Dhe man tasked with doing the extraordinary this season didn’t have to do anything extraordinary. In the 36th minute Sadio Mané, the new FC Bayern Munich striker, simply played the ball past Tuta – and perhaps felt the Eintracht Frankfurt defender stumble afterwards. Two passes (Mané to Müller, Müller to Musiala) and one shot (Musiala into the goal) later it was 4-0 for the champions. And by then, at the latest, Mané, who left Liverpool FC this summer, wanted to mockingly say: Welcome to the Bundesliga!
On Friday evening, FC Bayern won the opening game of the 60th season 6-1 in Frankfurt. And even if the superiority of the champions was visible in so many scenes, it has to start with that moment in the 36th minute when Tuta, who was supposed to lead the defense of German Champions League team Eintracht Frankfurt, fell to the ground. As if he wanted to submit to Sadio Mané, the new king of the league.
Since the departure of King Robert, no one has sat on the throne in Munich. Due to the way center forward Robert Lewandowski played, his team always had to adapt to an order. With a monarch in the center: Lewandowski. Now, with Sadio Mané, the team is playing more anarchically. And if you really believe what the scouts from Leipzig (5: 3 in the Supercup) and Frankfurt (6: 1) saw, it could be that this new form of rule by Bavaria will be more terrible for the rest of the republic.
freedoms in the system
Late in the evening, Julian Nagelsmann, the coach from Munich, sat on the podium at the press conference and said: “It’s not that easy to defend when the four or five players up front start gambling.” He should think of Serge Gnabry, Sadio Mané, Jamal Musiala and Thomas Müller thought. You played both in Leipzig and in Frankfurt from the start. And even if Gnabry (one goal, one assist), Mané (one goal) and Müller (three assists) were furious again in Frankfurt, Musiala (two goals) has to be emphasized again.
He smuggled the ball through midfield as safely as the Frankfurt fans smuggled pyrotechnics into the stadium. He uses the freedoms of the new system for his impertinence. With his dribbles, he showed off his opponents – and made sure that the ball found its way where Frankfurt coach Oliver Glasner didn’t want it: in the middle.
Jamal Musiala makes a strong game in Frankfurt.
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Image: dpa
“We wanted to give Bayern the corner flags to get them to flank,” said Glasner. “If we have the ball up front, we’re very fast, we’re very good at combinations,” said Nagelsmann, who simply substituted on Leroy Sané in the 65th minute, who prepared Musiala’s 6-1 lead with a perfect pass. Oh, one more thing: Kingsley Coman, probably Bayern’s best striker last season, was out due to a suspension.
However, one should not classify the strength of Munich without the weakness of Frankfurt. “We punished the courage Frankfurt had in the first half,” said Thomas Müller. If you want to be as polite as he was, you could say: In a duel with the champion, Eintracht played without rhyme or reason.
Once Serge Gnabry stood alone on the center line for a small eternity. And when his team-mates took Eintracht’s corner kick, he and Thomas Müller stormed Kevin Trapp’s goal. In the end, Müller stumbled the ball, which Gnabry had not passed well, against the post.
And what do you say to those who, contrary to empirical evidence, do not want to settle for the next Munich championship after one match day? That Frankfurt could have scored two or even three more goals? No, this argument doesn’t work, because it also applies to FC Bayern.
