FC Bayern Munich slips into a tactically unfamiliar role and defeats Paris St.-Germain in the round of 16 of the Champions League.
From supplementary to key player: Josip Stanišić (left) against Kylian Mbappé Photo: Kai Pfaffenbach/rtr
You haven’t seen that in the arena in the north of Munich for a long time. FC Bayern was deep in their own half and let the opponents come from Paris. What the Munich team, who usually attack their opponents early on, only occasionally managed in the first half, grew into true defensive perfection in the second half. In the end there was a 2-0 win against the team around the beloved Lionel Messi and the feared Kylian Mbappé, a victory that meant Bayern’s entry into the quarter-finals of the Champions League.
Positioning the three central defenders so deep in their own half in anticipation of the opponents was the tactical core element of Bayern’s success that evening. The whole city discussed for a day whether such an idea can work at all, if next to the proven defenders Matthijs de Ligt and Dayot Upamecano der Münchner Croatian Josip Stanišić would meet the elemental force of a Kylian Mbappé. Hardly anyone believed that the 22-year-old could do that.
In the end, coach Julian Nagelsmann gave Stanišić a world-class performance. The pride that his match plan worked was clearly noticeable after the game. He mostly gets shit when people write about him, he said after the game, but after a win like this he wants “a piece of the pie” when the team is praised. Should he have it, please!
The way Bayern performed was well received in Munich anyway. A first liberating blow from the defense was fired in the 25th minute. Most in the stadium cheered this haphazard kick into nothingness almost as loudly as Matthijs de Ligt’s insane save shortly afterwards, who shot at the goal, which was empty because keeper Yann Sommer had previously dribbled at the edge of the penalty area scratched line.
Until the end of the game, every tackle against Lionel Messi was celebrated, every ball that was cleared for Paris from a corner was cheered – and when Mbappé was once again unable to assert himself, it got particularly loud in the arena. It was an underdog performance that FC Bayern delivered and at some point everyone felt very comfortable in this unfamiliar role.
Cheesy story
It had been prepared a few days earlier by the honorary president of Munich Uli Hoeneß, the red and white eminence of the club, who is still very much present. The had in a longer conversation of Evening News once again the cheesy story of FC Bayern as an honorable member club. The story of the well-behaved people of Munich who defend themselves against the Qatari-owned investor club, which can buy anything that has two legs, like David with a slingshot against Goliath.
Certainly, FC Bayern will not be able to afford the three-digit million fees and transfer fees for the biggest stars in the world anytime soon. But it would also be difficult to find a sponsor like Qatar Airways, who would pay around 25 million euros to have a small spot on Bayern’s jersey.
A remarkably strange banner immediately took up the Hoeneß story. The butcher’s son from Ulm was shown showing the stinky finger. There was also a meat cleaver and the arm severed by it. “Our butcher is slaughtering the long arm of Qatar,” was the French on the tarpaulin, as if it wasn’t Hoeneß himself who made FC Bayern a marketing tool for the filthy rich emirate through its partnership with Qatari state companies.
When the game started, the banner was gone anyway and the spectators were able to enjoy some really nice duels at eye level. How the two sixes, Parisian Marco Veratti and Bayern Munich’s Joshua Kimmich, fought back was quite spectacular and one-on-one football for connoisseurs.
The fact that Veratti ended up being the looser in this duel was also due to the almost unbelievable loss of possession in his own penalty area, which preceded Bayern’s 1-0 win through Eric-Maxim Choupo-Moting. And another couple put on a great show. How Achraf Hakimi and Alphonso Davies duel on the flanks could well be seen a few more times. Sometimes they sprinted against each other, sometimes they did hooks, sometimes one won, sometimes the other.
And yet quite a few were surprised that the Moroccan international played in Munich at all. In the Paris suburb of Nanterre, Hakimi is being investigated for allegations of rape. He denies the allegations, his club does not comment on the case and apparently saw no problem in letting the 24-year-old play against Munich.
That didn’t go with the banners of the traditionally active Munich ultra scene, which were shown in the curve for this game on Women’s Day. It read “Feminism means resistance” and the slogan of the women protesting against the Mullah regime in Iran “Jin, Jiyan, Azadî” – woman, life, freedom.
