Stanisic and Grimaldo stun Bayern to extend Leverkusen’s Bundesliga lead

 

Stanisic and Grimaldo stun Bayern to extend Leverkusen’s Bundesliga lead

Bayer Leverkusen celebrates Josip Stanisic’s opening goal against Bayern Munich. Photograph: Wolfgang Rattay/Reuters

One fundamental principle has remained largely unchallenged through the peaks and troughs of Bayern Munich's season, the sniping and the failures, and the sparkling form of Bayer Leverkusen.

Once Thomas Tuchel's side has secured their 12th consecutive Bundesliga title, the old muscle memory will kick in. They will finally show their true selves in games like this when it matters most. And they did. Not quite as far as one might expect.

Because it was not just a defeat but a humiliation, not just three crucial points in the title race but an attack on Bayern's identity. Bayern were outclassed by a faster, hungrier, more creative Bayer Leverkusen.

Tuchel, meanwhile, has not been outdone by Xabi Alonso, who has cemented his status as one of the game's brightest young coaches with a stunning array of concepts, elegant tactical development, and shrewd use of the bench.

There is now a five-point gap at the top of the league, and yet much of the talk in Germany for the coming days and weeks will be Bayern's execution, Bayern's crisis, Bayern's fumes.     

“To be honest, I’m pissed off,” fumed Thomas Müller in a furious post-match television interview. “To quote Oliver Kahn: what’s missing is balls. It’s OK to feel pressure, but there needs to be energy and freedom. It’s not just about the coach. Sometimes we have to speak about the players.”      

And if Bayer Leverkusen always believed, perhaps this was the moment when the rest of us could too. Josip Stanisic opened the scoring, Álex Grimaldo scored a game-cleaner early in the second half, Florian Wirtz and Granit Xhaka were sensational in midfield, and Jeremie Frimpong sealed the points in injury time in spectacular fashion. But what distinguishes this Leverkusen team is how little they rely on individual moments of quality.

Leverkusen’s head coach Xabi Alonso dishes out instructions during the match. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP

They defend and attack as a unit, moving the replacement pieces at odd angles with constant pressing. Here Alonso went without a recognized striker. Amin Adli played the false nine, complemented by Nathan Tella on the right. Stanisic on Frimpong was another surprising call. Alonso talks a lot about flexibility, and this performance – artistic and passionate, practiced and flexible in all the right places – is just that.  

The result was a game with all the structural qualities of a David Lynch film: thick with intrigue and red herrings, strange shapes, and hidden layers of meaning. Why were the fans throwing sweets on the pitch? Why was Stanic the only player on his team not celebrating his goal? Why were Bayern's fullbacks playing on opposite sides? And why was there a home fan dressed as the Pope?

Some of these questions were easier to answer than others. The chants, which delayed kick-off by eight minutes, were part of long-running protests by fans across Germany over a proposed deal to sell stakes in the Bundesliga's media rights to private investment. The fancy dress was for the carnival weekend. Stanisic is currently on loan from Bayern. And perhaps Tuchel's decision to play Sacha Boey on the left was an attempt to counter Frimpong's pace, which did not take off.

And thus Bayern was defeated not only in practice but in theory. Perhaps one of the reasons their defenses seemed so uncertain was that it was never entirely clear what they were trying to defend. Perhaps part of the reason Harry Kane was so anonymous was that Bayern had no idea how to bring him into the game. The result was three targets of varying degrees of head loss.

    Lineups

leverkusen                                                        

• 1

  Manuel Neuer                                            
• 2

  Dayot Upamecano
• 15

  Eric Dier
• 3

  Min-Jae Kim
• 40

  Noussair Mazraoui
• 45

  Alexsandar Pavlovic
• 8

  Leon Goretzka 
• 23

  Sacha Boey 
• 10

  Leroy Sane
• 42

  Jamal Musiala
• 9

  Harry Kane

Substitutes

• 4

  Matthijs de Ligt
• 6

  Joshua Kimmich (s 60')                                         
• 13

  Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting (s 81')
• 22

  Raphael Guerreiro (s 81')
• 25

  Thomas Muller (s 60')
• 26

  Sven Ulreich
• 34

  Lovro Zvonarek
• 39

  Mathys Tel (s 71')
• 44

  Adam Aznou

Bayern 

• 1

  Lukas Hradecky 
• 12

  Edmond Tapsoba 
• 4

  Jonathan Tah
• 3

  Piero Hincapie
• 2

  Josip Stanisic
• 34

  Granit Xhaka
• 8

  Robert Andrich
• 20

  Alex Grimaldo
• 19

  Nathan Tella
• 10

  Florian Wirtz
• 21

  Amine Adli 

Substitutes

• 7

  Jonas Hofmann (s 82')
• 9

  Borja Iglesias
• 14

  Patrik Schick
• 17

  Matej Kovar
• 18

  Noah Mbamba
• 23

  Adam Hlozek (s 90')
• 24

  Timothy Fosu-Mensah
• 30

  Jeremie Frimpong (s 65')
• 32

  Gustavo Puerta (s 90')