It’s been a minute since Bayern Munich has had a winger duo like this.
Bayern is taking the Bundesliga — and Europe — by storm this season, and Luis Díaz and Michael Olise are helping to power the Bavarian attack. Of course, they are not alone, as a certain Harry Kane is also leading the line. But Bayern’s goals output has simply exploded this year, and a stat captured by @iMiaSanMia helps to show just how important the wings have been:
Before this season, no Bayern player has managed 13+ goals and
13+ assists in a single Bundesliga season since detailed data collection in 2004/05
This season, Olise and Díaz have blown that mark out of the water. Olise has 14 goals (after that last-minute leveler vs. Heidenheim was reclassified from an own goal) and 19 assists while Díaz has 15 and 13, respectively, with two matches to go.
It is true that 13 is a somewhat arbitrary number, but Bayern’s starting wingers have not been in the same galaxy. In his ten seasons at the club, Kingsley Coman hit double digits in either category just once: 10 assists in 2020/21, a season in which he had five league goals. His leading goals tally (8) came in 2022/23, and he had five assists that season. Leroy Sané had a handful of seasons where he approached ten in both categories, and his final two seasons were his best: 8/11 and 11/5, respectively. Serge Gnabry has had a number of productive goal-scoring campaigns but only once prior to this year did he surpass five assists in the same season — the 2019/20 treble campaign where he had 12 goals to 10 assists.
Of course, Bayern’s goal-scoring has exploded as a team this season, so there are just a lot of statistics to go around. But having dual-threat scorers and providers on both wings — as well as through the middle — probably has a lot to do with that.
For years since the departure of the last truly great wing duo at Bayern, their replacements — no slouches themselves — have nevertheless prompted wistful comparisons to the days of Franck Ribéry and Arjen Robben. Now, finally, the Bavarians are witnessing a new set of standard-bearers.
If you are looking for more Bayern Munich and German national team coverage, check out the latest episodes of Bavarian Podcast Works, which you can get on Acast, Spotify, Apple, or any leading podcast distributor…
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