With an impressive dominance, Bayern Munich won 5-0 against Dynamo Kiev. It became clearer than ever that coach Julian Nagelsmann is on Pep Guardiola’s footsteps. A comment.
Serge Gnabry’s pretty nice goal to 3-0 against Dynamo Kiev initially didn’t interest Julian Nagelsmann at all. While the players and fans threw their hands up in jubilation, the coach flicked his hands around with pointed index fingers.
At the time of the goal, he was giving some tactical instructions to Benjamin Pavard, who was available for substitution. He didn’t even think of interrupting it for something as banal as a 3-0 win against Kiev. Only when his hands were free again did Nagelsmann dutifully clap them a few times.
They were pictures like those his predecessor Pep Guardiola could have painted on the edge of the Munich field. In the 5-0 win against Kiev it became clearer than ever: Nagelsmann is on Guardiola’s footsteps.
FC Bayern exudes an aura of unbeatability
Of course, it was not only his behavior on the sidelines that was reminiscent of Guardiola, but also the aura of the team, known from the time between 2013 and 2016 in the absolute majority of the games. The aura of unbeatability, the absolute certainty of victory – based on the perfectionism of the two trainers. Like some other opponents in the past few weeks, Munich also dominated Kiev. With an impressive nonchalance, they tied the Ukrainian champions in their penalty area.
In the real-tactical line-up, in addition to goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, only the two central defenders Dayot Upamecano and Lucas Hernandez had their average point of stay in their own half. In contrast, five players were on average closer to the opposing penalty area than the center line. Kiev goalkeeper Georgi Bushchan was forced to play the time game in the 54th minute when the score was 2-0. Just don’t lose more clearly!
In fact, only the amount of victory was up for grabs from the start, in the end it was 5-0. It was like back then under Guardiola. After ten competitive games, Nagelmsann now even has a better record than Guardiola once, although the biggest hurdles have not yet been there. Still: nine wins, one draw, goal difference 46: 6.
Nagelsmann’s tactical ideas are similar to Guardiola’s
Also in terms of tactics, the parallels between Guardiola and Nagelsmann are obvious. While Nagelsmann initially relied primarily on the relatively rigid 4-2-3-1 system that had been tried and tested by Hansi Flick, he became more willing to experiment with the winning streak behind him. His love for creative positional play and surprising solutions emerges that has not been seen at Bayern since Guardiola. “The point is that we get variability in the basic order in order to be able to react to different game situations without having to improvise,” explained Nagelsmann.
Against Kiev, left-back Alphonso Davies regularly stormed forward along the line, pushing left winger Leroy Sane into the center. What was new was that Niklas Süle, who had been converted into a right-back, also set a lot of offensive accents. Like Philipp Lahm, David Alaba or Rafinha under Guardiola, he moved primarily in the half-spaces towards the corner of the sixteen. The six Leon Goretzka and Joshua Kimmich then partially dropped, Serge Gnabry held the line on the right.
With own possession of the ball, a kind of 2-3-5 system was created, which Guardiola also had practiced at Bayern. At that time, however, he filled the positions more symmetrically, unlike Nagelsmann, he ordered both nominal full-backs into midfield and both wingers to the sidelines – and after taking office he also needed longer to come up with this idea. In this respect, Nagelsmann Guardiola is even ahead.
