Bayern vs Bayer

Some would call this scrappy to me the 2:1 win for us at the Bayarena was an outright arrogant performance. Bayern never seemed to really care with the exception of Shaqiri and perhaps Gomez. They made several changes compared to the game against Arsenal in midweek. Müller, Lahm, Mandzukic Kroos and Ribery weren't even in the stadium with only the latter two being injured. Shaqiri started on the left, Robben moved to the right, and Schweinsteiger started in the middle of the offensive line with Gomez being the forefront of the offensive. Rafinha started as full back on the right side.

Bayerns tactic was different from most other games in that they played wider and didn't overload one side as much. This made gegenpressing much more difficult, since there weren't enough Bayern players in the area to prevent passes and pressure the opponent with the ball. With the very defensive midfield pair Gustavo and Martinez this wasn't a problem though. Just like in the Arsenal game both should good defending but failed ot make anything happen on the offense.

Additionally, Leverkusen played very, very timidly during the first half and every time they had the chance to make something happen their passing failed them. The tactic was obviously to play defensively, conquer the ball with the three defensive midfielder and play the ball upfront to the fast Schürrle or Kießling as a target man.But it is hard to tell what the precise plan was because in the first half they failed at it mostly due to inaccurate passes.

So it was up to Bayern to make something happen. And they tried. in the 11th minute Shaqiri played the Ball to Alaba who was sprinting past him. The Austrian international flanked into the box right back to the winger who will sadly never become a "Kopfballungeheuer" ("heading-beast").

14 minutes later it was again Shaqiri who passed the ball to Robben who turned and fired away. Sadly Schweinsteiger barely missed the ball with his heel, so the shot went by the far post. 7 minutes before halftime Shaqiri got the ball on the left side of the pitch. He tried to cross and in my opinion in the middle Gomez intercepted that attempt and could after a heavy first touch control it very well and with his second and third touch he got past the last two defenders brining him into position to score which he did.

At that point Bayern basically quit playing football. In the second half Leverkusen looked somewhat more dangerous primarily due to Sam coming on for the disappointing Schürrle. Still they mostly only created corners which did not yield anything dangerous until the 75th minute. One of the 15 corners reached Boenisch at the short post who headed it on to Rolfes. Left alone at the 6 yard box he converted it easily. With Buyten having come on only a few minutes earlier for Robben, wo failed to show that he should be on the pitch instead of Müller in the remaining games, the chances for Bayern going back infront didn't seem that high.

Schweinsteiger, who didn't play a good game as central attacking midfielder and in last 15 minutes went back to give Alaba the chance to attack, brought a freekick into the box in the 87th minute which was deflected by Wollscheid and went into the goal in a form of poetic justice for the unlucky defeat through a own goal by Boateng in the first half of the season. In the end Carvajal who had a pretty good game for Leverkusen was lucky to not get his second yellow card of the game.

Conclusion

This time it was Bayern who needed only two shots on goal to score twice and one of them was an own goal. Bayerns performance was disappointing. They lacked aggression and at no point the team seemed to do more than was necessary. This almost lead to a draw for the home team who did their part to make this a very boring game. Rafinha showed why Lahm usually plays and Robben also disappointed.