Yeah, have drawn all their home games since the season resumed
Bundesliga Gameweek 30 (COVID-19 discussion-free zone) | Featuring Leverkusen v Bayern NOW at 14:30 UTC+1
- Thread starter Berbaclass
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Will he go back on it now or will he look just as stupid next year?
Commentator talking about Dortmund “ending their trophy drought” because they haven’t won a trophy since 2017. This is a club that’s won 15 trophies in their entire 111 year history.
Would also appreciate it if someone could send me a good river.
borring...
what a chance for sancho
Lovely goal finished by Can.
Great finish by Emre Can.
Very well worked goal for Dortmund to make it 1-0
Lovely goal from Dortmund
1-0
Can
Can
Crowd noise got me again.
Gorgeous play from Sancho. Should have ended in a goal.
The past 3 weeks that I’ve been watching German football there is consistently space in behind defenders. Why don’t German teams ever decide to play tactically. It’s like they all want to press even though most can’t keep up with the best. Rashford would probably score 60 in the league with the right players.
Do you think sitting back is the only way to play tactically? You sit back against a team like Dortmund and they will take 70% possession and keep shifting the ball from side to side, making your players chase it until someone makes a mistake or they are too tired out to keep closing the gaps. Meanwhile you rob yourself of any credible chance to score yourself, because you're pinned back too deep.
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Sounds like us under Mourinho
Without Müller the attack looks static - he is the biggest part of that movement when he plays centrally.
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Xavi did it in 19xx minutes, De Bruyne in 30xx - Müller needed 1992...
Not playing a ridiculously high line would be a good start. I'd much rather gamble on my team scoring from a route one play against a Bayern or a Dortmund and successfully parking the bus than play a high line where their attackers would go 1v1 vs my GK multiple times in a game
Which game are you referring to, the Bayern one? Cause Dortmund didn't really have those kind of opportunities today...
Bayern and Leipzig's game today, and most BuLi games in general.
Well that's your opinion. In reality this has been tried and hasn't been particularly effective. I mean look at Hertha today, they played rather risk averse. Dortmund weren't particularly inspired, they have a ton of injuries and what did the game look like?
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The logic is that if you park the bus you allow the opposition to establish dominance for free (and odds are they will punish you eventually anyway), so teams try to create a more chaotic back and forth in hopes of catching their opposition when their defense isn't neatly organized. It's no magic cure either, but it's a valid strategy.
Leverkusen in particular has beaten Bayern (twice in their last three games even) and Dortmund, as well as Gladbach and they drew Leipzig twice.
Lots of Bundesliga teams have a go against the top teams, I think it's pretty good to watch compared to many premier league teams who barely bother to attack v Man. City and Liverpool and lose 2 or 3-0 anyway.
That said still can't get over that game earlier this season when Agusburg were 3-1 up at home to Dortmund with 25 minutes left and they were still parking their defence on the halfway line. Now that was odd and they lost the game.
That said still can't get over that game earlier this season when Agusburg were 3-1 up at home to Dortmund with 25 minutes left and they were still parking their defence on the halfway line. Now that was odd and they lost the game.
Ok, no one's saying pull off Mou vs Pool (0-0). All I'm saying is these teams can atleast try to play a bit more cautiously- say something like Palace vs top teams.
As far as the dominance bit is concerned - teams might have more possession, but lesser clear cut chances if you play slightly deeper. Think about it this way - an underdog is more likely to win 1-0 against Bayern than win 4-3. And if you play a high line, top teams will score 2-3 goals past you unless they have an off day.
Like today- Leverkusen got a 1-0 lead vs Bayern. Irrespective of Leverkusen's results against top sides, Bayern are on an incredible run of form. If you get a lead against them, common sense dictates that you should sit back a bit rather than having 8-9 players in opposition half even when Bayern have the ball. Add to that, Bayern had Gnabry and Coman on the pitch along with Davies. Its basic understanding that a ball over the top will more likely than not mean that you're giving up a big chance against them and that's what happened. Bayer got punished for being too daring and not taking opposition and their strengths into account
Leverkusen cannot sit back. That is their playing style. The same playing style made Bayern lose the last two matches they played each other. And Bayern can break down defenses...
Not saying park the bus. Just not have your defensive line at the halfway mark, but rather around 20 odd metres back. If not the entire back 4, atleast the 2 CBs and preferably the CDM.
And I'm not saying Bayern can't break defences. If you're having 2 options - 1. Making Bayern work to break down defences but limit your goalscoring opportunities 2. Increase your goalscoring opportunities by pressing high but Bayern can go 1v1 vs you pretty easily, #1 should be the winner.
How’s that young lad Gio Reyna doing?
I only realized last week that he’s the son of Claudio Reyna, the ex rangers, US Intl.
I only realized last week that he’s the son of Claudio Reyna, the ex rangers, US Intl.
Teams lose by 2-3 goals either way, because Bayern and Dortmund (when on form) are more than comfortable in possession. It's not like teams haven't tried that, but when you give such attacking quality the chance to toy with your defense again and again and again it's not sustainable.
Leverkusen is a special case as they have a fairly daring and stubborn coach and their squad is not built to defend. They have very talented attackers, but their defensive ranges from mediocre to suspect. Today they indeed got caught out too easily, but sitting back was never an option for them either: you can't defend for 80 minutes with Amiri and Bailey as wing-backs and Bayern's strength is made up of much more than pace on the wings.
But what teams are you really talking about then. It's not like everyone randomly pushes up that far and it's not like playing a more daring pressing necessarily makes it easy to attack you. You force the opposition to do the majority of the work during buildup and in midfield instead of just conceding 2/3 of the pitch. Yes, when they break through they get more space than otherwise, but that is counterbalanced by your press disrupting attacks before they get that far. It's why Pep regularly gets absolutely amazing stats in both goals for and against. Dortmund in particular have historically been quite susceptible to opponents who defend man to man all over the pitch and aggressively press their build up.
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The Sancho idolisation craze is really bizarre.
He was decent today but on BT they have actually gotten to a stage where they were praising him for missing an open goal, because he didn't miss it by very much. Then somehow jumped from that to using it to justify why he'll be the "next Neymar"
What actually happened was he missed an open goal.
He was decent today but on BT they have actually gotten to a stage where they were praising him for missing an open goal, because he didn't miss it by very much. Then somehow jumped from that to using it to justify why he'll be the "next Neymar"
What actually happened was he missed an open goal.
Schalke 
Watching Schalke makes me feel dirty, like I should mind my own business.
Good save by Nübel, though!
Good save by Nübel, though!
I only care to watch Schalke to see how Nubel does. No other exciting German footballer in that team.
That was some goal by Kenny, perfectly struck.
Schalke winless in 12 games. How does Wagner still have a job
At this point it seems more and more likely that they are too broke to sack him. Maybe they have a clause in his contract that makes it cheaper to sack him after the season. If I was a coach signing for Schalke I'd surely expect to get sacked during the season and thus try to protect myself against it.
If I was a coach signing for Schalke I'd probably take myself straight to an insane asylum.
What happened to that Tedesco guy? Massively overperformed to get them in the CL and then was sacked halfway through the next season. Is he coaching anywhere else now as from memory he was pretty young.
Coach for Spartak Moscow since 2019
I think they need to have a totally different ideology of play. They cannot string together attacking moves, they barely score most times they just depend on set pieces
If I am Schalke board I will go after Van Gaal for 2 seasons. They simply need a different approach to football
To be fair they have been trying. For Tedesco's second season they wanted to evolve their possession game, e.g. by signing Rudy. After that went up in flames they got Schneider from RB to replace Heidel - probably hoping he could copy Rangnicks construct. Signing Klopp's B-F-F was probably also aimed in that direction.
I think the time for quick fixes has passed. They are at a stage where they hope to fix their first team with four loan players. I doubt they could even afford someone like van Gaal and I doubt the really promising up and coming coaches are too keen to join their graveyard of coaching careers. I think their job now is to manage the decline, try to downsize their operation without getting relegated and/or going under.