Post-match: The no Hyperbole Discussion of FCB v FCB

good analysis. but i would give pranjic a try...he played the same position when we played against ManUnited. He is versed in CM.
We need our CM to take on the field and penetrate deeper. Olic should have been subbed in. He would make more runs, while having muller replacing robben.

 

Nekki ~ great summary! Well said....

Defense
As you noticed the cascading effect of dragging Boateng out, points back to one of my largest and most vocalized concerns this season in our defense.... and that is, ultimately it exposes Badstuber 1v1 then. Rafinha failing to come home defensely, means Boateng covers and exposes Badstuber alone. Badstuber is not the player we want as our last man as he is a tugboat, late in the tackle, only average in the air. Why he is a first choice by two managers still boogles my mind (at the start of every season).

Pitch
It should be noted that the pitch was horrendous to deal with, and several bad passes/touches were evident. Lahm in particular I remember sent a ball straight back into Basel touch around our own penalty area!!!

Neuer concern
Too often this season I have seen him in no-mans-land. Same was true yesterday. Fortunately it never hurt us. And to his credit he made some world-class saves, and was only unlucky on the last shot of the game.

Midfield
I will disagree on Tymo. I felt he was not up to speed. He was late in the tackle often and his touch was entirely too heavy. His lack of physical speed was exposed and his inability to rid himself of the ball quick enough a detriment. The pitch being so did not help any of these things, and only made it look worse. I will say on my second viewing, I thought I may have been too harsh in my original critique, but this season he has played well, and according to that standard that he has set (in my own mind), his play was well below par IMO. Alaba was good, but only as good as a 19 year old international in his first CL competition with the senior team can be. There needs to be a leader in the middle taking charge. We have no answer for that without Schweini.

I think Kroos is getting off the hook here as well. It is time he steps up his game defensively to help fill the void of Bastian, as clearly he is excellent in his distribution.
His being pulled deeper and away from Gomez is the biggest concern and you hit that nail on the head. He is becoming less effective around goal.

Franck Ribery should have been pissed off for being substituted. It was the worst tactical move of the game. A tired Franck was more effective in attack then many of our other options. Robben can't be expected to be 100%, but at least get your shooting mojo back FFS! He was never taking the final shot on some occasions and it was driving me crazy.

Substitutions
This won the game for Basel, lost the game for Bayern. Poor decisions killed us. Basel put in the two players that made the difference. Bayern left Olic and Gustavo on the bench in the 2nd half and that killed our attack. Mueller-Olic have a great partnership, and Gustavo's speed could have helped us in the center.

Attack
So glad you have seen the Gomez implosion. His lack of movement off the ball is directly equivilent to the lack of goals he has scored since the break. Olic's movement was needed, specially on such a sloppy pitch. Very frustrating to watch the stagnation.



As I mentioned in the other thread, we have to move forward.... figuratively and literally....


Put this one past us and also bring the attack to Basel.
Leave two defenders at the back with a solid DM in front, but allow for the flanks to thrash Basel and put two forwards in front of goal.

It isn't rocket science.



BAYERN NEVER WINS WHEN THEY DON'T SCORE 1ST!!!! (IN 2012)


seriously.... have we yet?????

 

I don't understand, how would you "enjoy some schadenfreude" out of reading a thread regarding the club you support? That word, you're not using it correctly.
It must feel fantastic in that high horse of yours, making fun of emotional posters for venting about a loss that might have just guaranteed an exit of the Champions League given our circumstances and form.

 

Pack it up and go home, this season's over!!!! Ahhhh!

 

This is where I felt where we went wrong and this happens a little more often than not with JH. His substitutions usually come very late and have little impact on the game.

The substitution of Muller for Ribery really had me going as I really couldn't figure out what JH's objective was with this move. (if he was hurt then I strike me comment). Ribery was our most creative player and that's saying a lot when most of our offensive plays were 1v1/2/3 or crosses into the box.

To compound the problem, Olic for Kross left us without a playmaker out on the pitch when we were already a goal down at that point only a Robben-esk type goal would have saved us.

Regarding our fullbacks, I don't think Rafinha is to blame as such as even Lahm has been caught out of position quite often this season. My thinking here is that JH has instructed them to play higher up the pitch to help Ribery and Robben out to avoid the same 1v2/3 that we're starting to see.

Alaba does OK but you can clearly see he's no Bastien or orchestrator, and for this I would have thought that after 60 mins, Kroos takes over in the CM role and we sub in Muller. This would have helped us control the tempo, and add yet another scoring threat.

Not terribly disappointed with the result as I feel we can still make it through.
Sommer (sp?) had a monster game yesterday and after his first save on Ribery I kinda knew it would be that kinda day.

anyways my 2 cents (Eastern Caribbean Dollars - XCD)

 

I think that's true all season long...

We put all our efforts into the first 15-20 minutes, if we don't score then and first we can't win the game.

That's the biggest thing of this team, with all the transfers bs, personnel, managing, FO, this player that player, captaincy, leadership, etc...

That has been the single most consistent factor!

We don't score first and within 20 minutes we lose... Period..

 

Rafinha's lackluster defense in favor of his offensive movement and the incompatibility of that with Robben had been pointed out numerous times before and after his signing. People simply didn't want to hear that.

 

Anyone think we should play an all out attack style in the return leg?

Just go for goal difference?

Have 3 defenders 5 middle 2 upfront Gomez/olic

Have boetang/bads/Gustavo back
Muller robben kroos ribbery Lahm
Olic Gomez


Or some variation of that..

I just don't see us going past this round with the same old...
We need a fire under the ass we need to score the first goal period, that's the only way we win..

 

Been looking over the heat maps for the game and they show a few things about our attack that worry me.

Left vs Right - on the left Lahm is covering about 1/3 of the width of the pitch in a swath that goes to around 15m from touch on either end. Badstuber is covering 2/3 of the back and pushing up to within a few m of the center at times. Ribery covers a big patch from our box to the goal for 2/3 the width of the pitch as well. It's very balanced coverage.

Meanwhile, on the right Robben covers a patch from the center to 15m from Basel's touch mostly on the right with a brief foray or two past center to the left side of the box. Rafinha is pinched all the way over into a narrow strip vertical along the sideline from the top of our box to near Basel's touch with another strip that tracks horizontally towards center just behind the area where Robben parks. Boateng is either tracking diagonally into the space left by Rafinha or towards the corner and is much less centrally oriented than Badstuber. It's very unbalanced and not very diverse.

This isn't the whole story, however. The left is less effective than it could be with that sort of balance because the tendency there is to sit back and play to receive an outlet pass for possession rather than to exploit the seams and threaten open space. I watched Franck work wide of his defender and get a step dozens of times when Kroos or Alaba was hovering somewhere off of Franck's 4 o'clock with a defender cheating towards center and never saw either of them cut into the space that Ribery opened up with his width. In every case Ribery already had an outlet to Lahm if he ran into trouble, but no other options besides taking someone on. That wasn't Ribery being selfish, it was Kroos and Alaba being too timid. We don't have this problem as much with Schweinsteiger in the game because he will hold and initiate more and not defer to Lahm and Ribery as often.

Tymo's problem (besides him struggling with his touch yesterday), is that he doesn't have any options for those vertical passes he used to do so well. Robben and Rafinha are far too limited in their movement to give him much of an option other than passing to one of them and waiting for them to run at someone. And when Tymo turns towards the center he's facing the same problem with Kroos and Alaba that Ribery has -- no attacking off-the-ball movement into open space.

And the real Achilles heel of all of this is that with the right side pushed so high and wide we end up with a huge open space between the center and the box on the right that has only Boateng to slow down a counter. He's covering too much space and there are too many bodies rushing in behind him when he's forced to step up or cover the flag. This is why his heat map is so spread out compared to Badstuber's.

Two lateral sides; two different problems; one big mess.

 

----------------Neuer----------

Lahm--- Boateng----Badstuber-----Alaba

--------------Gustavo--Kroos/Schweini

---Robben/Muller--------------------------Ribery

----------------Gomez----Olic

 

Lahm will be wasted behind Robben. Check the heat maps from last season and you will see that Lahm was reduced to much the same role that Rafinha plays when Robben was in the lineup. I was amazed at how similar the maps looked when I checked them out.

Also, remember how many people here were complaining all last season that Lahm was weak? Looking at the maps and results I'd say that Lahm was more limited by what he had in front of him last season than this one.

Our right wing has been tactically futile for a while, saved only by Robben's flashes of individual pace and brilliance. It's a problem, and we may as well settle for a defensively minded RB because any offensive talent we bring in will be wasted on the right while Robben continues to play his typical game.

Not a knock on Robben as a player, just noting that his game does not lend itself to combined play with the RB.

 

I would rep if I could because I agree with everything mentioned here, especially the midfield part which I would like to concentrate on. I believe the problems with Bayern at the moment are intangibles and not necessarily tactics: a combination of fitness, lack of effort/movement, and perhaps confidence/chemistry issues.

My opinion is that Heynckes set us up as well as he could tactically speaking. At least offensively, because we created several chances of which we finished none.( Where he might be at fault is in training. I have no idea what kind of drills they are doing during that time, because they look like they've never heard the phrase combination play)

The glaring error that everyone is pointing to is Rafinha's positioning and ambitious advances in to the opposition's field. I believe he was instructed to push up the field. Why? Because Lahm seemed to have been doing the same. If this was the strategy, it kind of did work because we did overload the wings and with those two fullbacks they wold often cut inside to offer some movement in that area. In which case, I assume that Tymoschuk was the one needed to cover the CB positions in the event that either fullbacks were caught up the field and when either Boateng and Badstuber were needed out wide. Tymsochuk obviously failed in doing so because when Badstuber or Boateng were pulled out wide a Midwestern prairie would open up in the back center of the pitch.

So I completely agree that Tymoschuk had a pretty subpar day. Now, this is where Heynckes failed in compensating for Badstuber's lack of pace because you just can not take those risks with him at the back.

Kroos, on the other hand, was absolutely invisible. The amount of times I would see him pass the ball and stand still annoyed the hell out of me. He was supposed to be our "quarterback" and playmaker in the absence of Schweinsteiger but he just seemed to have an identity crisis, sometime playing as a DM or sometimes playing as a Supporting striker. He either seemed bored or tired, which might mean that these players are not conditioned well. Honestly, look at each of the players on Bayern and look at the players on the other team during the course of a game. Our players seem absolutely knackered by the 70th minute and this might be one of the big reasons why they can never come back from a goal and go on to win the match. When you combine that with our lack of depth, it will lead to disaster.

Alaba was as good as any 19 year old center midfielder can be (as you said). The CM position requires presence and presence only comes with experience, I mean how many powerhouse Central midfielders below the age of 22 are there in the game. He added energy and drive when necessary.

Ribery was our best player. Yes, he gave away the ball in too many occasions with fancy footwork (what else is new) but he was involved in the majority of our biggest chances. Robben, oth, was a disaster.

I don't know what else to say, our movement is lacking and an effective style of play is needed.
I completely agree with your line up, put Gustavo and Boateng in at Centerback. Badstuber cannot be playing the majority of Bundesliga matches or against teams like Basel. It was obvious that we were set out yesterday to press and score but were caught out too many times. Badstuber would be fine against strong opposition where he would be needed to sit back more an allow the players come to him, but there's just no way we can have him out in space where he will get pillaged by even a mediocre counterattack.

 

Yeah, but two years ago, the Robben-Lahm partnership on the right was one of our best ever. Almost all our attacks came from there. Robben cutting in with Lahm overlapping him was one of the most common scenarios in our game. Both had pretty high stats that year.

 

I disagree, it was alright. In terms of statistics it might have looked that way, but I can recall several times when the combinations between the two were either non-existant or severely lacking.

 

True, but Robben was playing a more diverse and open role in the early part of that season than he has played since. Looking over the CL game heat maps from 2009/10 what struck me was how much more mobile Arjen seems to have been in most of those and how much that freed up Lahm to make use of space. Over time Robben seems to have narrowed his field of mobility a lot and as he did that the heat maps for his RB partner have become more and more constrained to the far edge of the pitch.

I don't think that Lahm is the entire difference here. I think that Robben is the driving factor. It may be that he doesn't trust Rafinha to do as much as Lahm, but even two seasons ago when Robben was coming off of a layoff or in a productive slump he's tended to play just the way he's playing now and Lahm would get squeezed out of the play.

 

Good thread Nekki.


For me Bayern don't have too many problems but the ones that do tend to stem and hurt Bayern moreso than they should at the moment.

Lets start with Heynckes. Defense has improved considerably, then again at least 40m euros was used to improve it. I was absolutely furious when I saw that Heynckes subbed out Ribery (what the fock?), that move just screamed idiocy from him. Yes, he missed 2 goal chances he simply should have scored and lost the ball at other times, but he was our best offensive player since he was always on the move. People you can't have it two ways.

You want Bayern players to move the ball forward and never loose it at the same time. Maybe it's time to either get off the PlayStation or get a nice cup off shut the ******** up. We don't have Pele, Maradonna, and Cruyff all in our team that can move the ball forward and not loose it. He lost the ball more than others because Ribery actually tried to do something productive, instead of this terrible tactic of safe passing sideways and pass back to defenders. When Ribery got the ball, he moved up and ran at players, something that Robben should have done but seems to scared to get injured and instead is useless most of the match...

That's why the move itself is baffling, and horribly wrong. Muller looked good when he came on but that doesn't make it right, Gomez, Kroos and Robben were woeful in that match. I just do not understand this horrible move, while the Basel coach puts in the player that scores the goal.

Also one has to wonder why the role of the fullbacks is such a terrible move. Why on earth are the fullbacks constantly cutting in and the wingers moving out? It should be the opposite. Fullbacks to overlap the wingers and the wingers to cut in but I see the opposite. Esp when you see someone like Rafinha that doesn't know what to do when he cuts in, I just have to ask what Jupp is thinking. Horrible strategy, no idea why he is going this route.

Tymo was not having a great game, same thing with Kroos and Alaba. Why not make a change earlier? Why take so long like he does with every single substitution until it's too late? Put Gustavo in for Tymo, try moving Kroos and Alaba around or simply put Muller AM since Kroos was just dreadful and either take Kroos off/put him at CM for Alaba. Jupp his typical self was about to put another DM (Gusti) I'd imagine for Alaba and Kroos. I just don't know with his attitude if Bayern can come up and beat Basel to progress, he'll tell them to play it safe for 60 minutes and then go balls out or try to score the first 20 minutes and then if that doesn't work, game over. Meh

One has to say that this team not coming back to win any games after going down first is just a huge minus. Lack of willpower. Did anyone think Bayern would tie it at the end with the last 6-7 minutes? I didn't have that feeling tbh. The main problem is that we only have one leader when we should have 3-4, and that one leader is injured.

Now let me get to Gomez. I like him and he has helped Bayern a huge deal the past year and a half. But I do have to wonder how someone can get lazier after the summer break. I can say without exaggeration that he has such a complete waste of total space the past two matches that had Bayern lined up with 10 rather than 11 players (not Gomez), they would have played just as good/bad depending on your interpretation. He's just useless, he doesn't move, he stays in one spot and even his improved passing from earlier seemed to have gone to crap. One thing that I love about Gomez is he always tries, and he always moves. Always, his movement is the best in the world I have said this before because he's always getting in the right places and making the best runs. He's done none of this. I think benching him will have an effect like the first season, where he falls off the face of the earth. What he needs is for our currently useless coach to get him in a room and scream at him. No matter what, I don't care if he doesn't score. At least when he moves the way he normally does, he always opens up space for others at least. Based on the last two games, I play GK and I could be more useful than he was. Just dreadful. Hopefully Jup has a pep talk with him...

I do agree Schweini is part of the problem, since Alaba is likely 1-2 years too young to be a good replacement depth player for him. Schweini is always either the one that does the most running or the 2nd that covers the most ground. He's always moving opening up space and controls the tempo, incredibly important esp with the form that he was.

We need him to come back and start playing like he was, soon. I really do hope Bayern somehow scrape past Basel somehow (right now, I think Basel will go through). Basel was ok but hardly that good that night, it's just that Bayern sucked in terms of finishing and generally playing as well as they can.

I think Neuer will start to develop into leader material by next year, this season he is just getting his feet wet. Unfortunately bar Schweini for this year, I don't see anyone that can lead this team.

Another big problem at the moment is that other teams seem to run more than us and our off the ball offensively is just dire. Few movements, hardly ever any creative ideas. I do think we will get out of this spell in a month at most, my only concern is that we are in Champions League by that time. This team this year showed they can look like the best team in Europe and a team fighting for relegation in the Bundesliga. Just sad.

I have a few more thoughts but unfortunately they've escaped me at this moment.

 

Rafinha to me looks like a less skilled winger, that's all. The goal was almost entirely his fault, had no idea what he was doing really. I personally am fine with defense the way it is, even though Basel could have scored a couple of times, things looked tight at the back.

We need a fullback in mould of Coentrao really, someone who will do what it takes to win the ball and has that never die attitude. No, howedes or dante are both wrong options.

At this point I would love to see Bayern consider purchasing Ivanovic, who is one of my favorite fullbacks because he's as strong as an ox, is always on his player, superb reading of the game and does an exceptional job of intimidating players, so they'd be forced to cut inside and try not to get past him. Brilliant.

If we can't get ivanovic, we need to look at someone with proven quality, like Fabio from Manchester United, in other words, a big move for someone who knows what it means to play for a big club. Going for some half proven midget who can dribble a bit and saving 10 million tells me that the club are not willing to challenge Spain or even England.

 

Both Rafinha and Fabio are "midgets" at the same height.....

 

I don't think the players are just willing enough to work for each other or think outside the framework provided to them by Heynckes. That's why they look like robots out there fulfilling what they were "programmed" to do rather than play football the right way and optimize their performances as a "team".

So few players are actually willing to think outside those limitations and its often not sufficient. Can't help but feel that they aren't encouraged to do so either.

 

That would be suicidal. If we concede a goal at home, we will have to score 3.

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I really dont think its that bad....We are not in the same situation as Arsenal.... we are only a goal down, and we are playing the return leg at home.

 

Regarding Ivanovic, Did you notice that he commited the same crime as Rafinha for napolis second goal?

Fabio from man Utd? And you claim Rafinha is a midget. Do you know they are of the same height