Buyten’s size gets out-muscled in the box from a dead ball, as he was on that ‘30 post-rattler. That should never happen. I’m going to be a little more lenient with Badstuber and his muffing of a great chance in front of goal. Frankly, Lahm has to do better defensively. He hardly contested the entry pass that led to the goal. Beyond that last 10 min of the 1st half and the terrible blunder with about 5 min left, the defense was marginally better, compared to last season. That doesn’t cut it, but it’s a start.
Mids: I thought Tymoschuck was competent, nothing more. Schweini showed a bit of flair, as did Altintop. I thought the overall ball handling was good, and our midfield dominated at times. But, there was no play-making. Sosa was totally ineffective. Other times, it seemed there was no creativity to counter the offside traps and bunching. The match screamed for Ribery, and he made his impact felt. I would have liked to see him start he 2nd half.
Up front: Strikers are paid to finish. So, start finishing fellas. Most frustrating was Olic’s weak effort off of one of Ribery’s signature deep penetrations down the left. We’ve seen Toni bury about 15 of those over the last couple years, so it was particularly painful. Bayern seemed to struggle with the offsides trap all day, and Gomez was frequently in no man’s land. I was sure I would see a flag go up, even after the goal. It was not a thing of beauty, but at least we don’t have to talk about a Gomez scoreless streak. Bottom line: these guys have got to start taking their chances.
Overall, we’re digging ourselves another hole in the league. It won’t be too soon for crisis talk if we don’t pick up 3 points next week. The silver lining, is that if we convert more of our chances, we can play with anyone.
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Some of the offsides calls were wrong, Luke. I don’t understand much spanish but even the commentators seemed to question one of them. There were at least 2, possibly 3 bad calls by the linesman where Gomez and the defender were dead even which is not supposed to be offsides. I’m not sure you’ve seen a lot of VfB games, but Gomez lives and dies by linesman’s decisions, either being right on the line or offsides.
I will get on Badstuber because my grandmother could have scored on that chance. He didn’t have to do anything but direct the ball, noone around him and miles of net in front of him. Sorry, Luke, but he blew it badly.
The Bremen goal… Not sure who it was, might have been Van Buyten, may have been Pranjic, but one of those two was jogging behind the eventual scorer, Ozil, and only started running when it was too late. Like I said in the mid game report by Angela, you can’t blame Rensing, but when is he going to make a big stop to bail out the defense? Olli did that plenty, even at 38 years old in his last year.
on the Olic play you are talking about. One timer shots out of the air are a bit difficult to control where you hit them and unfortunately his went pretty close to Weise. My problem with Olic comes from not putting the ball back to Gomez when the defender challenged him. With Weise coming out of the net Mario would have had the entire empty net to shoot at. Very unfortunate. Instead he just made Weise look good.
Finishing… Not sure you remember, but last year that is why we were getting on Toni. He was being served on a silver platter, and not finishing. I’d give the new forwards a few games before I start calling for their heads. I think a bit more work together will cure those ills.
Lastly… There is really no point to panic this early in the season. First of all, Wolfsburg was not even really on the radar at the midpoint of the season, and started very slowly last year, and look how that ended. Also not a single team has won both their games, though Wolfsburg, Schalke and Hertha have yet to play. We need to remember that there are a lot of new players that need to be acclimated, a new coach, and a new system. Until the mid-season break, there is no reason to panic unless you find yourself worrying more about relegation than claiming the title.
I feel Bayern really showed promise in the second half, and as much as I’ve said they may be better off taking the money for Ribery (eating crow now), they are so much better a team when he is on the pitch. When he came on the field, it seemed the entire energy level of everyone was lifted.
Two draws is kind of a bleh start, but it is hardly time to panic. As hard as it is to convince people, Hoffenheim is a serious team and a point on the road versus a contender is not a bad thing. The tie at home is far worse but Bayern showed in the second half that they may be ready to start playing now. I expect we’ll see Ribery start next game and losing or tying Mainz is not an option. The real test to see where we are comes in 2 weeks versus Wolfsburg at home. By then we’ll have a general idea on how this season is going.
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oh and i totally agree with you on DvB… Noone should be able to outmuscle him, it’s almost pathetic. And also on Lahm, sometimes I think he forgets what his position is…
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Well had Olic squared to Gomez, Gomez might have missed… Watching Gomez play has been pretty frustrating lately. First the national team and now at Bayern. It’s too early too tell, but I hope he does not turn into a Toni.
As for Lahm, after watching him play against Azerbaijan and ntoday I think it’s becoming quite clear he is a much better LB than as a RB.
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If Lahm is going to be second in command, he’s going to have to step up in a big way. I would, at this point, prefer for Schweinsteiger to be given the band in the absence of Mark.
@Roger – some of the offside calls against Mario were ridiculous. I was fortunate enough to have an English feed and the commentators were clearly questioning some of the calls.
I’m trying to wait on any judgement calls on the team as a whole because they all haven’t been playing together long. Including DvB. Granted, he’s played here and there, but he’s mostly rode the bench and now he’s playing with virtually a whole new team…. I’m still trying to remember some of their names!
I was disappointed today, but I’m not completely ready to throw in the towel just yet.
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It’s pretty sad but linesmen in general seem not to understand the offsides rule at all. If it is that difficult maybe FIFA needs to reexamine the rule. I watch a lot of games, premier league, la liga, national teams of US and Germany and other bundesliga, and it seems to be the most blown call in all of sports. In my opinion… you’re a linesman and not dead sure it’s offsides? keep your flag down. FIFA wants more goals and blown offsides calls probably are the biggest reason there are less goals than there should be.
On another note Koln just scored, so Wolfsburg is down 1:0 early in the 2nd half.
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Also I tend to agree with you on the Alternate Capt thing Angela, as I prefer a more fiery player to have that role. Lahm is a great player, but he is extremely low key. It’s the same reason I would not want Klose as a captain. I really prefer players with a little attitude as captain as they are most wiling to boot someone in the backside when they aren’t performing.
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We have got to pick up 3 points next week at Mainz. Wolfsburg looks really good and I don’t see them dropping a lot of points this season. If we keep starting slow and can’t beat them at home in 2 weeks time we are going to be in a serious hole.
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The “SKY” commentator mentioned that the “offside” ref needed to wear sunglasses. I don’t understand why he didn’t just change sides?
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this match van gaal tried to get schwiensteiger to play as a winger and attack werder’s defense and create opportunities, something that today he proved he was far too slow and not technically gifted enough to do. warders defenders closed him down regularly and Altintop was too passive on the other side. Pranjic did not do much of anything except commit a few unnecessary fouls and he did a poor job of stopping werder from pushing up on their right wing. the defenders on the whole were bad. i did not realize before this season and preseason how bad a defender Lahm is, he was often out of position today and was never really involved in the defending. Van Buyten defends as if he is afraid of the oppositions players, today he panicked and ran back too much during the bremen counterattack that lead to the goal, he kept plenty of space between himself and ozil and Badstuber followed that bad example and positioned himself relative to van Buyten and was also out of position, that goal was scored with minimal resistance. Bayern needs to improve 100% or this season will mirror last season. the attack is also a problem, a very bad problem, Bayern’s game has stagnated over these two matches because the attack was lifeless and did not flow. today weder were playing their “euro” game that they play in against Bayern and non German teams, it is far more defensive than the usual rapid offense werder game so this game was never going to end with more than four goals like most games werder plays. Bayerns players were shut down to easily for all the running Bayern did very little space was created and Mario Gomez continued to do very little in Bayern’s offense in the first half he hardly did anything he could not time an offside trap (though he got the trap beat once and was still called offside.) he scored a goal and did little else, Klose was unfit and the chances created for him were poor he tried hard but could not be effective. Olic was ineffective and he hardly created any problems for werders defense and his finishing especially from the deflected Ribery cross was poor. Ribery looked good and as the only real creative player on the team his fitness will be crucial if Bayern’s attack is to work properly. Tymoshchuk is talented, used his quickness to stay in front werders players and worked hard but with the poor defending on the wings he was bypassed many times. Sosa isn’t much of a play maker and hardly was involved in the game he got the ball and passed it off and that was all.
it has become clear to me that van gaal does not have the players at Bayern to suit his system. van gaal needs a “real” winger/wingers if his system is to work properly right now with simple midfielders on the wing there is too little space created. Bayern have struggled to dominate teams offensively. this looks like another season of bayern being dependent on Ribery.
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A few general comments, trying to touch on many of your comments:
I will grant you, that at least one, possibly two of the offside calls were bogus. But, Bayern were offside *11* times in the match! Hell, this blog ought to become their trikot sponsor with that showing.
On Badstuber: I am really not going to get upset with a 20 year old kid who is not out there to be scoring goals–he’s got an awful lot to be worried about defensively. So I say, good for him, he’s playing the way Breno *should* be playing, and I will forgive him mistakes in the offensive end if his defense is there. So far, it’s a passing grade.
I am right with you Shane, they cannot drop any points against Mainz. They could be as much as 9 points behind the lead after 4 matches. When you consider the historical importance of the Herbstmeisterschaft, and the fact that this is Bayern Munich we’re talking about, it is a critical Gameweek 3, unfortunately.
I don’t really buy that the “leadership” issue has anything to do with the performance today, or most days generally. You can say what you want about Lahm’s demeanor, but a guy who is from Munich and has been part of the club since 1995 is a good enough captain nominee for me.
I’m not calling for the heads of our strikers, but there have been enough chances generated to win both these matches. So, to me that’s where the biggest improvement needs to come from. We don’t need to be *that* much better than last year to win the Bundesliga.
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We also need to remember there are 32 more games to go…
Even if they had 6 points, beating Mainz is important because giving up points to bottom feeders is one of the main reasons Bayern did not win the title… in fact you can look at two games in particular… Blowing 2 goal leads versus Moenchengladbach and Bochum (think it was Bochum) in the last 10 minutes of both these games and there is 4 points Bayern had in the bag and lost. The margin was 2 points at the end…
I feel that with Ribery back for the full game next week, you will see our offensive woes cured, as Bayern’s offense slacked badly everytime he missed games last year too. It’s pretty sad that everything seems to revolve around 1 player, but no seems to ever be able to step up when Ribery is down.
I actually find it rather humorous some of you are attacking Van Gaal’s style after 2 freaking games. Why not go all the way and just start calling for his firing now and really keep me humored. For me, I’ll let things flow, let players learn this system and as long as they start improving every week, I’ll be happy. We really do have the makings of a good team if players start to gel a bit. Just give it a little chance to work. Wolfsburg is not going to win all their games, neither is Schalke. As long as we start handling our business things will be fine. Really, panic after week 2 is completely senseless. You all are getting like Yankee fans are in Baseball.
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Who’s panicking? I’m simply of the opinion that Bayern should never be more than 3-4 points off the Bundesliga lead. Quality always trumps “new system, new players”, etc. Look at two seasons ago, there were an awful lot of new faces then too, but no stumbling out of the blocks. So I think there’s a difference between ridiculous expectations and panic.
Roger, you are right, it was ‘Gladbach and Bochum, the Bochum match was even more unforgivable because it was at home. I would also put that home loss to Cologne in that category. But, I thought those things balanced out–they really had no business winning at Schalke..and a draw in the home match against Hoffenheim would probably have been a fairer result.
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I was not meaning you as the panicky one Luke.
I personally think if not for some key saves Bayern would have 6 points. Hildebrand made great stops versus Hoffenheim, and Weise got lucky twice versus Bremen. Sure wish we’d get a big save now and thenPosted from
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