Match Day Thread: FC Bayern vs. Manchester City (UPDATED w/video)

By: phil | December 7th, 2011

Line-ups are announced, and the clubs are warming up on the pitch. As expected, Bayern fields a less-than full line-up, although several of our first-line stars are available on the bench.

For Bayern:

Butt

Contento – Badstuber – Boateng – Rafinha

Pranjic – Gustavo – Tymo

Alaba – Peterson – Olic

For City:

Hart

Savic – Lescott – Kompany – Clichy

Nasri – Toure – Barry

Silva

Aguero – Dzeko

(or arrange them however you want – but Silva, Kun and Dzeko as the three up top, with Dzeko probably the true target man.

If we truly are hit by the flu, I guess there’s really no choice. But man, if we let City crawl into the second round and then have to face them later, we’re going to be thinking back on this day and wondering if we should have at least played Neuer and Ribery. Although, if we can win here or at least hold them to a draw, that would be a great source of confidence for some of our young guys.

Back after the match to update with a recap and video highlights. Viva viva FC Bayern!

* * * *

Well, about the most cheerful 2-0 loss you could expect. Manchester City beats Bayern, but a Napoli win means that City will crash out and be relegated to the Europa League. They’ll be joined by Manchester United, who were beated in Basel today.

Overall, I thought the mostly-reserve FC Bayern squad played decently. Considering the experience gap, we didn’t get run off the pitch or anything. Our offense was haphazard and didn’t create much, but we got a few chances and Olic forced a save out of Hart in the first half that, if you look at it on the replay, was actually a tough save and easily could have rattled in. Both Olic and Pranjic gave maximum effort, and for guys that haven’t played much and were going against very talented defenders, they managed to look somewhat threatening at times.

Other thoughts:

- Usami came on for a few minutes and looked to be moving well. I hope we can work him in to a few Bundesliga games – it’s hard to tell from a few minutes, but he doesn’t look out of place or overwhelmed. He has good touch and doesn’t let himself get crowded off the ball.

- Badstuber made a pretty poor play on the 2nd City goal – looked like he lunged for it, but didn’t quite get there? It was already a tough play for him, basically a 2-on-1, but you’d like to see him get a toe to that ball.

- Peterson was mostly forgettable, and also likes to wander back upfield much more than Gomez does. But in a match like this, I guess he didn’t want to count on our midfield to be able to feed him the ball in the area.

- Despite allowing two goals, Butt made a few good saves and would clearly be a decent back-up (at least in the short-term) if we needed him.

- At the bar, we had 3 games on at once, and the sound for the Bayern game. About 8-10 seconds after Napoli scored (1,400 miles away) you could hear a massive groan from the stands from everyone checking their phones. Good stuff.

Some video – both goals are here: