A clash between the top and bottom sides of the league usually has one end, but not this time. Away in the Allianz Arena, Mainz held firm and took their chances as Bayern huffed and puffed and created their chances but could not blow Mainz’s house down. Here the observations on the 2-2 draw:
xG heavily favors Bayern, but does not tell the whole story
The final xG count for this game was 4.72 to 1.07 in the Bavarians’ favor. Let that sink in. According to statistics, Bayer n should have won this game, given rounding, 5-1. And they created the chances to drive
that score even higher. Harry Kane had a true off day, taking eight shots and scoring just the late penalty. Serge Gnabry had seven shots. They both had around three expected goal combined. On one hand, one has to wonder how Bayern did not score half a dozen goals.
On the other hand, the danger came far too intermittently. Until around the 20 minute mark all Bayern had created was a single shot, a long range effort from Lennart Karl that the goalkeeper easily caught. For the next 15 minutes, Bayern peppered the goal with multiple high quality opportunities, with Karl getting the opening goal. Then from minute 35 to 45, there was again little. Ditto for minutes 45-60 before Bayern started to come to life again. That is around 45 minutes in which Bayern were truly stifled by the opposition and could barely threaten their goal. To a certain extent, when the pressure tells and a team can create chances will come and go but to have extended spells in games where so little is created is just not good enough. Today it cost Bayern. And if there was ever a manager to punish this flaw, it would be the man in the opposition’s dugout.
Urs Fischer is back in the Bundesliga
There are many infamous defensive minded coaches in Europe but few are quite as infamous as Urs Fischer. Joining Union Berlin in 2018 in the 2. Bundesliga, he led them to the top flight of German football and kept them there for multiple years, famously even guiding them to the Champions League. According to the xG table, Union should have ended up in the bottom four that year but instead ended it in the top fuur. But his story in the Bundesliga ended up so abruptly after this monumental triumph, as the club tried to bring in big name players who did not fit Fischer’s system and he was sacked just months after achieving Champions League football.
Over two years later and Fischer is back in the Bundesliga with Mainz 05, with his first game coming away against Bayern. Is there a more fitting re-introduction to the league for the Swiss coach than this one? Mainz showed none of the division and strife that had flared up in recent weeks under former coach Bo Henriksen and compounded their nine game winless run in the Bundesliga, instead pulling together as one unit.
Lining up in an extremely defensive 5-4-1 formation, Mainz showed willingness to press and harass Bayern by running at the Bavarians once they crossed the halfway line. The striker and the inside midfielders formed a triangle to block off the passing lanes inside while the outside midfielders covered the passes to the wingers. But they were all too willing to drop back and form a nasty low block once Bayern had started to make their way through their initial press.
But they knew how to punish the German champions, too. Mainz’s equalizer on the stroke of half time was a clever set piece routine, with the Bavarians baited into running towards goal too early, allowing Kacper Potulski to make a late run behind the defense. On the back foot and moving towards goal, Bayern’s defenders could not push out enough to meet the floated cross with the same momentum Potulski could and the game was square.
Fischer clearly also knew Bayern’s weakness to quick passes over the flanks, as striker Benedict Hollerbach moved out wide to get some space and hold up the ball for runners to attack the space in behind. Mainz had no initiative to play any possession football, launching the ball up the field every time they had it, hoping to win any second balls and get Hollerbach to hold up the ball. Goalkeeper Daniel Batz played 34 long passes in the entire match. Mainz had 15% total possession. They snatched a draw away to the German champions, despite being the xG telling a different story. Is there a more fitting re-introduction of Fischer to the Bundesliga? It is hard to think of a way to top this.
Poor Josip Stanišić
Josip Stanišić has had a strange season. Initially starting strong, his form has fallen off a little in recent weeks (despite netting last week against VfB Stuttgart) and he has come under external criticism. This despite playing out of position all season at left back and being forced to act as the man to cover for the injured players. Against Mainz, he enjoyed a rare start at right-back and actually played quite well in the position in his typical quiet manner. His positioning confused defenders and drew enough attention that Olise was able to isolate himself multiple times against his direct opponent, which the Frenchman used to devastating effect time and time again. But Stanišić also played creator really well, playing multiple inch perfect through passes to Olise throughout the match. He was unlucky the forwards ahead of him did not manage to do more with what he created.
Once Bayern made a triple substitution on the hour mark, however, Stanišić, as usual, had to shift away from right-back to accommodate someone else (in this case Konrad Laimer) and moved to center-back. There, it was his lax attention that allowed Jae-sung Lee to slip past him and give Mainz the crucial lead in the 67th minute that Bayern could never quite recover from. As a defender, this mistake will likely be the lasting impression people take from this game despite the Croatian’s good work previously. What a shame.
Defense wins you titles
The old adage of “a good offense wins you games, but a good defense wins you titles” is too simple of a statement. But there is a lot of truth to it. After all, one cannot consistently win games if you concede a lot of goals. Not that Bayern have not been trying to do it like that for a while now. Since the heroic defensive performance against PSG in the Champions League at the beginning of November, Bayern have conceded 13 goals in eight matches. In the 16 matches prior to this run, they had conceded 11 goals in 16. No wonder Bayern have dropped points in three of those eight matches. The biggest defensive offender has been set piece blunders, with Bayern conceding a ludicrous five set piece goals in matches against Union Berlin, SC Freiburg and Arsenal FC. Today’s makes it six.
Is the cause fatigue? Or is it a more dangerous issue? Have opponents figured out the Bayern defense? Do Bayern need to seriously re-think their set piece defense? It is not possible to draw too many conclusions about the defense from this match. After all, Bayern started with a completely makeshift backline, Hiroki Itō starting his first match in nearly a year, both Dayot Upamecano and Jonathan Tah rested, Alphonso Davies given half an hour to return to full fitness and finished with just once center back in Stanišić. In short, this is not the main defensive group and will not be moving forward. But there is a worrying trend emerging that Vincent Kompany and his team will need to keep an eye on.
Miscellaneous observations
- Manuel Neuer took yet another throw in today around the 15 minute mark. Surely he must be approaching the world record of goalkeepers taking throw ins soon, right? He has been making it a funny habit of his over the years.
- Joshua Kimmich looked better today after some shaky recent performances, but again, as the game wore on and exhaustion likely set in, his decision making got worse and he played multiple poor passes. It seems like everybody except for him is getting a break, even though it is clear that a breather would benefit him, too.
- There are worlds between Aleksandar Pavlović and Leon Goretzka’s quality on the ball, but we knew that already.
- Michael Olise is an absolutely fantastic footballer, but we knew that already.
- Lennart Karl is adding even more dimensions to his game. He already showed the ability to make a smart off the ball run into a central position to score against Arsenal, but he showed those instincts again today. He got into those positions time and again and should have had more than his one goal. He even made several effective decoy runs. How is Karl adding so much to his game in so little time?
