When Bayern Munich released their lineup for the match against Bayer Leverkusen, people were shocked at how many players had been rotated out. Stars like Michael Olise, Luis Díaz and Harry Kane were out of the starting lineup as seven changes were made. For the next hour, people chattered about the personnel changes, unsure if this was the right decision.6
And Bayern led 3-0 at halftime.
After an ultimately comfortable victory, holding on to the 3-0 scoreline until full time, Vincent Kompany had very much justified his rotation with the victory. But perhaps rotation is the wrong word: “Rotation – I call it competition. It’s normal for opponents to get motivated when they see that a few players aren’t available,” Kompany explained after the match, as captured by Bayern’s official website. “For us, it was important to keep the tempo high from the start – then you also need a bit of luck to score the goals. We did that. We’ve won 15 games, which is good – but it has to keep going. It’s not enough yet. I’m looking forward to PSG. We deserve to go into it with full enthusiasm. It has to be rock ‘n’ roll! They have confidence, we have confidence – it’s going to be an awesome game. We deserve to go all out.”
At this point, it seems Kompany will not be satisfied unless he ends the season having won every match.
If you want more takes on the match, let’s talk about how it all played out on this edition of the Bavarian Podcast Works — Postgame Show:
