FC Bayern Forum

Commodore, listen mate. I really respect you and you have been an asset to this forum in these few weeks you've been here. Sometimes you bring up really interesting points and I usually love reading your posts.

I understand that you get frustrated when someone criticizes the team, but it's just as frustrating to see posts refusing the criticize anything even when criticism is justified. To say that some here are not true supporters just because they criticize something or want a change in the coaching staff is unjust. Let us not fool ourselves into thinking that whatever we do we are always perfect, and whenever something goes wrong it is because of luck. Leave that to the Man United and Real Madrid fans.

I'm going to move away from Germany and talk about Bayern here. We may be close to perfect at the moment, but mistakes will always be made every now and then. If someone criticizes these mistakes, that doesn't mean that the team or a particular player is bad, but that something was done which should be noted so that it can be avoided in the future. However close we might be, fooling ourselves into thinking we're perfect will get us nowhere. That's exactly what our board (actually it was more Van Gaal, but point still stands) did in 2010, and I don't think anyone needs to be reminded what the consequence of that was in the following season.

I think a lot of people tend to overlook one simple aspect when making these comparisons between the 90's generation, the 70's generation and today's generation. The fact that these are different generations. The game has evolved. Germany and Bayern have had to shed their grittiness, defensive mentality for a more technical, one touch possession based game because it was a necessity. It literally was a case of evolve or get left behind.

The modern game is far far more tactical. Even 'parking the bus' has become an art form since Mourinho laid his hands on it.
The modern game requires a lot more off the ball movements. Every successful team playing currently has attempted to master this aspect.
The modern game also comes with a lot of negatives such as playacting, referees are also harsher than before.

Which means that the players have to think about a lot more elements about the game. They have to be technical, environmental awareness is a must, constant off the ball movement is key. All these aspects German and Bayern players are mastering or have already mastered but it is unrealistic to assume that they can be both TECHNICAL and GRITTY/DETERMINED. Players who were gritty/determined by nature have always been 'less stylistic, technical' and have had to rely on their judgement, precision of tackles and heart to shine. If every German player was as technical as they are right now as well as gritty/determined then it would be a team of perfect footballers. There are players who walk a fine line of balance between those two aspects (like Muller) but more often than not most German players today fall in the technical category (including Schweinsteiger).

What Low needs to do is find a balance in the players he fields out in the starting 11, he needs more Khedira's and Mullers and he needs to understand that subbing out his work-horses is always a poor move. What I loved about Arne Friedrich when he was playing was that he was exactly that, a no bullshit kind of defender who ran till the 90th minute. Low needs to convert one of our starting CB's into that kind of player (Hummels most likely). He needs to have a player that puts hard work OVER technique in each area of the field. Hummels in defense, Khedira in Midfield and Muller in Attack and all three players need to be UNTOUCHABLE in the squad.

Low is an excellent coach but deep in tournaments he has always made a lot of poor tactical decisions. Playing such a high defensive line vs Italy? Playing very low pressing game vs Spain?. I mean he has a tendency to completely overlook any opponents other than Spain and he has a tendency to cower in fear in front of Spain's "superior game". Again he just needs to not over think things and just play Germany's game instead of countering whatever he 'thinks' the other team might throw at them, be slightly conservative against other opposition and give them some respect, be more disrespectful against Spain (Look at France in 2nd half).

But let me clear. All this still does not justify the 4-4 in my books. That is just idiotic. Team fell asleep completely. But I am not as mad about it because it does not dent our chances greatly about qualifying to WC. In fact I think hopefully hopefully it will be a real eye opener for a lot of the team.