Bayern Dominate Freiburg
October 8, 2023 Thomas Tuchel made a few changes to the lineup with Sven Ulreich, Noussair Mazraoui, Dayot Upamecano, Kim Min-Jae, Alphonso Davies, Joshua Kimmich, Leon Goretzka, Kingsley Coman, Thomas Müller, Leroy Sané and Harry Kane comprising the starting lineup.
Three Things We Noticed
Comfortable
I think even the most ardent Tuchel supporter would have to admit that things have not usually been very comfortable under him thus far at Bayern. Today however was a different story.
Bayern dominated this match start to finish. It is, in my opinion, the most complete performance from Bayern under his leadership. 70% possession, 21 shots, 6 on goal while only allowing 2 shots to Freiburg neither of which were on goal.
Freiburg were never really allowed to get into this match. The early goal (cough…cross…cough) from Coman really sucked any life that Freiburg might have had out of them. It is easy to interpret goals like that as “things are going to go Bayern’s way today” and Freiburg certainly seemed to take it that way.
Sané Connection
That being said, Bayern deserve all the credit for the performance today. Coman scored two goals but it was Sané who once again looked like one of the best players in the world again today.
Every time he is on the ball these days it’s a noteworthy occurrence. Every part of his game seems to be clicking at the moment.
However, his connection with Kane is the thing that is maybe the most noteworthy. These two players have linked up almost immediately as if they’ve been playing together for years.
Kane seems to have an instinctual knowledge of where Sané is going to be and what he’s going to do and vice versa. It seems as if every match these two are combining for goals with Sané being the huge beneficiary of Kane’s fantastic passing ability.
Hitting Their Stride?
More importantly though, there is now an argument that perhaps Bayern are starting to hit their stride under Tuchel.
However, I would yet again issue some words of caution. Freiburg were missing some key players today and realistically, two of Bayern’s three goals were extremely fortunate as Coman had no intention of going for goal and the first and his second was massively deflected in.
The possession and defense were both excellent today. I would love to think that was entirely down to Bayern’s play but I don’t think you can ignore just how capitulant Freiburg were on the day.
Bayern have now won comfortably in 3 of their last 6 matches but the other three certainly still left a lot to be desired. Copenhagen on Tuesday and Leipzig last weekend were uncomfortable. Even Bayern’s win against Manchester United became uncomfortable at the end and could easily have ended in a draw.
Hopefully these signs of improvement stabilize and turn this Bayern side into a more consistently dominant team. Today was a good start on that, now we’ll have to wait till after the international break to see if it continues.
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