Monday, April 26, 2021
The lessons of the 31st game day
Just like Haaland sprints, FC Bayern is paralyzed
Needed by David
The game of FC Bayern seems as unimaginative on this day of the Bundesliga as the whole club in the Zoff situation around coach Hansi Flick and sports director Hasan Salihamidzic. Dortmund’s Erling Haaland, who competes with sprint world record holder Usain Bolt, shows how to get in the swing. Werder Bremen is unrivaled, but FSV Mainz 05 is terrific.
The game paralyzes with the club
It was a long time since FC Bayern had been seen to act so bloodless and without ideas. Even when they were eliminated from the Champions League against PSG, the German record champions had a very strong and reasonably good performance. But against Mainz, the offensive game in Munich was completely paralyzed. The Mainz team’s 2: 1 was still flattering. “You can’t go into this game like that and win,” said captain Manuel Neuer. “The body language and our commitment to wanting the ball and playing it out from behind” were not enough.
With the body language Neuer could have meant the whole club. The season is finally over. The cup is gone, the premier class too, the league will somehow still be won in the past three games with the seven-point lead. And so the whole club is paralyzed. Even under the burden of the fire source, coach Hansi Flick against sports director Hasan Salihamidzic, on which the super-bosses Karl-Heinz Rummenigge and Uli Hoeneß naturally co-ignite. Because Flick runs away, the players no longer really know for (or perhaps against) who to play. The record champions have to reposition themselves. David Alaba and Jérôme Boateng may already have their heads at their new clubs and Thomas Müller is dreaming of the European Championship.
After all: Robert Lewandowski was allowed to cheer a little. In the first game after his injury break, he scored directly again and thus kept his chances of cracking Gerd Müller’s “eternal” goal record. The Pole has scored 36 goals so far this season. Müller had already scored one more goal at the same time in his record 1971/72 season. The fact that the next opponents from Mönchengladbach, Freiburg and Augsburg do not have the very best defenders in the league should increase Lewandowski’s chances of success. And speaking of jubilation: Perhaps the record champions simply wanted to receive the bowl in the tried and tested manner in the Allianz Arena and therefore treated themselves to a break from commitment, which at the end of the season fits perfectly with the havoc at the club.
Haaland competes with Usain Bolt
“I tried to sprint afterwards, but you have no chance”, marveled Marco Reus about Erling Haaland after his full-speed short-distance run over half the place to 2-0 against VfL Wolfsburg. “He has this basic speed and knows that he is faster. This allows him to think about where to shoot on the way.” The 20-year-old did that too, meanwhile shook off two pursuers and finished cool. BVB coach Edin Terzic even wanted to have discovered another highlight video “for Youtube” in the Haaland run. The Norwegian plowed across the square at “felt like 45 km / h”, judged Wölfe trainer Oliver Glasner – while at the top it was “only” 35.99 km / h. For comparison, Usain Bolt wasn’t much faster either (albeit over a full 100 meters): his world record in 9.58 seconds, which he set at the World Championships in Berlin in 2009, corresponds to an average speed of 37.58 km / h.
“Yeeesssss!”, Haaland himself shouted loudly after the game. The primal scream was not about his sprinter qualities, but rather about qualifying for the Champions League again. From BVB’s point of view, this would be so immensely important for the Norwegian to stay. Bayer Leverkusen’s victory over Eintracht Frankfurt revived the black and yellow hopes in the evening even more. The Dortmunders are only one point behind the Hessians, two are up to the wolves. With Leipzig, Mainz and Leverkusen, BVB has the supposedly toughest remaining program of the three teams.
Wolves and Eintracht are threatened with shattering under pressure
In the battle for the Champions League millions, Wolfsburg and Frankfurt are now shaking accordingly. Three weeks ago, the Wolves were eleven points ahead of BVB. The qualification for the premier class actually seemed certain. Oliver Glasner’s team had been particularly strong defensively throughout the season, but conceded ten goals in the past four games. Now it’s two points ahead. The many failures of the defense testify to a certain nervousness in the team. “If you lose both games against Bayern and you lose both games against Dortmund, then something is simply missing,” admitted Glasner openly. After the outstanding games against Union Berlin, Leipzig and Mainz, the CL qualification could also be missing in the end.
In Frankfurt things are not quite as bitter as in Gladbach, when the head coach’s departure was announced in the summer and everything went wrong at first. But also Adi Hütter has now collected the second defeat in three games since his announced change to those foals. Eintracht threatens to run out of steam on the home straight and fizzle out the great success of the first qualification for the Champions League. “A few weeks ago we could win the Champions League. After we were seven points ahead, the feeling has now shifted to the fact that we can lose the Champions League,” said Martin Hinteregger. The pressure was “noticeable”. Maybe it’s too big. The games against Mainz, Schalke and Freiburg become a pressure gauge.
Werder yawns towards the 2nd division
“We were in a good position in the first half,” stated Werder’s veteran Niklas Moisander after the final whistle, “then there was a 15-minute blackout. That shouldn’t happen.” Coach Florian Kohfeldt shared a similar opinion. “The 15 minutes after half-time were desolate.” The rest of the game was fine. Werder fans all over Germany are wondering which game they experienced. 15 desolate minutes only? That was 90 minutes of blackout. Oh well, seven games in a row. Okay, more like almost an entire season again.
No combinations, incredibly slow, static and boring: Werder yawns with their seventh defeat in a row in the second division. Unimaginative up front, faulty back. The Bremen fans already know that from the entire past season. “Nothing is more important than Werder Bremen,” said Kohfeldt. The coach was discussed internally on Sunday, manager Frank Baumann said that the coach was generally held to, but that “Tuesday at the latest” would allow time for a judgment. The criticism of Kohfeldt has long been loud in social media, in some places a new beginning with Steffen Baumgart, who is leaving Paderborn, is now being demanded. Werder still has three games left to be able to carry out this restart in the upper house. In its current form, it looks more like the green-whites would set a sad record: It takes exactly three bankruptcies to catch up with Tasmania Berlin and Arminia Bielefeld, both of which have the longest series of defeats (ten games) in have a season.
Mainz is pushing into the (second round) Champions League
What such a change of coach can bring is shown week after week by FSV Mainz 05. One opponent after the other is dealt with. This time even the designated master from Munich had to believe in it. Except for the late Robert Lewandowski goal, Bayern hardly had a chance. What a difference to the first leg, when the 05er were scraped 5-2 after a surprising 2-0 lead. But since Bo Svensson took over the team, she has played confidently, compactly and with a witty playfulness and extremely effectively. And not only that, Mainz almost always wins in the end.
When Svensson signed his working paper at the beginning of January, many experts in Schalke 04 and Mainz 05 believed that they had already found the two certain relegated teams. The Mainz team recorded six points from 14 match days. Well, Schalke lived up to expectations, but Svensson’s team rebelled under the new coach. In the second half of the table, Mainz is currently in fourth place – with one game less and a whopping 27 points (Bayern are leading with 32 points). The non-descent seems almost sealed. In their current form, Mainz don’t have to worry about the tight rest of the program (Hertha, Frankfurt, Dortmund, Wolfsburg) at all.
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