They may have won 11 straight Bundesliga titles but all has not been well in Bavaria where the scrutiny is always intenseAll of a sudden none of it matters. Not a frustrating summer in the transfer market, with the lack of a sporting director often apparent. Not missing out on Declan Rice. Not even the uncertainty over the goalkeeping position. Harry Kane’s impending arrival at the Allianz Arena is a moment of triumph for Bayern Munich, and they are right to celebrate it.How badly Bayern have needed this, on so many levels. Not necessarily on a statistical one – the team scored 92 Bundesliga goals last season, compared with 97 in 2021-22, a negligible difference in light of the exit...
As Dortmund close on the Bundesliga title, it is Leipzig’s first win at Bayern that will continue to resonateOne of German football’s primary clichés is that of Bayern-Dusel – an undeserved helping of fortune that would help them somehow get it over the line in the last knockings, however well or badly they had played. A sense of inevitability. If you make your own luck in this game, though, Bayern Munich have not made nearly a good enough job of manufacturing any for themselves in recent weeks.For the champions, licking their wounds after Saturday evening’s stark, humbling home loss at the hands of RB Leipzig, Borussia Dortmund’s Sunday teatime victory at Augsburg was almost irrelevant, even if it did mark...
Decision to sack Nagelsmann and bring in the former Chelsea manager has failed – Dortmund are top with five games to goThere was a sense in which you could argue that this was to be expected. This was, after all, the third time in successive seasons that Mainz had sent Bayern Munich home with a defeat in late April. “Oops, I did it again,” was the caption on the club’s social media post, featuring the inevitable Britney Spears mid-dance with the Mainz club crest on her jumpsuit.It was the only thing that was familiar about this scenario. More accurate was the later, second attempt from the wags doing the socials for Die Nullfünfer. It featured Homer Simpson coming home –...
The Allianz Arena still expects visitors to crumble but Germany’s perennial champions were very much second-best against Manchester City Two hours and 53 minutes into this Champions League quarter-final, Bayern Munich finally scored. It was a Joshua Kimmich penalty, moot and meaningless, but still smashed into the very centre of the goal as if to make a point. Hey. Pssst. Lads. Maybe try aiming for the big netted thing. The one between the two metal things. It’s surprisingly roomy!The finer details of this 4-1 aggregate defeat will be lost to the winds of history. Yet over the two legs of this tie, Bayern’s expected goal tally of 3.49 was just a fraction behind Manchester City’s at 4.23. Both sides got...
Midfielder delivers a complete one- man guide to elite-level football with an imperious display against Bayern MunichJust before the hour in this match at the Etihad Stadium, Bernardo Silva took the ball on the right flank and began to drive inside, not so much sprinting as ambling urgently, like a man running a little late to deliver a lecture, scarf flapping absently over one shoulder.Casually, more just to hold on to the ball, he nutmegged Alphonso Davies. Then he did something impossible, seeming somehow to walk through Davies’s legs in pursuit of the ball, reappearing on the other side of his man via some invisible hobbit tunnel. Continue reading...