In the eleventh match under Julian Nagelsmann, FC Bayern lost for the first time, 1:2 against Eintracht Frankfurt. An unnecessary defeat due to the large number of missed chances, but not one that came out of nowhere. The coach still said in the evening that there was a lot to analyse.
In the 73rd minute at the latest, the Munich team should have realised that they were taking a high risk in their efforts to score the opening goal. Almost at the halfway line, the outstandingly anticipating Manuel Neuer cleared a ball, otherwise two Frankfurt players would have run towards him alone. Things went well again in this scene, but not ten minutes later when Filip Kostic scored for Frankfurt to win the game. Neuer, of all people, who had been Munich’s best player up to that point, fluffed the shot.
Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner had obviously analysed the Nagelsmann-Bayern very well, despite all the luck in the game. “We knew we would get these counterattacking situations,” he revealed after the game, “we wanted to lure Bayern.” It worked late on, but could have gone wrong earlier for the Munich side. “If we do it well, we can run at Manuel Neuer alone three, four or five more times,” Glasner said.
“The goal was a foregone conclusion. “
NAGELSMANN
This did not go unnoticed by his colleague Nagelsmann. What remained unanswered, however, was the question of why it was not then prevented. Bayern’s coach criticised the large hole in the centre. Eintracht had had too much time with the ball, pressure through good counter-pressing had come too rarely in the second 45 minutes, and the remaining defence had not been good either. “The goal was a foregone conclusion,” Nagelsmann thought. The coach had already noticed these gaps in the victories in Fürth (3:1) and Kiev (5:0), but he and his team were unable to remedy this weakness.
However, his team could have, indeed should have, won. Serge Gnabry hit the post instead of the empty goal, Leroy Sané, like many of his colleagues, failed to beat the excellent Kevin Trapp, and it would have been 2:0. Instead, the corner that followed shortly afterwards led to the equaliser, and later Robert Lewandowski was also unusually lacking in coolness in front of goal. A used day. “The defeat could have been avoided. We had a lot in our hands, so there are lessons to be learned from this,” said Nagelsmann. What has been noticeable for weeks are too many misunderstandings, misplaced passes and technical sloppiness with the ball. In this respect, Nagelsmann was right when he said the match was not much different from the ones before. Fürth, Kiev or Bochum were not able to punish this, Barcelona is only a shadow of its former self, Leipzig caught Bayern at a good time.
In addition to the aforementioned mistakes, there is also carelessness, especially in the person of Dayot Upamecano, who is actually good, and who repeatedly makes gross errors in his game. On Sunday, the Frenchman was partly to blame for both goals conceded. “There is a lot to take out of the last three games, where we can, want and will do similar things better,” announced the coach. He still has to wait for the analysis with the team, almost all stars are on international trips. The home defeat was somewhat reminiscent of a 1-2 loss to Bayer Leverkusen in November 2019, one of the first games under coach Hansi Flick. At the front, the goals didn’t come despite superiority, and at the back, Bayern invited the opponent in. The next match will be Leverkusen again, second against first, away from home, a top match. Then we will see how adaptive Nagelsmann and his team are.
