BAYERN are notgood enough.Franck Ribery’s blunt verdict on his own team back in December may have seemed overly pessimistic as they embarked on a run of nine league wins in a row and went top of the Bundesliga for the first time in two years.
But events over the past 10 days seemed to justify the French winger’s views.
Two consecutive defeats in league games against Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart have left them two points behind their main rivals for the title, Schalke.
Losing to Frankfurt was bad enough – they are mid-table and had been thumped 4-1 by Schalke just two weeks earlier. But for Bayern then to lose at home in the South German derby was evidence that they may be faltering physically just when they need to be strongest.
A spell of seven games in 21 days seems to be sapping their strength. They came into the Stuttgart match having beaten Schalke in the cup last Wednesday, thanks to a fantastic individual goal by Arjen Robben. But extra time, and the injury to Robben that has threatened to keep him out of tonight’s match, evidently took their toll.
It was just the latest episode in a season of ups and downs – or rather downs and ups.
Bayern started off with just two points from their opening three games, then walloped Borussia Dortmund and league champions Wolfsburg, but followed that with a run of frustrating draws. In their Champions League group they were beaten home and away by Bordeaux and only just defeated the minnows Maccabi Haifa.
But they then took 32 points from their next 12 league matches and achieved their best unbeaten run in 23 years.
Coming back from a goal down in Turin to beat Juventus 4-1 and knock them out of the Champions League was perhaps the catalyst. The Italians appeared to lose their nerve, and everything Bayern tried came off, including a penalty by goalkeeper Hans-Joerg Butt.
Even so it required a massive slice of luck – and an appalling performance by the match officials – for Bayern to defeat Fiorentina.
Bastian Schweinsteiger is a key player missing tonight as a result of a booking in the second leg of that tie. With Robben at best partly fit, and some doubts also over Ribery, the Germans could be short of attacking options, even if striker Mario Gomez is ready to play for the first time in three weeks.
Franz Beckenbauer is convinced the tie hangs on whether Robben and Ribery are 100% fit. Both of them are impact players who can turn any defence. But, as he also points out, as much depends on how Bayern defend, particularly the 21-year-old Holger Badstuber who made his Bundesliga debut in the first game of the season and hasn’t looked back.
Louis van Gaal took over as Bayern coach this season after winning the title in Holland with the outsiders AZ. He had been in the wilderness for several years – almost a figure of fun for some Dutch journalists – and a shadow of the man who won the European title with Ajax in 1995.
He did it with a 4-3-3 system at a time when 4-4-2 was all the rage, and that was his preferred formation subsequently at Barcelona. Van Gaal has always been known for his determination – some would call it obstinacy – so it was a bit of a surprise when he started out this season by playing with a 4-4-2 diamond formation.
It didn’t work, and his return to his favoured system, with Robben and Ribery wide, has given the team real impetus, even though it was not an immediate success. For a time it looked as though van Gaal the disciplinarian would have trouble with some of the players, in particular Ribery, but he has been a little less unbending than usual.
"I have changed a lot in terms of communicating with the players," he says.
"When I was making tactical instructions at the beginning, the players thought they had to execute those exactly as I said. But the players are supposed to decide themselves depending on the situation. That’s why the start didn’t run so smoothly, but I have changed my team meetings and it’s working out better now."
Like United, Bayern have a critical league game – against Schalke – at the weekend. Both sides will be wary of injuries. But with the cutting edge of van Gaal’s attacking system already apparently blunted, some invention may be required if Bayern are to go to Old Trafford with hopes of progressing.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Tuesday, March 30, 2010
