The draw crisis has FC Bayern firmly in its grip. A 1:1 – to the first, to the second and to the third. At pursuer RB Leipzig, the draw was still okay despite their own leadership, the 1-1 draw against Cologne last Tuesday thanks to Joshua Kimmich’s last-minute goal. And that draw on Saturday against Frankfurt was just as deserved – and at the same time puzzling.
Because: The lightness is gone, the self-image. The structure of the game seems complicated, cumbersome, cumbersome, unimaginative. The victory flow from autumn, when everything was easy, relaxed and easygoing, got lost somewhere in winter. Where? One knows.
And he really wanted to get rid of his analysis. After the 1-1 draw against Eintracht, Oliver Kahn walked out of the dressing room to the journalists’ area, still wearing his purple scarf. Possibly so that one could not see the – proverbially – very thick neck.
The Bayern boss spoke with a serious expression, calmly and quietly. He had prepared three messages. Firstly: “We’re still top of the table after this matchday – that’s a positive thing.” Even if it’s close, it doesn’t matter. Good news first. Break.
A reporter asked if there were other positive things. Kahn, undeterred: “On the negative side, this is the third draw in a row. In other words, we started anything but well.”
And thirdly, now des Kahn’s core of the analysis follows: “Looked at objectively, it is striking that there are two teams. Namely the team before the World Cup – and now the team after the World Cup. We will take our time to analyze why we are not getting our horsepower on the road at the moment. Then we’ll get out of this low.” Deep – yes, he said deep.
What are the reasons for the two teams and the World Cup fault line in Qatar because of which the season was suspended from mid-November?
Bad luck with injuries: Sadio Mané (before the World Cup), Lucas Hernández (at the World Cup) and Noussair Mazraoui (corona infection during the World Cup) are out for a long time, as is goalkeeper Manuel Neuer after his ski touring accident in December. Then there was the frustrated DFB star Kimmich
The Müller-Musiala problem: Jamal Musiala shone as a creative king in the ten consecutive series of compulsory players from mid-October to mid-November, diligently collecting scorer points. The then injured Müller, previously set due to his performance, accepted his status as a joker and recovered for the World Cup. Now he’s fit again and doesn’t quite find his role. What Musiala doesn’t find? its shape.
The break on the offensive: Bayern had already had such an anti-run once this season, not even winning four Bundesliga games in a row – with the negative highlight being the 0-1 in Augsburg in mid-September. A parallel? Not at all!
“The difference to autumn is obvious,” explained Kahn, “back then we had an incredible number of chances to score and simply didn’t score. That’s not the case now.” After Frankfurt’s 1-1 draw, there was a total break in Bayern’s attacking game.
So? Qatar is to blame – no, not the controversial sponsor (Qatar Airways), but the World Cup that was squeezed into the schedule. “If you don’t deliver the results, it’s a results crisis,” said coach Julian Nagelsmann sourly, for whom Kimmich felt compelled to step into the breach at the end: “It’s not the coach’s fault. At the end of the day, we players are on the field and responsible for the performance, including the intensity. The guidelines and solutions of the trainer are there. I don’t know what the exact reason is either.”
On Wednesday, in the DFB Cup round of 16 at Mainz 05, Nagelsmann should find his way back to success. So that the results crisis does not become a coaching crisis…
This article was written by Patrick Strasser
The original of this article “The reasons for the form crisis” comes from the evening newspaper.
