RB Leipzig, the “defective rocket”: The dramatic crash of the Bayern hunter

RB Leipzig, the “defective rocket”
The dramatic crash of the Bayern hunter

Needed by David

In the Bundesliga, RB Leipzig is bobbing around in eighth place, there can be no more talk of Bayern hunters. Ironically, the PSG super team around Neymar and Mbappé is now threatened with the end of the Champions League. What happened to the Saxons?

“FC Bayern has the best first team. RB Leipzig has the best squad.” This very bold statement comes from Lothar Matthäus, printed in “Sport Bild” before the start of the Bundesliga season. Now the record national player has never been a man of reserved words or one with particularly strong clairvoyant skills. But Matthäus was either miles wrong with his assessment – or the team from Leipzig simply doesn’t want to and can’t do what his not so new coach Jesse Marsch imagines.

Actually, the coach’s engagement at RB began more than rosily, at least after it became clear that he and not his colleague Oliver Glasner, who was probably preferred for a while, would get the job. The entry was almost too easy for Marsch after Julian Nagelsmann’s departure to the competitor from Munich caused trouble in Leipzig. The American was also so pleasant that the team welcomed him with open arms. “There has never been a coach who has allowed so much closeness. He says to us ‘boys, your problems are my problems’,” said defense chief Willi Orban of the “Leipziger Volkszeitung” about the coach, who was already in the 2018/19 season Was an assistant coach at the Saxons. That gives the team an incredibly good feeling. “You go through fire for a coach like that.”

Now the fire has long since mutated into a forest fire that is very difficult to extinguish. The sad reality of the scorched earth is: eighth place in the league, 15 points – and ten points behind Bayern and nine on Dortmund. According to his own statement, Marsch “came to Leipzig to win with our troops”. In addition, there are three opening defeats in the Champions League and only one mini-chance to reach the round of 16. This must be tonight (9 p.m. / DAZN and in the live ticker on ntv.de.) of all people against the Qatari sheik team from Paris.

“Broken rocket”

What happened to Bayern’s number one pursuer from Leipzig? “We are currently not one of the teams that are fighting for the championship,” muttered Marsch after the 1-1 draw at Eintracht Frankfurt on Saturday evening. The American later became even clearer on ZDF: “We are not yet a top team in this league.” Jesse Marsch’s RB game idea is still missing. Or to put it another way: it doesn’t really get through to the team and the team can’t implement it. Again and again the RB professionals miss out on the best opportunities.

“We weren’t ripped off enough in front of goal. If we had been, we could have scored four or more goals,” complained Marsch. He defined his crew’s jam as a “broken rocket”. The Leipzig missile, it stutters far too reliably this season.

The first half of the 4-1 win against SpVgg Greuther Fürth on the matchday before Frankfurt was strangely uninspired and harmless. Before that, it was only enough to score 1-1 at the surprise third party SC Freiburg and even the 3-0 win on matchday seven against VfL Bochum only came out in the last 20 minutes. The 1-0 victory in the cup at SV Babelsberg was even more lackluster.

The royal transfer from the summer is symbolic of the Leipzig load jams. André Silva moved to the Saxons with a bag full of goals for 23 million euros. In 15 competitive games, he has now only scored three times for RB, but at least collected four templates. Since the third Bundesliga match day, he has not been allowed to play a full distance game. For comparison: In 34 competitive games last season Eintracht Frankfurt scored 29 goals and ten assists.

The Portuguese was only substituted on against his ex-club. It is quite possible that he will have to come from the bank against PSG. “It’s not going perfectly with André yet, but that’s normal,” said Marsch. After the cup win against Babelsberg, the coach explained: “It is not so easy for André to find the right role and for us to understand André.”

The problem for Leipzig: The march system is not made for Silva. He is a forward striker, lives from crosses and combinations from the outside, but has so far been too seldom able to show himself in the penalty area at Leipzig. The US-American lets his team act more vertically and more against the ball than was the case under Nagelsmann, wants to see energetic pressing, fast switching play and a short passing game drawn through the center. The Portuguese Silva seems lost. “He’s not a switch player,” Marsch even said.

The attacker also no longer has a flank giver named Filip Kostic, who gave him most of his goals in Frankfurt. Leipzig ranks on the Flank table in the league only in ninth place. Christopher Nkunku or Dominik Szoboszlai prefer to close themselves as wingers rather than create opportunities. Leipzig’s technical director Christopher Vivell explained to “Sport Bild” that Silva was “very skillful in the penalty area”, but at the moment the team was “unable to get him permanently into this dangerous area”.

Not quite march, not quite Nagelsmann

Leipzig’s quasi-Kostic, left-back Angeliño, mostly had to play far back in a four-man defensive chain this season. Meanwhile, however, Marsch also seems to prefer the 3-4-3 with Angeliño as the attacking full-back, which could benefit Silva. “He needs more crosses. We’re trying to improve the connection with Angel,” Marsch said before the Cup game in Babelsberg about Angeliño. Admittedly, the tactics did not work out satisfactorily against the regional league team.

Because the rest of the team is also struggling with the new, and yet somehow old (see Ralf Rangnick), RB-DNA. The squad was geared towards Nagelsmann’s combination game, and expensive purchases could not yet replace three lost pillars (Marcel Sabitzer, Dayot Upamecano, Ibrahima Konaté). Now it often seems as if Leipzig were a kind of hybrid: not quite Marsch, not quite Nagelsmann, but a little bit of both – and therefore far too inefficient. The team plays confused (see: Load jams in front of the gate), but Marsch continues to cling to his pressing tactics, which also leads to a lack of defensive stability and many counter-attacks. Allegedly, some players are supposed to reclaim elements of Nagelsmann’s ball possession football internally.

“I have great concerns whether the team wants to do what the coach wants,” judged Dietmar Hamann on Sky after the 1-1 draw against Frankfurt. “Forsberg, Nkunku, Olmo – they’re filigree players. They don’t want to chase the ball for 90 minutes.” It will be “incredibly difficult” for Marsch, “if he continues with this philosophy,” said the ex-national player. Then the coach and his team will “have a huge problem”.

The next big problem is PSG. Against the Parisians, RB will continue to fight with the Marsch pressing philosophy for the last chance at the knockout round. The strong first leg at the Seine, which the Saxons only narrowly lost 2: 3 after a 2-1 lead, gives a little hope. Against the leader of the group A, there must not be a bankruptcy for Leipzig, otherwise the round of 16 is gone. “We’re not giving up yet,” it says on the club website.

After all: With Lionel Messi, one of the three PSG superstars is missing injured. And with the Saxons, the Spanish national soccer player Dani Olmo is back, who was allowed to sniff the Bundesliga air for a minute against Eintracht, after a long break from injury due to a torn hamstring. The European Championship and Olympic participant is certainly not yet a candidate for the starting line-up.

Maybe it will work against the sheik team from Paris with full fan support – although there have been loud whistles from the fans recently. Thanks to the 2G rule, more than 40,000 spectators will be allowed into the stadium for the first time, the powerful curve club lawn ballists announced its organized return to the arena after a year and a half of the corona pandemic.

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