The Set: Bayern 2–5 Werder Bremen

You call this a for­ma­tion?

Seven notes on Werder dis­man­tle­ment of FC Bay­ern at the Allianz.

1. Stereo­typ­ing

A defen­sive player usu­ally makes an attack-minded coach and an attack­ing player usu­ally makes a defense-minded coach. Granted, there are excep­tions such as the Bruno Labbadia’s of this world, but the gen­eral rule of thumb holds enough merit to over­come the fact that Rinus Michaels was a for­ward and Hele­nio Her­rera was a defender.

Look­ing at some of the more attack minded coaches, we see that Rijkaard was a hold­ing mid and Arsene Wenger was a defender. Lau­rent Blanc, a great center-half, is com­mit­ted to attack­ing foot­ball at Bor­deaux. Mar­tin Jol was a defen­sive mid­fielder and Croa­t­ian man­ager Sla­van Bilic was a defender. Bill Nichol­son and Ernst Hap­pel were both center-halves. And Werder trainer Thomas Schaaf, the ex-hardman, has long been the most attack-minded man­ager in the Bundesliga.

Up until the Euro’s, Marco Van Basten’s time at the Oranje was marked by dour foot­ball. Mark Hughes played such neg­a­tive foot­ball at Black­burn, it was unwatch­able. George Gra­ham, he of the 1–0 to the Arse­nal, was a for­ward. Fabio Capello, who was an attack­ing mid­fielder, is known for unin­spir­ing foot­ball. Much like another Spurs attacker, Glen Hod­dle, it seems that Jur­gen Klins­mann is focused on defense and specif­i­cally a five man back line.

It’s Cate­nac­cio foot­ball, plain and sim­ple. No mat­ter how you dress it up, any descrip­tion of it as for­ward think­ing or attack­ing is a lie. It’s a sweeper sys­tem and it’s dour.

2. Pay No Atten­tion to the Man Behind the Curtain

Just this past Fri­day, I sug­gested a 5–3-2 with a dou­ble pivot as a defen­sive for­ma­tion against a fluid attack­ing team for an injury depleted Han­nover. I take it back. For that mat­ter, I am done from this day for­ward with a five man back line. It’s a flat back four for me. The five man back line just leaves you weak in the mid­field, espe­cially in a time of five man mid-fields.

For Klins­mann, this sys­tem was a dis­as­ter. Lucio was too quick to break ranks and join the attack. So when the full­backs and Lucio pushed for­ward, strength quickly turned into weak­ness with just DiMiche­lis and Van Buyten hold­ing the fort. Lahm and Lell, while com­pe­tent, full­backs, are no sub­sti­tute for true mid­field­ers. And with only Toni, Schwe­in­steiger and Podolsi com­mit­ted to attack, the for­ma­tion stunk of 5–2-1–2. His mid­field was over­run and Toni was pick­ing up the ball deep in the mid­field for most of the first half.

There have been many sug­ges­tions that had Toni con­verted his early chance, the game would have been dif­fer­ent. I seri­ously doubt that, because clearly the sys­tem wasn’t designed for pos­ses­sion, which suits a cre­ative team such as Werder. On top of that with deep lying mid­field­ers and five defend­ers, the sys­tem was inca­pable of han­dling the abil­ity of Diego and Ozil to pull out defend­ers and then exploit the open spaces.

3. I am the Great and Pow­er­ful OZ!

Then again, I have said since the begin­ning of last year that this was a team built for the 4–2-3–1, which then became the fash­ion at Euro 2008. And it’s still true to this day. They have two good hold­ers in Van Bom­mel and Ze Roberto. They have fluid attack­ers that can play across the pitch. They have one of the three best solo for­wards in the world in Luca Toni.

Just look at how more flu­idly they played when Sosa and Borowski had joined Scwe­in­steiger as AMs. Granted it was a five goal deficit at that point, but had those two been out there from the begin­ning then Vran­jes and Bau­mann would have been pinned back and Boenisch would not have been allowed the free­dom to sup­port Ozil down the left. In addi­tion, they could have forced Diego and Ozil deeper into attack where Ze Roberto and Van Bom­mel could have han­dled them more efficiently.

4. Speak­ing of Magic in Oz(il)

I could under­stand why Schalke gave up on Mesut Ozil. He never really inspired con­fi­dence while play­ing for the Royal Blues. Some­thing has clearly changed at Werder Bre­men. He is on pur­ple patch of epic pro­por­tion this sea­son. Per­haps he had a change in atti­tude after Schalke’s part­ing dig to his lack of heart.

How­ever, I think he just moved from a sys­tem where he didn’t work to a sys­tem where he does. At Schalke, he never played in a four man mid­field. It was always a 4–5-1 or 4–3-3. He’s a speedy and cre­ative attack­ing mid. In a 4–5-1, his chan­nels were clogged. In a 4–3-3, he was stranded. Now he’s part of a 4–4-2, with a bril­liant con­duc­tor in Diego to sup­ply him with the ball in men­ac­ing posi­tions. No longer expected to just run at defenses, he is now allowed to cre­ate from any­where on the pitch. His best pass in this game may have been a flick on from deep in his own third to start a counter.

I’m happy to see him flour­ish­ing as he was such a bright prospect, who seemed to fade away last year.

5. Are You Kid­ding Me?

Michael Rens­ing has taken way too much blame for this loss. Astro­nom­i­cally way too much blame. Did he have a bad game? No. He had a bad sec­ond half. Should Bay­ern give up on him? God No! Will they? Hell yes. And he will go onto another club and even­tu­ally become an out­stand­ing goalie. The kid is 24 years old, which is extremely young for the posi­tion, and replac­ing an absolute leg­end. He was always going to have some rough patches this year. Rather than giv­ing up on him, every­one should take a breath and give the young keeper time to mature.

Goal #1
Lucio steps way too far ahead. Ozil threads a beau­ti­ful pass (nut­meg­ging DiMiche­lis) to Rosen­borg who is graft­ing freely between the nut­megged and Van Buy­ton. Rens­ing makes him­self big as he takes on the charg­ing for­ward, but Rosen­borg gets it by him. Not his fault!

Goal #2

Ozil sup­plies a low tra­jec­tory cross to Per Mete­sacker. Per­haps Rens­ing could have come out for the ball, but the low tra­jec­tory and Metesacker’s run make it a dodgy propo­si­tion. Rens­ing holds his line, Van Buyten loses Per and he’s able to get a foot to the ball. Rens­ing saves, but Naldo is there to clean up with Schwe­in­steiger, Dimeche­lis and Lucio immo­bile as the two Werder center-halves run unabated through their area. Not his fault!

Goal #3
A rocket by Ozil to the upper right cor­ner. No way Rens­ing, in fact any keeper, gets to this ball. Lucio and Oddo, hav­ing seen Ozil light up the game in the first half, decide not to close down on the MOM. Not his fault!

Goal #4
Now com­pletely at a loss, Rens­ing makes his first blun­der. As Van Bom­mel allows Rosen­borg to get to the byline, DiMiche­lis makes a half-hearted attempt to close down. He lets Rosen­borg thread a pass to Pizarro, who is too strong for Lahm at his back. Rens­ing is close to the play and moves too late and then allows his near post to be exploited. His fault!

Goal #5
Some call this one a gift. But once again the defense let Rens­ing down. Per Mete­sacker is com­pletely open on the free-kick. Rens­ing attacks the ball but misses it. Per’s threat is neu­tral­ized. How­ever the ball falls to Rosen­borg, who is free between an unin­ter­ested Lahm and Van Bom­mel and eas­ily slots in the loose ball. Bad luck!

6. The Biggest Loser

Lucio is a lia­bil­ity. DiMiche­lis is only “world class” as Rum­menigge described, if Van Buy­tun is too. By the way, he isn’t.

So by next sum­mer, Bay­ern are going to have to rethink their back-line. My gut feel­ing is that Dort­mund loaned Mats Hum­mels will be brought back and given time to fash­ion an actual “world class” mid­field with Brazil­ian Breno. Hum­mels is already bet­ter than all three of Klinsmann’s center-halves at the wee age of 19.

This is a shame for Dor­mund as Hum­mels and Sub­otic are the most excit­ing pair­ing to come along in ages. Any chances of turn­ing the loan into a per­ma­nent deal are being eroded by the play of FC Bay­ern and the out­stand­ing form of Hummels.

7. Europe Ahoy!

On the plus side, this uber-defensive style should see Bay­ern make a seri­ous run in Europe, where defense wins.

Tagged as: Jürgen Klinsmann, Lucio, Mesut Ozil, Michael Rensing