FC Bayern Forum

Ribery terrible.
Robben better than Ribery but not a threat anymore.
Coman great.
Gnabry played RW which I think he ia not good at. But had a nice assist from there.

Robben and Ribery are done at this level. They try their best but sadly are unable to impact games the way they once could. I am positive that this will be their farewell season.

When Coman and Gnabry were on the field Bayern looked an entirely different team. Renata also had a solid game.

One question. If Chris Richards was in this game, why didn't they take Andersson with them?

America USA wrote:Robben and Ribery are done at this level. They try their best but sadly are unable to impact games the way they once could. I am positive that this will be their farewell season.

When Coman and Gnabry were on the field Bayern looked an entirely different team. Renata also had a solid game.

One thing to remember during preseason is that the young players are looking to impress the manager, and the experienced already established players are more focused on getting their fitness going for the season to come. I wouldn't write anyone off because of preseason.


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Ollio wrote:

America USA wrote:Robben and Ribery are done at this level. They try their best but sadly are unable to impact games the way they once could. I am positive that this will be their farewell season.

When Coman and Gnabry were on the field Bayern looked an entirely different team. Renata also had a solid game.

One thing to remember during preseason is that the young players are looking to impress the manager, and the experienced already established players are more focused on getting their fitness going for the season to come. I wouldn't write anyone off because of preseason.

Ok then I believe Robben and Ribery will be our starting wingers in the Champions League matches! Right?

America USA wrote:

Ollio wrote:

America USA wrote:Robben and Ribery are done at this level. They try their best but sadly are unable to impact games the way they once could. I am positive that this will be their farewell season.

When Coman and Gnabry were on the field Bayern looked an entirely different team. Renata also had a solid game.

One thing to remember during preseason is that the young players are looking to impress the manager, and the experienced already established players are more focused on getting their fitness going for the season to come. I wouldn't write anyone off because of preseason.

Ok then I believe Robben and Ribery will be our starting wingers in the Champions League matches! Right?

Absolutely no reason to get hostile. Just a mere point I made for the sake of discussion, never did I say what you're implying. Isn't discussion what forums are for?

I agree that Robbery did look bad, but pre-season isn't the Champions League. Now grow up.

FCBayernMunchen wrote:

Ollio wrote:

America USA wrote:Robben and Ribery are done at this level. They try their best but sadly are unable to impact games the way they once could. I am positive that this will be their farewell season.

When Coman and Gnabry were on the field Bayern looked an entirely different team. Renata also had a solid game.

One thing to remember during preseason is that the young players are looking to impress the manager, and the experienced already established players are more focused on getting their fitness going for the season to come. I wouldn't write anyone off because of preseason.


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But I would write them off on the basis of the past 2 seasons.

And I agree to some extent. Was just generally referring to conclusions drawn from the pre-season.

I’m alright with the two legends staying at Bayern and getting a grand farewell season. However they should remain bench/rotation players this season. Hopefully Kovac doesn’t do the same Alonso shit Carlo did in 16-17.

Robbery just can’t do their thing against elite opponents anymore! I’ll be fine with them teaching stuff to Coman and Gnabry but they cannot remain regular starters this season. That’s not the right step forward!

YlonenXabi wrote:How can some people draw so many conclusions during a meaningless game is beyond me. Thanks God we won because the negativism in this forum after losing a meaningles pre season game with a random lineup full of youngsters would have reached maximum levels.

Well, after so much doom was attached to Kovac's name by so many("He'll turn us into Mourinho's bus company"), it was good to see both him out-tactic Tuchel and to see the team play good possession football under him, but you're right, it's only a start.

America USA wrote:Moral of the story: Bayern and Germany have to bin the pointless possession shit and play aggressive direct vertical football!

We had 62% of possession against PSG(compared to 62.4% on average in our Bundesliga games last season), so I'm not sure how what we played doesn't qualify as possession football. Sure, we were a little more direct in our play in this game then we were last season, but not as direct as we were in the second half of 2016/17 when about 50% of the goals we scored resulted from a long ball over the top from one of the centerbacks to Lewandowski or Muller.

We played good football against PSG, but that doesn't mean what we played wasn't possession football. All good possession football is based on moving the ball rapidly enough that the defense can't adjust, often by incorporating a vertical element, so what succeeded against Qatar isn't that unique.*

By contrast, the "pointless possession" which you deride tends to be a symptom of missing midfields and dysfunctional offenses, not a cause of them. Most of the teams which slide into it have deeper problems, and it's not always clear whether changing the style of play would actually improve things.

Possession football, of course, has its disadvantages in addition to its advantages, but so do the other two main styles of play, counterattacking and counterpressing,** and obviously teams should be as flexible as possible, but playing possession is frequently the best choice for good teams.

*Notably, the champions of each of the top 5 leagues last season played some form of possession football, with every one of them except Juventus having both the most possession in their league and at least 60% possession.

**Both counterattacking and counterpressing require the other team cooperate in order to play them to a much greater extent than possession football. For example, Frankfurt in the Pokal final never committed serious numbers forwards and hardly had any corners, so even a team of the fastest players in the world would struggle to counterattack against them.

In the first half Bayern must’ve had like 75% if the possession but did jack shit with it. In Second half we were playing more vertically and pressing high to win it back.

If possession is so good then why did Germany screw up so bad at the World Cup?! Pointless sideways and backwards possession, that’s why!

America USA wrote:In the first half Bayern must’ve had like 75% if the possession but did jack shit with it. In Second half we were playing more vertically and pressing high to win it back.

If possession is so good then why did Germany screw up so bad at the World Cup?! Pointless sideways and backwards possession, that’s why!

I can't find separate possession statistics for each half(and can barely find any statistics at all because it's part of the International Champions Cup), but from what my eyes saw, we had the vast majority of possession in both halves, with PSG playing on the counter the entire game. It's just that we were much more effective at creating chances from it and at connecting with Sandro Wagner. Moreover, high pressing is generally a part of successful possession football; there are quite a few teams which, like RB Lepzig, combine counterpressing with counterattacking while largely eschewing possession, but the only one to really win something serious was Klopp's Dortmund.


As for what happened with the National Team, the reasons for failure are quite complex, and plan to write more extensively on it someday soon, but the short version is that Timo Werner is so little of a striker that the team basically ended up playing strikerless. As someone who had to watch the agonizing , 2 and a half season period between between Pizarro's departure and Wagner's arrival when we basically created no good chances when Lewandowski wasn't playing, you should be well aware of the perils of playing without a striker for a possession team. It was insane for Low to try go up against parked buses with Werner "leading the line," but it was hardly his only bad decision in world cup.

Furthermore, three bad games seem awfully little to condemn a style of football forever. Possession has its advantages and disadvantages and isn't always the best choice, but it's a very useful tool for a team to have.

Ok then how about Spain and Argentina? Those two also enjoyed a huge chunk of possession in all their games yet struggled and eventually lost!

America USA wrote:Ok then how about Spain and Argentina? Those two also enjoyed a huge chunk of possession in all their games yet struggled and eventually lost!

Correlation =/= causation

America USA wrote:Ok then how about Spain and Argentina? Those two also enjoyed a huge chunk of possession in all their games yet struggled and eventually lost!

Imagine Spain and Argentina actually had players that could go past the defenders with speed, apart from Messi (and isco)
Speed is the most important factor nowadays it seems. Possession is not bad per se...