FC Bayern Forum

My two-cents:

- Thiago played a sort of dribbling regista role, everything we did went through him. He was the center of the team. Most of the time he dictated play just from the front of defense, behind Xabi most of the time.

- Defense was AWFUL. Badstuber is extremely rusty and Feldhahn was awful. Javi and Rafinha were good, as expected. Bernat was kind of useless.

- Ribery is still a genius and will probably start whenever fit. Green did nothing.

- Contrary to other comments here, I thought Xabi was pretty bad. He lost many balls unnecessarily and didn't do much. Age or rustiness hit him hard.

- Overall, we looked very disorganized, but that is to be expected from an early friendly.

Formation was:

---------Ribery-Green
---------------Xabi
------Alaba---------Lahm
--------------Thiago
Bernat-Bads-Javi-Rafinha
--------------Ulreich

- Width was alternatively provided by the fullbacks and the wide midfielders (Lahm and Alaba). FBs and Wide MFs took turns, one going into the box diagonally and the other staying wide to support width. I think this will be replicated with Lahm and Alaba as FB and Renato+Vidal as wide central midfielders (this was a key principle in Carlo's Milan).

- Thiago and Ribery were given freedom to roam a lot.

With everyone available, I would expect this to morph into something like:

-----------Lewy
--Ribery-----Müller
-Renato-------Vidal
---------Thiago
Ala-Hum-Boa-Lahm
----------Neuer

Or Ribery behind Lewy and Müller
Or Ribery out and Javi in Thiago's role and Thiago on Xabi's.


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No need to make such a fuss about Feldhahn starting, he's just filling in for Hummels and Boateng. Javi and Bads will surely be the backups to those two. We just needed a body to fill the lineup so Alaba could fill in for Vidal/Renato.

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