Despite sacking Julian Nagelsmann and changing Thomas Tuchel as the head coach around half a year ago, Bayern failed to get the result they wanted in the UEFA Champions League last season and have now exited the DFB-Pokal prematurely in back-to-back seasons, leading people to question if the management decision was correct or not.
Every process required the time to make it work. Tuchel is trying to build his Bayern team with new additions such as Min-jae Kim from Napoli and Harry Kane from Tottenham Hotspur. But so far, the German giants have not shown their absolute dominance on the pitch as they’ve done in the past.
They had a tough time in both games vs Galatasaray, for instance, and by looking back at the games played so far, in this scout report, we’ve analysed Tuchel’s tactics and explained what his side has to improve to make it to the semi-final or even final of the UEFA Champions League this season.
GK’s involvement in build-up
As we know, Tuchel has been an advocate of positional football, and he had a great time with that at Dortmund. But so far, Bayern have been conceding some lethal counter-attacking goals in transition moments. Some patterns have repeatedly led to goals.
In modern football, including the goalkeeper in play is very common, but Bayern have not managed to put the pieces together yet. Their opponent can always see the direction of play as neither Sven Ulreich nor Manuel Neuer are attracting pressure to liberate their teammate. Furthermore, they’ve sometimes made rather sloppy decisions that make it easy for the opponent to anticipate the next move.
For example, Galatasaray enjoyed man-marking against Bayern’s build-up but did not spare an extra man to press Ulreich, as they baited the early pass from the goalkeeper to Joshua Kimmich, whose reception behaviour was also static. The ball got intercepted by Lucas Torreira easily. The turnover was near Bayern’s own third and could quickly lead to direct chances.
It was not only on Ulreich — we also saw that Neuer has not helped Bayern dictate their attacking plays’ timing and rhythm. It became very costly in the DFB-Pokal match vs Saarbrücken; it was not purely on the goalkeeper, but the dominos started from there.
With the ball in his hands, Neuer casually threw the ball to Kim; this was a simple trigger for the opposition striker to press the South Korean centre-back. Recently, we found a tendency of the opponent to allow Kim more time on the ball. Knowing that he is a right-footed left centre-back — this means his angles are more limited and could be closed down on one side more easily.
As Kim received, he just played it forward to Frans Krätzig. Again, these types of slow vertical passes are killing Bayern. The opponent found it easy to read and take the ball from the receiver, whose body angle was closed.
If we look at Kim’s situation, he did not have good options. He was closed down by an opposition striker from one side as soon as Neuer threw him the ball. He could pass the ball to Alphonso Davies on the side, but Bayern would be predictable when the opponent shuffled. So, they probably need to solve these kinds of scenarios structurally to create a free player. Thus far, we have not seen a particularly good midfield partnership except for Kimmich-Goretzka. Konrad Laimer would need time to learn how to play with his teammates centrally.
Against Heidenheim, Bayern conceded the almost exact same goal again. Neuer started play very quickly and sent the ball to Kim without any opposition striker pressing him. Then, the opponent would simply know the direction of the attack; they see this as a trigger and press Kim, who was sloppy, and Jan-Niklas Beste intercepted his pass to Raphaël Guerreiro.
To be fair, Kim did not have a lot of options again, as Beste was at an excellent distance to defend both players. If Kim passed the ball to Davies on the side, Beste could still sprint and put pressure on the receiver. How Bayern conceded the goal was so similar to the last example; it began with the goalkeeper’s pass to Kim before the South Korean centre-back got closed down from the centre quickly, so his passing range was limited on one side.
Spacing behind Sané in the press
With Kane’s arrival, Bayern have actually had outstanding offensive output, as we can spot from their number of goals — he has made 28 goal contributions (21G7A) in 16 games, which is incredible. On top of this, Leroy Sané has been really fit and more mature this season, giving another huge boost to the team. Defensively, Bayern have not been so solid at times.
Especially in both UEFA Champions League group games vs Galatasaray, Bayern looked so tired and could not press the opponent, contrary to how they suffered in the build-up phase.
For example, if we compared the high regains of both teams in the first game, Galatasaray had 17 high regains, 10 counterpressing recoveries, and nine dangerous recoveries. While Bayern only had five high regains, eight counterpressing recoveries, and zero dangerous recoveries. These stats reflect something.
As influenced by Ralf Rangnick, Tuchel, of course, knows how to press and has clear principles with his team. The key is to protect the central space and cover the opposition midfielders if they are in the centre.
So far, Bayern have preferred to defend with Sané (LW) in a narrower but higher position and Jamal Musiala (AM) joining Kane in the first line; it could look like a 4-3-3. Meanwhile, Kingsley Coman is usually balancing in a deeper position, as highlighted in this image.
Sané did his job by covering Kaan Ayhan with his body angle and defensive position. But that did not stop the Galatasaray attack. In this game, the opponent often exploited Sané’s position, with the centre-back spreading the ball wide to Bayern’s left flank.
Galatasaray had their right-winger, Tetê, here and ready to receive. Then, the right-back Sacha Boey overlaps on the side with speed, forming an overload on Davies. This is a 2v1 situation, and Bayern could not shut down the crosses because of that. As we have shown in this image, Davies got no help from his midfielder, and Sané was too far to cancel the number deficit. If Kim steps outside to make it a 2v2, the remaining centre-back had to deal with Mauro Icardi alone, without their defensive midfielder’s protection.
The previous example in this tactical analysis was the away match; when Bayern returned at home, they were better, but Galatasaray were still creating chances by exploiting this weakness in their press.
This time, Boey dropped down to receive on the flank; Galatasaray could use the wide outlet as Sané was covering the opposition midfielder inside. Davies would need to push high to defend that space. But Galatasaray built their progression when Ayhan made a forward run, and Sané lost his mark in the process.
So Galatasaray advanced via spaces behind Bayern’s left-back, and the left centre-back, Kim, must move out to close the opponent down. Then Galatasaray kept progressing plays with Hakim Ziyech (RW) running behind the last line, released by Ahyan.
Upamecano had to follow but had problems when exposed to big spaces and defending in 1v1 scenarios. Ziyech found an inside angle and released his striker (Icardi), who made runs centrally when Bayern’s last line inclined to the left side. Noussair Mazraoui did not close him down, as Bayern’s last line still needed much work to shuffle as a unit. The chances conceded were lethal and could be costly.
From this example, we could see Bayern had principles in their pressing game, but the execution required fine-tuning and corrections on the left side, especially when the opponent was exploiting Sané’s central position.
The Bayern defenders would jump out late and get solved one by one. In addition, Kim has a habit of stepping back in duels, retreating early from his position instead of applying pressure to prohibit the ball holder from turning in midfield; this could be another part Bayern could improve individually, so their rest defence and high defensive line could work better.
Tuchel could have specific arrangements in his defensive game to handle the opposition attack in some games. When they led by two goals in the Dortmund away game, Coman was required to drop down as a wing-back, so they defend in a 5-3-2. But Dortmund could still create chances by exploiting spaces behind Sané; they ended the game with 1.38 xG and 15 shots.
Here, Julian Brandt carried inside and found Marcel Sabitzer in the centre. Sané’s defensive position was relatively high as he was more like a striker in this new formation. But if you check Bayern’s midfield, since Musiala was the number 10, they were kind of 5-2-1-2, and the two defensive midfielders had too much space to cover.
Then, no one could close down Sabitzer and block his direct play in the centre. Once again, Marco Reus had a chance by exploiting the inside of Mazraoui as the last line inclined to the left side.
Last line organisation
The last line of Bayern deserved further elaboration because it was the part they needed to work on to prevent attackers such as Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior finding the space too easy when they met the big teams in latter stages of the UEFA Champions League.
Against Copenhagen, Bayern were one goal down first, which could result from their ineffective pressing. The midfielders were not covering each other; when Laimer pressed the lateral pass, he was parallel with Kimmich, but the distance got so far between the duo that they could not cover each other.
And Laimer lost the duel in 1v1 defending; the opponent got a chance to play a line-breaking pass, and Bayern’s last line was without protection as they only had one Kimmich there.
Another weakness was the spacing between Kim and Davies; the former was quite conservative and preferred to retreat early and defend the inside. However, the latter was always thinking about pressing the outside, so there was a gap between the two, allowing the opposition to receive. Mohamed Elyounoussi was there.
Again, as we said before in the analysis, if Bayern’s last line inclined to the left side, the other side was vulnerable, too! Upamecano was not the best choice when he had to cope with dynamic players in 1v1; he let Viktor Claesson cut inside easily.
There was a runner from deep, and Mazraoui was not helping either. The communication between the central defender and full-back is something they must solve to enhance the last-line defending.
And we can see a similar situation in the RB Leipzig match; it was from a throw-in, but the last line was also very disorganised. Upamecano stepped high for nothing and showed the passing lane to the opponent, meaning Kim had to pick up the runner and defend the 1v1 scenario.
Laimer played right-back in this game, but his defensive awareness could have been more optimal here as he thought about defending Emil Forsberg in midfield and decided to leave Kim alone. Then, the chance was conceded similarly once more.
Conclusion
Tuchel, who won the UEFA Champions League with Chelsea in 2021 and won the Bundesliga last season, is undoubtedly a top-tier coach and a good candidate for Bayern to build something in the long term, as long as he keeps the lockers room together and the players have faith in him.
It would be interesting to see if they could improve their weaknesses in the remaining part of the season and achieve excellence. The positive news is German teams will have a winter break to train their principles, so Tuchel will have more time to focus on his process with his players.
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