Sunday, September 14, 2008

1. FC Köln vs Bayern Munich player-by-player analysis


Last Saturday Bayern Munich had battled through the tough first half and broke through 3 goals in second half to win against Köln in Cologne. The unchanged formation with last week led them to progress to the second of the league table, 2 points behind the league leader, Hamburger SV. Here's the player-by-player analysis:


Michael Rensing, GK: This is probably the most boring job in Bayern Munich. Again, he had not much chance to prove himself in terms of shot stopping, but he proved himself to be the highly concentrated and resolute goalkeeper. Köln only had 2 real chances in the entire game and Rensing did really neat and tidy to stop the goal. I believe the most important element of the good goalkeeper should be very good in concentration, and Rensing proved he did have.


Lucio, DC: He was at the right side of the 3-man defense line. He made a lot of neat and tidy header to clear most of the aerial attacks from the opposition's left flank. Even though he did not make any fancy attacks in the game, it was still enough for the team to win the game as his good performance made the defense became solid.


Martin Demichelis, DC: He proved himself to Bayern Munich that he is the best defender in the team. His position was excellent that he could able to intercept the passes easily. Also, his hard but clean tackles helped the team relieved lots of pressure. It could be proved by the last ditch tackle in the first half to prevent the opposition scored the goal and took the lead in order to keep the team clean sheet. Once again he is very reliable.


Daniel Van Buyten, DC: Same as Lucio, he was quite good in the game. He did the good job in the left side of the 3-man defense. He made lots of clean headers to clear the aerial attacks from the opposition as well. It is a good news for Bayern that Van Buyten's performance is getting better and better so the team can have more choices in terms of formation and players.


Christian Lell, MR: Fair performance for this lad. He did a fair job in the right side of the field and he could be seen that he made assists in the right side attack. I can see he is making a progress to be the good player in Bayern Munich and hope he can be one of the best players in Bayern Munich in the future. In short term, I can see he can challenge to the other similar players such as Willy Sagnol and Massimo Oddo to be one of the regular starters in the team.


Andreas Ottl, MC: I was quite surprised to be honest. I thought Mark van Bommel would replace him after his suspension, but in fact it was not. Also, it was quite surprised for me that he did a remarkable job. He controlled the flow of the centre field and relieved lots of pressure in terms of defense. At the same time, he did a great job on holding the possession in order to keep the attack to be sustainable. I truly believed that his performance this match was one of the best performances in his entire football career. Meanwhile, this performance could tell Klinsmann that he can replace Mark van Bommel to be the regular starter in the team.


Philipp Lahm, ML: He was not that shape in this game, but it was not a problem as well. He did the fair job in the left side of the field and made couple of runs in attack and made some crucial defense. Maybe he played all 90 minutes in the international game last Wednesday, so his performance was affected.

Bastian Schweinsteiger, AMC: Well, you won't think about food next morning if you ate too much last night. This is what happened in Bastian. I believed his physically fit for the match but mentally he was "full". So his performance was not as shape as the last few matches, same with Philipp Lahm. It is understandable for that as he is now the VIP in Bayern Munich and Germany national team. However, his neat and tidy set pieces assisted the team to break the deadlock in the beginning of the second half. So, good play for him.


Ze Roberto, AMC: He had a quiet game in the first half but he woke up in the second half. He had lots of breakthroughs in the second half and and assisted the team to extend the lead. It was quite a shame that he could not score the goal as he held the ball for too long and finally missed the chance. However all in all, his unstoppbale runs really helped the team to win the game.


Miroslav Klose, FC: It was a shame that he could not convert his good form in Germany national team to Bayern Munich. Many of the fans believed that he should have scored some goals in the game as he was a hat-trick hero in the Finland clash last Wednesday, but it turned out he did nothing. I won't blame him as the midfield of the team was fighting quite hard against the opposition and he had no supplies from the midfield so he did nothing. It is understandable.


Luca Toni, FC: This is what world class striker means. Two chances, two goals. Bascially he did not have lots of chances in the game before the scoreline had changed. However, he scored a half chance goal to open the score sheet in the beginning of the second half. Then, he scored the second goal 7 minutes later and led the team to win the game. It was quite shameful for him to miss chance in the later stage of the second half as the opposition were all out attack and led him got chances after chances. However, as the team was winning, it did not really matter.

Lukas Podolski, substituted for Miroslav Klose: This was definitely the turning point of the game. He proved himself he is currently on the best form. He made los of runs when he was in the field. He started the counter attack by passing the excellent through balls to Ze Roberto to lead the second goal of the game. Besides, he was more willing to pull back to the midfield to get the ball, this was the difference between himself and Klose. He definitely deserved the goal and definitely deserved the place in the first 11. Bayern Munich will regret if they sell him to somewhere else in January next year.


Massimo Oddo, substituted for Christian Lell: Congratulations to him for finishing the Bundesliga debut well. He did made assists on the right side defense as well as made some runs in right side attacks. He had not done too much work this match as the time limit and the team had already been leading 2-0 at the moment. However, he did look good for threatening the starting place of Christian Lell.


Tim Borowski, substituted for Bastian Schweinsteiger: He was substituted for holding on the possession on the midfield as Schweinsteiger's energy was declining. He did a good job for maintaining the lead. He deserved to have more playing time.


Final words: Another convincing win for Bayern Munich and it was a definite moral boosting for the team to play against Werder Bremen in the coming Saturday. One thing to remark it down is Mark van Bommel the captain was only on the bench and did not play. This showed Klinsmann was dared to change, dared to try. Also, it gave the message to van Bommel that even he is a captain, he can be stripped for the captaincy anytime. So, if van Bommel would like to retain his captaincy and regular starting place, he should have to control his emotions a bit to regain the trust.

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