Bayern 2 – 0 Freiburg: Clean win for Kompany in the celebration day of Thomas Müller

This article written by Rainer Pompermayer

Bayern started with full control of the match in the first half, allowing Freiburg almost 0 attacking chances, but without many good scoring chances until a lucky penalty which was converted by Kane in the 38th minute.

In the second half, Freiburg had a little bit more of the ball, but never managed to punish Bayern’s defense. Then in the 78th minute, Müller scored and basically defined the Bavarian victory. In the end, Freiburg had one final chance to get the ball past Neuer via a penalty, due a handball by Palhinha, but Lucas Höler sent the ball way over the bar. All in all, a decent and fair 2 – 0 for the home team.

Three Things We Noticed

Inverted Wing Back? Why not! 

Before the match started a lot of people were wondering if, with Boey out and no right back, we would see Kimmich back at the right back just two matches after being reinstated at the midfield. The answer was clear after a couple minutes: “yes…and no!”

Without the ball, Kimmich would generally stay on Upamecano’s right side and be a bit more conservative, without pushing forward all the time to press. With the ball, Kimmich shifted to the middle of the park to contribute to the buildup play alongside the center-backs and Pavlovic.

One or two times we saw Kimmich pushing forward on the right side, but most of the time we would see the German in the middle of the pitch not getting forward too much. At the same time, Guerreiro also had some freedom of movement, sometimes moving closer to the center backs to support them, sometimes pushing forward, but without being too much on the wide areas, trying to connect in the center of the attack.

Guardiolesque Tactics? 

After the mini chaos mentioned last week, Kompany went into Sunday with the goal of full control for the match, allowing the least amount of ball possession as possible. And that worked, especially in the first half, Freiburg didn’t have any clear chances on goal and struggled to take the ball from the Bavarians. 

Together with his inverted wing back deployment of Kimmich, Gnabry being a hybrid right winger/wing back, and Kane dropping back even more than usual, the parallels with his “teacher’s” tactics are impossible to avoid.

Of course I’m not saying that Kompany displayed a performance worthy of Guardiola’s best days at Bayern, or City, but the same concepts were definitely there. And we also need to highlight two points in this comparison: Firstly is that this Freiburg hasn’t found their form yet this season. Secondly, even with the high majority of the ball possession, with five attacking forwards, the attack still underperformed heavily. Bayern only managed 12 total shots and a 1.85 expected goals which shows that Kompany still needs to improve the attacking situation at Bayern, even though good ideas are definitely there.

King Thomas

Of course we cannot talk about the match without properly praising Thomas Müller. The German was a protagonist in today’s win, even without starting, with a really nice goal (a not so usual thing with Tommy), but the most important part is that, after equalizing Sepp Maier’s record last week, today Müller made his appearance number 710 and became the player with the most games played in a Bayern shirt.

Considering the size of the club, the competition for places that Bayern always had and how many historical players we’ve had in the last 15 years, it’s surely an impressive number and an impressive record. Thomas Müller might be in the sunset of his career this season, but he still has the same motivation and will to win every single match, as shown in the last two matches, and will continue to be an important player for the team this season. We should enjoy it even more while it lasts…

LINE UPS AND GOALS:

FC Bayern: Neuer – Kimmich, Kim, Upamecano (90’ Goretzka), Guerreiro – Pavlović (74’ Palhinha) – Gnabry, Olise (59’ Müller), Musiala (74’ Laimer), Tel (59’ Tel) – Kane  

Freiburg: Müller, Kübler (81’ Ogbus), Rosenfelder, Lienhart, Günter (81’ Makengo), Osterhage (72’ Höler), Eggestein, Doan, Röhl (63’ Dinkçi), Grifo (63’ Sallai), Adamu

Goals: 1:0 Kane (38’), 2:0 Müller (78’)

Yellow cards: Upamecano (31’),