COMMENT: The Bavarians survived numerous scares on the counter at CSKA Moscow, raising yet more questions about the Spaniard’s tactics
By Enis Koylu
The last 48 hours have been bizarre for Bayern Munich’s players. Dragged out of their hotel on Sunday evening due to a fire drill, they played a high-intensity Champions League game on Tuesday against CSKA Moscow in an empty stadium.
The match was one they utterly dominated in terms of possession, yet they can consider themselves lucky to have won.
The Bavarians have found their goalscoring form domestically after their slow start to the season going forward, and they signalled their intent to camp outside the CSKA box and wait for an opening in the resolute Russian back line to appear.
The opener seemed inevitable. The hosts were being strangled and Arjen Robben and Mario Gotze had already gone close by the time the 22-year-old danced through the defence and was felled in ungainly fashion by Mario Fernandes.
The Brazilian’s challenge may have been just outside the area but the referee pointed to the spot nonetheless. Thomas Muller did what Thomas Muller does and buried the resulting spot-kick.
There had been warning signs for Pep Guardiola’s side. As they poured more and more men forward in an effort to break the deadlock, they became more and more exposed at the back, Ahmed Musa and Georgi Milanov both squandering presentable chances.
The goal should have been a cue for Bayern to take control and effectively end the game before half-time. Instead, it prompted a surprising CSKA fightback. As time went on, the visitors’ possession became more and more stale, sights of goal became fewer and further between.
All the while, CSKA were looking dangerous on the counter. Manuel Neuer was forced off his line to deny Musa, whose speed and power had left Medhi Benatia and Dante for dead. In spite of the Germany keeper’s admirable efforts, Zoran Tosic should have equalised with the rebound. Bayern were limited to pop shots from Gotze and Muller.
Philipp Lahm, usually one of the most composed customers in defence, picked up a booking with a rash challenge on Musa – just inches from the Bayern box – and the resulting free kick was worked to Roman Eremenko. The Finn had already shown what he was capable of from distance and kissed Neuer’s bar with a great effort.
Bayern’s struggles against pacey counterattacking teams are nothing new but a less familiar feature of their game was Guardiola’s formation. The Spaniard has made numerous tweaks to his system during his time in Germany but the new 2-3-4-1 was intrinsically linked with their struggles in Russia.
When their attackers are blunted by a deep defence, they found it surprisingly hard to transition back to defensive mode. Benatia and Dante are hardly the quickest defenders and were routinely exposed by Musa until the introduction of Seydou Doumbia heralded a tactical switch which saw the Nigerian push out wide.
The second half petered out in limp fashion, CSKA incapable of pushing on and finding an equaliser, Bayern of grabbing a second goal to kill the game off.
Bayern walk away from Russia with three points to their name and though their domination of territory and possession means they were good value for the win statistically, their hosts will be cursing their inability to convert the chances they had into a goal.
The visitors will have sterner tests in the future. Though spirited, CSKA are a limited team and came into this game on the back of a humbling loss to Roma on matchday 1, which saw them ship four goals in the opening half hour.
Yet Bayern, who will harbour hopes of winning the competition this year, could only find the target once, despite having the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Muller, Gotze and Robben in their ranks. More worringly, they survived numerous scares. Superior opposition will surely exploit Guardiola’s gung-ho system.
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