Bayern 0 – 0 Cologne

By: Angela | July 26th, 2008

Bayern wore the new navy jersey’s today and Mark once again took on the Captain’s role. We started with Rensing, van Bommel, van Buyten, Podolski, Ottl, Altintop, Lucio, Sagnol, Lahm, Klose, and Kroos. Bayern have had a lot of possession thus far. They look solid. Lucio has done some good defending in the first six minutes.

Cologne are playing a good attacking game at the beginning as well. They’re trying to push forward a lot, but Bayern keep taking the ball back. We don’t look great, but we look a lot better than we did against Dortmund.

I know that I’m absurdly biased on the subject, but Mark makes a good Captain. You can see him continually shouting and giving orders on the pitch. He does that anyways, but its more of a reason for him to be given the Captaincy.

Not much of Rensing so far in the first bit of the game. Bayern have done a good job of clearing the ball away from their area. Willy is making me annoyed. He keeps giving the ball away.

At 18 minutes there was a good effort by Miroslav Klose, but the ball didn’t quite make it and Hamit Altintop wasn’t in the right position or Bayern would be up 1-0. We’ll see how important that would’ve been later.

Random conversation between the announcers on Gol about Mark. He was adjusting his arm band and they said ‘adjusting the band that use to go around Kahn’s arm. Is he man enough?’ A small ‘oh yeah’ from the other and then a ‘well I’m not going to tell him he’s not’ and another ‘ohhhhh no’ from the other. I love these announcers. They’re so funny. Who else would say things like Sagnol got taken off the scrapheap?

Good defending by van Buyten. The announcers again are too funny. ‘The bigger they are the harder they fall, but you have to give him credit cause he’s got a lot of coordination for a big guy.’ The foul against Kroos should’ve been a card. Cologne’s Captain is getting away with a lot this match.

We lost the feed a couple times before the first half was over, but it came back pretty quickly. The Captain of Cologne finally got carded for yet another foul against Kroos at 42 minutes. He waved off the ref which I couldn’t help thinking that Mark would’ve got sent off for that or something.

Altintop has been class this first half. He set up a brilliant chance for Podolski, but he missed. No reason that he should’ve, but he did. That marked the end of the first half.

Second half kicked off with a couple of changes; Lell, Jansen, Demichelis, Ze Roberto, Schweinsteiger and Ngwenya came in. Demichelis took over as Captain. Good save six minutes in to the second half by Michael Rensing.

I hate the way our midfield breaks down when Mark isn’t playing. Yes I know I’m absrudly biased when it comes to him, but I can be objective and when he screws up I have the ability to point it out, but that is just a fact. We have no direction and guidance when he’s off the pitch. Midfield breaks down and we look sloppy.

Cologne did their substitutions 17 minutes into the second half and they took all six of their subs at one time. Much like Bayern did, but they waited a little longer. The second half has gone much slower. Bayern changed their six subs at the half and promptly turned into a completely different team. Klinsmann better find a way to keep the team together because it seems as though some of the key players (van Bommel, Altintop) are the glue and when they’re off the pitch the game breaks down.

Daniel and Demichelis still did some fanastic defending in the second half, but the game was mediocre at best. If Podolski wants to keep his vote of confidence from Klinsmann he’s going to have to start playing a better game than what he played today. A lot of mistakes.

Both teams have found their second half footing and there has been some great opportunities for both teams, but no one has found the back of the net just yet. Shot of my favorite Captain, van Bommel, on the bench looking none too pleased. Not that I can blame him for the way the team has played the majority of the second half.

Overall I wasn’t too impressed with the play today. They were aggressive, but not aggressive enough. There were some silly mistakes that shouldn’t have been made. Luke, contain your shock, but overall Lucio did a decent job defending today. There were a couple of fantastic saves on his part that really saved Bayern’s butt. The second half string was a lot sloppier than the first half. We’ve got to make some improvements before the season starts. Unless they’re just laying back and taking it easy because it’s only pre-season, but I’m not at all impressed with the play so far.

Luke what’d you think?