FC Bayern Forum

Thank you Javi!

Anyway I'll take a leaf out of #12's book and say I told you so about our players showing up in games like this, about not giving up on Javi just yet, and about us still being in the tie after today.

May they do it again and better in the next game.

YlonenXabi wrote:Man, just by looking at the way Javi Martinez walks and runs he seems to be a retired player. But what a 2nd half He was an absolute beast


I really liked the way everyone gave their 100% tonight. Thiago and James were fighting like warriors, Lewandowski was isolated having a tough battle with everyone upfront, Javi and Hummels were outstanding proving that even though their speed is not there anymore, class is permanent.

I would have enjoyed some more counter attacking football in the second half, but Coman lacked rhythm and playerd poorly. I think an in form Robben would have destroyed them tonight.


0-0 is not the best of the results, but we definitely have a good chance of making it through.


Kovac

You’re kidding right?

SECOND?

No! Whole game... Look at his won duels... Nough said!

Let's wait and see if Robben is available for the second leg. If he is, Gnabry as RB should be considered an option.

zozon wrote:

Bentonomo wrote:

zozon wrote:Javi made us eat our words...

no shit sherlock

WTF is your problem? He hasnt had a game like this in a long time, so dont spit bullshit like you expected this.

i didn’t ?

tuscanybayern wrote:@straightredblog saying "We went for the draw, mission accomplished. The hell with people who don’t believe in this team and its coach. They did what they have to do."

English commentators saying "It will be more difficult for Liverpool to win this in Munich, Bayern will have more space to attack" (WHY?)

I don't get it. We defended well, ok...when you feel you are the underdog you defend AND counter, not defend PERIOD. Not even a single shot on target, I can't believe that we will see a different Bayern in Munich.

There is more space for both team in Allianz Arena, literally.

A.A field size is 105 x 68 (m) while Anfield is 101 x 68 (m)

With bigger field, Liverpool players need to cover longer distance (their attacking style focus on running and 1-touch when near or inside the box)
and clearly bigger field, is easier for possesion style player like James or Thiago.

Dumbledore7 wrote:Kimmich and Alaba, when disciplined, still have the makings of elite fullbacks. What's baffling is why it took them an Anfield trip to finally have discipline.

Should we make a meme?



He is ready to solve the mystery called 2 conceded goals against some Augsburg and some Hertha while 0 conceded against the Premier League contender Liverpool and last season's CL finalist.

Dumbledore7 wrote:Kimmich and Alaba, when disciplined, still have the makings of elite fullbacks. What's baffling is why it took them an Anfield trip to finally have discipline.

It’s at least nice to know that the problem wasn’t Kimmich not knowing how to defend, he just chooses not to. That’s correctable.

sherpthederp wrote:

Dumbledore7 wrote:Kimmich and Alaba, when disciplined, still have the makings of elite fullbacks. What's baffling is why it took them an Anfield trip to finally have discipline.

It’s at least nice to know that the problem wasn’t Kimmich not knowing how to defend, he just chooses not to. That’s correctable.

Yeah, but we already know that though from Pep's season. Glad he hasn't forgotten.

Fénix wrote:

Dumbledore7 wrote:Kimmich and Alaba, when disciplined, still have the makings of elite fullbacks. What's baffling is why it took them an Anfield trip to finally have discipline.

Should we make a meme?

Spoiler: show

[img]blob:null/b0de92ef-e52c-4034-992c-3ca18abfb2ac[/img]

He is ready to solve the mystery called 2 conceded goals against some Augsburg and some Hertha while 0 conceded against the Premier League contender Liverpool and last season's CL finalist.

Care to fix your spoiler? Can't see anything...

Just a few thoughts off the top of my head while they’re still fresh (I wrote this down right after match ended)
First my top performances today (no particular order):

1. Massive performance from Javi. Going into the match, I was thinking that if I was Jürgen Klopp, there’d be two or three players who I’d view as weak points and would try to gameplay to exploit those players. Javi would have been one of them for sure. But to his credit he absolutely proved that notion wrong, MotM performance for me. One of the other players I would have tried to target…
2. …would have been Kimmich. And same case - he was great today. I have been deriding Kimmich’s defending for months now (and for good reason, I think!) but he showed up….I don’t know if it’s because of tactical decisions, if it’s just the magnitude of the occasion/opponent, if he just doesn’t respect BL teams like he does bigger teams, but his defense has been kinda crap most of this year. But today it was clear he was focused WAY more on defending and it showed. When it mattered, he locked things down.
3. Hummels: a great performance from him too. He’s another player who I felt was a liability in recent weeks and he was playing in some of his best form today.
4. Thiago: no surprise as you know I always rep Thiago, but I thought he had an understated but great game today. Nothing flashy but another one of those games where he keeps everything flowing as we want it and he (with Javi) allowed us to play the game we wanted to play.

And a couple more thoughts/observations...

1. Still this was a really ugly match, make no mistake. If you’re like me and you check the stats - on the stats sheet we kinda looked terrible. But that’s okay sometimes, I think. As I mentioned earlier it was a bend-but-don’t-break performance and sometimes that’s good enough (I know “Good enough” sounds poor, but hopefully you get what I mean)
2. James was kind of really poor today. Hurts me to say it, as I’m a big James advocate, but he was in our bottom-three players, no question
3. Think this was actually one that we missed Müller. I have no doubt that he would have been able to draw Fabinho and/or Matip into bad positions and allowed Lewy to put in work. As it were, Lewy was pretty isolated and without much service for most the match, he never really had a chance to be effective.
4. Hard to believe it as 0:0 is obviously not the most attractive result, but honestly that’s probably the best result we’ve had in a UCL away knockout-round game since like….2014 or so, haha
5. Overall I think 0:0 is a pretty good result. Obviously a scoring draw would’ve been preferable to us (well, if it’s going to be a draw, anyways) but I think it’s not bad. Since 2012 Liverpool have only had 3 away wins in the UCL by my count (out of a total of 13 matches - 23% win percentage) and are winless on the road in the UCL this year. Comparatively, in that same span, we have 30 wins at home out of a possible 38 (79%) and are unbeaten at home in the UCL this year. An away goal would have been great, but overall I think the situation slightly favors us now
6. Coman was pretty obviously not 100%. Reinforces my belief that we need to sign not one but two more wingers to replace the outgoing Robben and Ribery. At very least give me a true winger (like CHO and - though I kinda hate the idea - someone who “can” play there like Werner or even Havertz)
7. Credit where credit is due: I think this was a great match for Kovac. I have had plenty of gripes with him (and I think they’ve been merited, too) but I think he really got it right today. We’ve heard all season long about how we’re going to focus more on defending and tightening things up and today I think that finally showed. There’s certainly work to be done - I don’t want to see us sit back and just absorb pressure every match - but it’s nice to know that we CAN do it if we absolutely must. Still wanting to see a bit more ideas in attack, but full props today (and I’m not sure there’s much we could have done differently given our personnel today, tbh). I think this might still cause some problems in the league, actually (as we lack creativity to break down parked busses), but as the "underdog" or against big teams in the UCL, i think it works okay...

IsiahRashad wrote:Also don't forget that this type of games suit Kovac very well. He was the underdog with Frankfrurt in many,many games. Credit to him for his knowledge, but i'm little worriend how we are going to attack in Germany - we all know that our offense is not the best these days/years.

But as i said many times, the defense was always **** us in the CL. This game it was almost rock solid.

Kovac will go with the same plan, keep clean sheet and hope for a goal or 2 in counter.

MUTU wrote:

Fénix wrote:

Dumbledore7 wrote:Kimmich and Alaba, when disciplined, still have the makings of elite fullbacks. What's baffling is why it took them an Anfield trip to finally have discipline.

Should we make a meme?

Spoiler: show

He is ready to solve the mystery called 2 conceded goals against some Augsburg and some Hertha while 0 conceded against the Premier League contender Liverpool and last season's CL finalist.

Care to fix your spoiler? Can't see anything...

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, I'm becoming really pissed off with web recently with those url, picture, image, status garbage.

It has ruined my attempt to joke.

Would you guys use Javi on the second leg or go with a more offensive midfield of Thiago-Goretzka-James??

Would somebody care to post the xG stats? That will tell some story I suspect.