Bayern Munich had a nightmarish end to March with a 1-2 loss to Bayer Leverkusen away at the Bay Arena. The team as an overall put up an extremely poor performance with zero positives to take away. Joshua Kimmich’s lone consolation goal in the first half was meaningless, for die Werkself ended up putting two past Yann Sommer via penalties from Exequiel Palacios and walked away with three in the bag.
The man of the hour (and a half) in this fixture was none other than former-Bayern-player-turned-Leverkusen-manager Xabi Alonso. He may have left us with good memories and tears in 2017 with his iconic “farewell, beautiful game” post, but rest assured, with this game he left us with bad memories. And tears.
Nonetheless, Xabi’s tactics were deserving of praise and Bayern manager Julian Nagelsmann commended the Spaniard and the Leverkusen team for “their deserved win”, as captured by @iMiaSanMia. The German further acknowledged that Bayern were the worse team for the vast majority of the game, and that their game was planets away from what the Bavarians had been doing in the games before that.
“We had 10 good minutes at the end. The way we played with and off the ball had nothing to do with what we did in the past weeks. We played a lot of long balls,” he said.
Commenting on the goal Joshua Kimmich scored, he called it an “undeserved lead” — a pretty harsh connotation for the lone goal the team scored! He further went on to insist that the two Leverkusen penalties were awarded correctly.
On the tactical approach and execution grounds, Bayern had certainly failed miserably. Nagelsmann spoke on this, saying, “We weren’t as good in transition as we should be against such a good team.”
“In the end, as I said, we weren’t the better team and definitely deserved to lose,” he affirmed.
Finally, on facing Borussia Dortmund after the international break, Nagelsmann was rather grave, insisting that Bayern must win the game as it was a matter of securing the title. Dortmund are in brilliant form off late, being currently placed first in the table. “We have to win against Dortmund. If we don’t (win), or in worst case we lose, then it will be difficult to win the title, considering the current form of Dortmund,” he declared emphatically.
Want more discussion about the game? Check out the post-game podcast! Samrin breaks down team selection, substitutions, big omissions for Bayern and Germany, and a look ahead at the Champions League tie against Manchester City. Listen below or on Spotify!
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