analysis
With a dominant performance, FC Bayern regained the lead in the table against Dortmund. Gregor Kobel’s mistake before the 1-0 changed the game – and possibly the championship fight.
Gregor Kobel didn’t even want to look anymore. The BVB keeper had just rushed out of his goal and only hit the air when he tried to clear it. He then threw his hands over his head as the ball tumbled towards the goal line and Leroy Sané escorted him along the way.
It was 1-0 in the top game between FC Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund, which ended 4-2. Thomas Tuchel’s coaching debut, which could also be a preliminary decision in the championship. It was that moment that gave a new direction to the game and maybe the season.
Dortmund more active in the early stages
BVB was the better team for 13 minutes. For 13 minutes you could see Dortmund in the Munich Arena, which had rushed from victory to victory since the winter break. The Dortmund, which had fought its way to the top of the Bundesliga with determination, tactical and team spirit and which, as a result, traveled to Munich with the self-confidence of a league leader. The Dortmund, which was partly responsible that now not Julian Nagelsmann, but Thomas Tuchel sat on the opposing coaching bench.
Tuchel’s starting eleven: 47 years of Bayern experience
The new Bayern coach went into this decisive duel, although it was only the second time that he met some of his players in his new role as head coach. His recipe was: tried and tested. Almost 47 years of FC Bayern experience were in Thomas Tuchel’s first Bayern starting eleven. No Sadio Mané, no Joao Cancelo, no chain of three, no revolution, no experiments.
And so it was not surprising that this Bayern team, which had struggled so much in the Bundesliga, also struggled in the early stages against Dortmund. BVB dominated. Regardless of whether it was Emre Can, the national team captain Joshua Kimmich, or Marco Reus, who dribbled into the Bayern penalty area and twice threatened the goal there.
Kobel’s mistake conjures up the old FC Bayern
For 13 minutes it seemed as if BVB could win in Munich. Then Dayot Upamecano hit a long ball – and Gregor Kobel made a devastating mistake. After that 1-0 win in the Munich Arena, it was as if something had shifted back into place. As if the football world had been steered back into familiar paths.
Bayern were once again enthroned in their regular place at the top of the lightning table and everything on the pitch was suddenly reminiscent of the best Bayern times: Kingsley Coman hit his hooks, Joshua Kimmich directed the game and Thomas Müller was exactly where one was Thomas Müller stands to keep his instinctively guided stork legs where only he expects the ball – and so it was 3:0 ten minutes after the opening goal.
Tuchel’s work or Kobel’s contribution?
The 4-0 by Coman after the break also let Dortmund’s last hope fizzle out. The rest of the game was a show of power from Munich and Dortmund could be happy that the hosts dealt with their numerous chances so sloppily that they didn’t concede a fifth, sixth or seventh goal. The two Dortmund goals in the shooting phase became a minor matter.
Was it actually Tuchel’s plan to stand lower and thus take the pressure off the central defense, which was prone to errors recently, or was it a result of the early lead? Did Terzic gamble by not using his fast wingers, or would the plan of using Brandt and Reus in the center have worked without Kobel’s mistake?
Tuchel on Bayern game: hectic, nervous, sloppy
It is difficult to say whether Dortmund would have actually beaten Bayern, but one thing is certain: the Kobel blunder made his team stagger, and the sudden elated Bayern used it for the 10-minute knockout. Tuchel has not yet put his stamp on Bayern. How about after the brief preparation? And the coach himself said it was 1-0: “It was very important to calm down. Then it got better.” He saw his team’s game as “hectic”, “nervous” and “sloppy” and took a lot of homework from the game.
Meanwhile, Dortmund coach Edin Terzic threw himself protectively in front of his keeper after the game: “He’s the reason why we were able to start here today as leaders”, he said. The reason for a missed championship is certainly not Kobel. Not just because”that was not a final for the German championship“, as Tuchel said. There are only two points between FC Bayern and BVB.
Terzic: “The disappointment is great”
And yet the BVB players looked so down after the game, as if they had lost such a final. “The disappointment is very big”, said Terzic. It’s his job now to get the players looking ahead again.
If the Dortmund players can take something positive from this game, it’s that in football sometimes it only takes a second for everything to change.