More flexible, less predictable: Bayern Munich is getting used to life without Lewandowski
After the departure of the super striker to Barcelona, the German champion implements a much more flexible formation, when Sane, Musiale, Gnabry and Koeman really do not play only on the wings.
The ex will visit on Tuesday, and today (16:30, Sport3) Nagelsmann's flexible wing owes a convincing victory over Stuttgart
Michael Yochin
10/09/2022
Saturday, September 10, 2022, 12:00
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Summary: Union Berlin - Bayern Munich 1:1 (Sport1)
On Tuesday it will happen - Robert Lewandowski will arrive at the Allianz Arena as a guest in the Barcelona uniform.
Bayern Munich fans will receive him with mixed feelings.
On the one hand, it is impossible not to cheer for one of the greatest players in the club's history, who scored 344 goals in eight seasons at the club.
On the other hand, the way he preferred to leave by slamming the door, while expressing blatant dissatisfaction, left a sour taste.
Justified claims can be made to the management for not being able to prevent the well-publicized fight, but the Pole does not come out clean from the affair either.
Either way, Lewandowski is now an opponent, and the Bavarian team has had to rebuild its attack.
For coach Julian Nagelsmann, the development can be seen in a positive light, because he got a chance to prove his skills in completely different conditions.
As long as the Pole dominated the field and scored in commercial quantities, he absolutely dictated the style.
The dependence on him was high, and the fact is that Bayern didn't even have a proper backup in the squad, because Eric-Maxim Schoof-Moting cannot be defined that way, with all due respect to his limited abilities.
Therefore, when Lewandowski was injured in the famous match against Andorra in the World Cup qualifiers, the German champion was caught in a crisis and was eliminated by Paris Saint-Germain in the quarter-finals of the Champions League in April 2021, when Hansi Flick was still on the lines.
Shopo-Moting, by the way, found the back of the net in both meetings against the former, but it didn't help the bottom line.
Bayern fans will receive him with mixed feelings.
Lewandowski (Photo: GettyImages, David Ramos)
So in the summer, when it became clear that the Pole's decision was irreversible, Bayern cheerfully approached the big challenge.
Sporting director Hasan Selamidzic, who received much and justified criticism from the fans and the media, was proud of the signing of Sadio Mane from Liverpool, but the Senegalese is not a direct replacement for Lewandowski.
This is a versatile superstar, who filled the role of central striker at Anfield in the second round last season, after Luis Dias took his permanent place on the left wing, but he is not a typical wide animal, and Nagelsmann had fertile ground for fascinating tactical experiments.
In the Lewandowski era, Bayern was quite fixed on a formation with one central striker, two distinct wing players and a type of playmaker who was given a free hand to find areas where he wanted - the ideal role for a genius like Thomas Müller.
Now, based on the first month in the various frameworks, the approach has changed substantially.
Mane is defined on paper as a central striker, but moves across the pitch just as much as Müller, while the wing players are explicitly instructed to move into the center more often.
This is how they direct the lines both for the actions of the two strikers, and for the joining of the defenders - Benjamin Favar and Alphonso Davies who really like to support the attacks.
This results in a formation that can be seen as a type of 2-4-4 that turns into a 4-2-4 when the ball is at Bayern's feet in the opponent's half of the field.
The front four is very flexible with frequent exchanges of places between all involved, and this can make it very difficult to keep them.
The teams that faced Bayern in the previous era found it difficult to impossible to keep an eye on Lewandowski, but at least they knew in advance who the main danger would come from.
In the current season, there is no clear scorer of this type, but the other players threaten the goal more than before.
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Not as wide a beast as the star it replaced, but fit in well.
Mana (Photo: GettyImages, INA FASSBENDER/AFP)
Jamal Musiala benefited greatly from the long-awaited change for him.
The 19-year-old prodigy won rave reviews in his first two seasons in the senior squad, scoring 15 goals in 77 appearances.
It's not a bad balance for a young midfielder, but this season he already has 5 goals in only 7 games, of which only 4 in the starting lineup.
Musiale is gifted with an alert dribbling ability in small areas, so he is able to find kicking options from almost any position on the court.
Now he is in the field more than before, and this was already reflected in the first round, when he scored a pair for Frankfurt's net in the away victory 1:6.
His first goal resulted from an attack led by Mane from the depth of the field - the defender freed Müller from the right, and Musiala pushed the ball into an open net as if it were Lewandowski.
His second goal also came from a central striker position, while Leroy Sane provided the assist with a deep ball.
Sana's cooking in question is very intriguing, and was a sign of things to come.
For most of his career - at Schalke, Manchester City and the first two years at Bayern - he was usually regarded as a pure extremist.
Sana really likes to run on the wing, and he has great speed and control of the ball while running, but he is a much more versatile player with excellent game vision and the ability to see open spaces, and he is able to contribute a lot from a central position as well.
The pass to Musiale, Kevin de Brauna style, underlined this well, and on Wednesday we got another display of him as a kind of central midfielder.
the main beneficiary of the change.
Musiala (Photo: Reuters)
In the opening round of the Champions League, in a 0:2 victory over Inter at the San Siro, Sana was placed on the left wing in the formation shown on television, but in practice he moved to the center with high frequency, leaving the entire line at Davis' disposal.
From the central position, as if he were Frank Lampard, he crept into the scoring positions cleared for him by a smart move from Anna and Müller.
In the 25th minute, Mane went backwards when Yushua Kimich handled the ball in his own half.
Nerazzurri brakes went forward to watch over him, and into the space exposed by Sana to make it 0:1.
In the 66th minute, Sane made two double passes in the box with Kingsley Coman and kicked in - even if the first touch was recognized in the statistics as an own goal by Danilo D'Ambrosio.
The fact that two apparent wing players - Sana and Coman - cooperated with each other in the center of the box shows that the positions of Bayern's players in the lineup pages have almost no meaning.
They move everywhere, and this also applies to Serge Gnabry.
At one point in the early summer, it looked like Gnabry would follow in Lewandowski's footsteps and force a move.
However, instead of deepening the conflict with the management, he chose to extend the contract until 2026, and is now part of the rotation in the new forward part.
He too, like Sana and Koeman, is easily able to operate in the center of the pitch, and also as a striker.
He too may benefit quite a bit from the departure of the Pole, even if his record was impressive in terms of conquests in the previous seasons as well.
This does not mean that everything is rosy, and the points will be achieved without problems on a weekly basis.
After victories in the three opening rounds, Bayern encountered the superior ability of goalkeeper Jan Sommer in a 1:1 draw against Münchengladbach, and did not reach scoring situations with sufficient frequency in the 1:1 draw at Union Berlin's stadium in the previous round.
The champion dropped to third place, and she will be happy to get back on the right track at the expense of Stuttgart, who will visit on Saturday (4:30 p.m., Sport3).
It is not clear who Nagelsman will choose in the starting four in the attack, but it is very worthwhile to pay attention to the constant exchange of places between all the players.
A convincing win will be essential to go into the fight with Lewandowski in high spirits, and then the Pole will be able to see firsthand how his former team performs without him.
sport
world football
German league
Tags
Bayern Munich
Jamal Musiala
Sadio Mane
Serge Gnabry
