On Saturday afternoon Bayern Munich and surprising title challengers Freiburg met in the Bundesliga. Before this game, only three points and Borussia Dortmund separated the two sides. The home side Bayern managed to put an end to Freiburg’s incredible unbeaten run to start their 2021/22 league campaign, thanks to a 2-1 victory. Bayern initially went ahead courtesy of a first-half goal from Leon Goretzka, before doubling their lead in the second half with a classic Robert Lewandowski poacher’s finish. However, Freiburg rallied late on to notch one back in stoppage time with Janik Haberer slamming home to make it a tense finish at the Allianz Arena.
Bayern Munich lined up in a 4-2-3-1 with Manuel Neuer, of course, starting in goal. Alphonso Davies played as a flying left-back, with Lucas Hernández, Dayot Upamecano and Niklas Süle making up the rest of the back four. Süle, normally a centre-back, generally stayed more narrow as a third centre-back at times, although he was occasionally seen darting down the right flank. In midfield, Joshua Kimmich was the deepest of the double pivot, with Goretzka often looking to play beyond the Freiburg midfield line, whilst Thomas Müller did as Thomas Müller always does and roamed across the pitch from the central channel all the way to the right-wing. Leroy Sané and Kingsley Coman were given the starts on either side of Müller, with Lewandowski leading the line.
As for Freiburg, they had Mark Flekken in between the posts, with a back three in front of them consisting of Manuel Gulde, Philip Lienhart, and Nico Schlotterbeck. Lukas Kübler and Christian Günter took the wing-back positions, whilst in the middle, Nico Höfler and Maximilian Eggestein played as the double pivot in the 3-4-3. Freiburg’s front three saw Vicenzo Grifo and Lucas Höler play either side of the tireless Woo Yeong-Jeong.
This tactical analysis will continue to give an analysis of some of the key tactics used by the teams in this Bundesliga fixture.
Bayern’s tactics in possession
Bayern looked to firstly break down Freiburg and find the space on either side of their central-midfield pairing. Upamecano was a key cog in this process with Julian Nagelsmann placing a lot of responsibility on the young centre-back to be the one to break lines from the back. Upamecano generally looked for Müller or Goretzka, however, as we’ll look at momentarily, he would also look to switch play.
