Three Observations from Bayern Munich’s comfortable 3-0 victory against Bayer Leverkusen

Another Bundesliga matchday, another demolition job by Bayern Munich.

With the Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain looming midweek, coach Vincent Kompany decided to give several of his starters a rest, including Ballon d’Or frontrunner Harry Kane and the sensational Michael Olise. It didn’t seem to matter one bit, however, with the Bavarian machine steamrolling past a Leverkusen side bereft of ideas. This is shaping up to be a special season. Here are some key takeaways from another strong outing:

A team? B team? Please don’t try to play us

Bayern Munich’s squad tonight was more or less a B-team, with Serge Gnabry, Tom Bischof, and Lennart Karl starting, and it did not make an iota of difference. The blueprint and the playstyle were all intact, and Vincent Kompany had the team playing with the swagger and poise of a Champagne XI. What stood out were the midfield passing triangles, the quick one-touch passing, the constant interchange of positions, and the quick switches of play across the wings.

There were major concerns about the depth of the squad heading into the season, but it seems like Bayern’s B team is strong enough to challenge most top teams in Europe. The scoreline was 3-0 well before Harry Kane, Michael Olise, Luis Díaz, and Aleksandar Pavlović were subbed in. Lennart Karl has been a revelation, but tonight it has been all about Tom Bischof. Sensational in a wider role, playing with poise and precision and making an absolute worldie of a pass behind the defensive line to set up Gnabry for the first goal, Bischof really stepped up and took charge. Raphaël Guerreiro had a fantastic game, and Nicolas Jackson scored a brilliant header for Bayern’s second, rounding up an excellent game for Bayern’s bench players.

Kompany has really been Kooking.

The wins continue to pile up

This was Bayern’s 15th consecutive win in all competitions this season, something that has never been achieved in European club football. EVER. Yes, Bayern is the first club to do this, and they continue to extend the record at the top. The PSG and Arsenal fixtures soon to come in the Champions League might put things into perspective, but right now, this is the club everybody would bet their house on. Vincent Kompany is building something unprecedented, and nobody has an answer at the moment. The football resembles a positionless ‘total football’, and allows free flowing attacking football without positional restraints, allowing players to move around, create space, open up passing lanes, and cover for each other to close defensive gaps.

This is why Bayern also has so many clean sheets this season. In the Bundesliga, Bayern has scored a staggering 33 goals in just nine games, by far the best attack in Europe, while also only allowing a paltry four goals, the best defensive record in the Bundesliga.

This defense is being slept on

The way the entire team adopts defensive structures when playing against possession or to regain possession in threatening situations is something we haven’t seen in years. This squad does it in such an organized and disciplined fashion. As soon as the ball is lost, the players form pressing triangles around the opposition player to force them to make passes, while the defenders retreat to clog the central areas. This forces the ball to be pushed wide, from where crosses can be defended by the full-back-center-back pairings.

Bayern’s press-heavy and blitzy attacking football has historically led the team to concede some cheap goals quite often as a result of the high line, but Kompany seems to have found an ingenious solution: the center-backs always stay deep and do not venture ahead any more than absolutely necessary to ensure that the squad is less susceptible to balls over the top. This system works so well particularly due to the willingness of the wingers to defend the wing spaces, and Harry Kane’s propensity to drop deeper and defend from the midfield areas. Tonight, Nicolas Jackson’s work rate against possession was noticeable, and Bischof, Karl, and Gnabry did a solid job suffocating the midfield half-spaces to stifle ball progression through the middle.

This resulted in one or two isolated Leverkusen wingers tasked with carrying the ball up the field to then try to get a cross in, but that strategy simply does not work against Bayern’s defending, who were solid in the box tonight. These all-round performances are extremely important, especially against teams like PSG, whom Bayern will face next in the Champions League. And what a game that will be.

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: