Back in September, Bayern Munich hosted Carl Zeiss Jena in an early-season Frauen-Bundesliga contest. Despite utter statistical dominance from Bayern — 29 shots to three from the visitors — the game ended in a nil-nil draw.
That game remains Bayern’s only dropped points in the league this season, and on Wednesday, the Bavarians paid Jena a return trip and this time made no mistake. A trio of goals in each half resulted in a runaway 6-0 scoreline, a dominant display from the clear best team in Germany.
Here’s a rundown of the action.
Jovana the winger…or is she?
The big storyline of the XI was the rest given to Bayern superstar winger and assist-making extraordinaire Klara Bühl. In her place was Edna Imade, recently returned from loan and ready to rock. Imade plays a different game to Bühl, preferring to pose a goal-scoring box threat from central positions rather than taking on defenders and crossing from the byline, and so that task was left to nominal center-forward Jovana Damnjanović — no stranger to a wing role under José Barcala but decidedly not the most comfortable there, either.
However, Damnjanović excelled at picking her moments, drifting in from the left at the right moments to get back to her customary scoring positions. It was from one of these that she received a cross-field kick and, after holding it up briefly, rolled it from the edge of the box into the bottom corner for Bayern’s first goal of the night. It was a fairly sharp night overall for Jena keeper Jasmin Janning — eight saves, five of them from inside the box — but this time she was caught lunging late as the Bayern forward had used her marker to keep the keeper unsighted.
Damnjanović found her second goal, as well as the team’s, in similar fashion but this time with a much more difficult finish. Receiving on the left sideline, she drove infield, causing Imade to rotate out left, before laying it off to Bayern’s midfield. Then she stayed central to receive the return ball, arriving from Linda Dallmann, and using a clever dummy to shake her defender and run straight into the box. A deft fakeout saw a second defender overrun the ball, and Damnjanović coolly finished from near the penalty spot for the 2-0.
Momo magic
I’ve often said that Momoko Tanikawa is one of Bayern’s most technically gifted players and she delivered again for Bayern’s third goal of the night with a moment of real genius. Running onto a loose-ish ball in the box — teammate Pernille Harder had been corralled and was struggling to break free — she took a single touch before fizzing an early shot that whooshed by the caught-unawares Janning, who could only turn to look as it banked in off the inside of the far post.
Tanikawa’s penchant for the unpredictable — making a decisive pass or shot before anyone expects her to have even had time to think about where to go — is only half the magic. The other half is her uncanny ability to pull it off. What a joy to watch.
No let-up after the break
The second half continued with Bayern as merciless as ever. Five minutes in, Georgia Stanway and Pernille Harder made runs into the same area but no matter; Stanway took it and rifled a shot across the keeper from close range. Ten minutes later Bayern were flowing again, Carolin Simon arriving on the overlap to deliver a precision pull-back cross for Harder to finish first-time.
Finally, in the game’s dying moments, Imade — who scored last time out after coming on as a sub with just about her first touch of the game — got her rewards after nearly 90 minutes of hard work. Substitute Barbara Dunst whipped in a cross from the right flank and Imade was there, perfectly splitting between two defenders and leaving Janning with absolutely no chance.
It was a disappointing night for the hosts, who fought hard and physical but could simply not match the Bavarians for technical quality or tactical nous, and were thus brutally dispatched anyway. There were rare moments for Jena to threaten on the break; Bayern, like any dominant team, could sometimes push too high and find themselves caught out.
And truth be told, while they scored some scintillating team goals, the Bayern interchange was not always on point, not always as smooth as it could be. There was plenty of needlessly lost possession: it’s just that Jena, when they tried to play short and string together just a few passes, found themselves mobbed and marauded and harried right off the ball. It was a gulf in quality befitting a match-up of first versus last place in Die Liga, and this time, a scoreline to match.
Mala gets her clean sheet
This was a beautiful result to take in for Bayern keeper Maria-Luisa Grohs. The veteran has been displaced from her role as starting keeper in favor of Ena Mahmutovic, with this being her eighth start of the season and first since November 12th, a famous Champions League win over Arsenal.
This time, Grohs did not have much to do — Jena shot twice all game and scarcely had hold of the ball. But she did her job when called upon, completing all her passes to boot, and faced down a penalty that threatened her clean sheet. Jena’s Lisa Gora couldn’t sent Grohs the wrong way and then wound up missing off the post anyway.
Some year Bayern’s having
Bayern just have not been conceding chances in the Frauen-Bundesliga this season, and after 17 matchdays, the ledger reads like this: 16 wins, 1 draw, 0 losses, 67 goals for, 5 goals against. The +62 differential bests the next biggest gap, VfL Wolfsburg’s +30, by over a factor of two. The team with the next fewest goals conceded, TSG Hoffenheim, as given up 19 — nearly four times as many, and in one less game.
Three years ago, when Barcala’s predecessor Alexander Straus (now in the NWSL with Angel City FC) was taking the reins, Wolfsburg was top dog and you could bet on a brutal fight for the crown. How things have changed.
Match highlights
Highlights courtesy of Sportstudio on YouTube:
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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