Last Week in Bayern News
December 7, 2020 Sunday
Coming off the back of Bayern’s 3-1 win against Stuttgart the news was sparse enough to start off with an insider scoop on next years home uniforms that look very reminiscent of the 15-16 homes.
Now on to some classic Thomas Müller who decided to equate playing Stüttgart to “traveling to play Stoke on a windy night”.
In news that somewhat contradicts our recent doom and gloom regarding Bayern’s performances, Bayern have in fact had their best start to a campaign in four years by taking 22 points in their first nine matches.
For those of you trying to keep track of Bayern’s young loanee’s at Nürnberg (aka Bayern 2.1) both Früchtl and Singh missed Sunday’s match Singh for personal reasons and Früchtl simply on the bench. Meanwhile the injury scares from Saturday’s match all looked to be minor as Bild reported that none of Boateng, Martinez, Tolisso or Hernadez were expected to miss significant time. To further lighten moods, it was also reported that Bouna Sarr was back in team training.
While it’s always easy to be derisive in hindsight, Kicker’s projected starting eleven was comically horrible even when it was posted.
Monday
In his press conference before the Champions League match with Atletico, Hansi Flick announced that Neuer, Lewandowski, Goretzka and Tolisso would not travel to Spain. See what I mean regarding that Kicker projected eleven? However, that did mean that several younger players would get their chance against a big European side.
In training news, Alphonso Davies was looking sprightly out on the pitch and is looking closer to a return. Even more encouragingly, Joshua Kimmich was back on the pitch running for the first time since his knee surgery.
For those of you following the masterclass in ineptitude that is the DFB, they announced that Joachim Löw would continue as the national team manager at least through next year’s European Championship. That seems logical and deserved…sigh…
Tuesday
Let’s start off match day with a quick reminder, just in case you hadn’t been paying attention, that Kingsly Coman has easily been one of Bayern’s best and most consistent players recently.
Unsurprisingly, except to Kicker of course, he would not make the starting lineup which featured a heavily rotated side that featured two 17 year olds and David Alaba as captain in what was his 400th match in a Bayern shirt. The match would go about as well as everyone might have expected given the ten changes compared to the match a week earlier in Salzburg. Bayern did managed to get a 1-1 draw out of it though thanks to a bevvy of Atletico misses and a late penalty by Müller.
Thomas Müller’s goal moved him into the top 10 on the all time Champions League goal list past Filippo Inzaghi and within a goal of both Andriy Shevchenko & Zlatan Ibrahimovic…which he apparently enjoyed.
In a bit of transfer news speculation Köln are apparently plotting to take both Zirkzee and Dajaku on loan in January while both Chelsea and Alaba’s party are denying any link between the two sides despite news out of England to the contrary.
Wednesday
Karl-Heinz Rummenigge decided December second was a good day to campaign once again for Robert Lewandowski winning any award possible in 2020, as he well deserves, as well as discuss a variety of topics ranging from every coach bayern has had since Louis van Gaal to how great the goalkeepers at Bayern have been through the years to Leipzig’s ascent in the Bundesliga. Honestly it was a fairly random diatribe. Read here if you wish.
Hilariously, the DFB somehow must think Germany will reach the semifinals of the Euro’s next year as they are planning to keep Löw around until 2022 assuming he does and then bring in Jürgen Klopp to replace him. I’m not sure what they’ve been watching the last 3 years that makes them think Germany has a snowball’s chance in hell of reaching the semifinals. All I can say is hopefully they have some kind of contingency plan.
Thursday
Bayern posted a special interview with Hansi Flick that takes a look back at a “very special year” for both him and the club.
Meanwhile Kimmich was out on the training pitch again ramping up for his comeback looking as though he has every intention of starting against Leipzig. Davies however actually did return to team training and looks likely to make his return soon. Unfortunately Tolisso and Nianzou both missed training and Tolisso was expected to miss the Leipzig match.
After much whinging on their part, Leverkusen’s Pokal match against Frankfurt was pushed back to January 12, 2021 following Bayern’s match against Kiel being pushed as well. To be fair it is not an unreasonable request but for whatever reason feels a little hollow when compared to what Bayern have been through in the last 12 months.
Alphonso Davies also picked up some personal silverware in what could only have been surprising to people who had been in a coma for the last year as he won the Candian Player of the Year award. Presumably all of the runner ups congratulated him and apologized for being voted for.
More trikot news. This time they’re reporting that the third jersey will be white with navy and red accents. I’m at a loss for what the away jersey will be if the third jersey is white. I guess that’s why I’m not on the design board for Bayern jerseys though.
Friday
Yeah FC Bayern…I think you can go ahead and finish this sentence and it will be accurate.
Flick ruled out Tolisso and Kimmich officially and noted that Davies also would miss but noted that he has completed several training sessions and they now just need to see how his body would react.
Flick also related why Kimmich’s availability is not decided by Kimmich by saying “If it were up to him, he’d be playing 60 minutes tomorrow.” I guess I’m just thankful for those time travelers from the future that sent back a cyborg to play for Bayern.
The last bit from the Flick presser mentions fatigue as a major factor in the poor defensive performances lately. I’m quite sure there is more to it than that but I also have to assume that Hansi knows what he is talking about and that they players are more fatigued than even we guess.
I didn’t have to wait long for my answer regarding the away kit colors. It turns out that Adidas will be producing a black away shirt for Bayern next season. Why this is the away shirt and the white is the third shirt is a mystery I doubt will ever be solved, but regardless, all three jerseys for next season have been released now.
In other news, the ban on spectators in stadiums in Germany has been extended to January 10, 2021 at the very least. I think we can all expect that date to be pushed back for the foreseeable future.
Saturday
This match day kicked off with Robert Lewandowski receiving his award for Bundesliga Player of the Month for October. Which begs the question: How did it take a month to get this to him? DId they tape it to a tortoise and hope for the best?
Kicker did a Zoom interview with Bayern’s last two treble winning coaches, Hansi Flick and Jupp Heynckes, and Heynckes gave Flick some high praise.
A full match report can be found here. Both Javi Martinez and Jerome Boateng had muscular problems that forced them to be taken off. Hopefully neither are too serious.
Unsurprisingly, Bild’s player ratings for the match were pretty dire outside of Muller and Coman who both received 1’s. The only other player who managed above a 4 was Goretzka and 3 players, including both centerbacks, received 5’s. All in all, that seems fairly reasonable.
