Five Theories on Why Bayern's Defense Sucks Now

The reigning champions of Europe are falling apart at the back. What's wrong?  

Less than a month elapsed between Lucas Hérnandez wearing the Champions League trophy like a Daft Punk helmet and Bayern’s first game of the 2020-21 season, which they kicked off in style with an 8-0 evisceration of Schalke.

Ah shit, we thought, here we go again.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the coronation: Bayern gave up four goals in their second game. Then two more in their third. Then three more in the one after that. Something was ... off. Last season they had a top ten defense in the Big 5 leagues; today they enter the win-or-go-home stage with the 55th best defense out of 98 clubs by expected goals against per game, which according to FBref puts them right below Spanish relegation contenders Alavés. The goals per game figure isn’t much better. Bayern’s back end is certified booboo.

What's going on? The coach, squad, shape, and playstyle are pretty much the same as last summer, when Bayern was steamrolling all comers, but something’s rotten in the Free State of Bavaria. I spent the weekend digging through numbers and taking notes on the 39 goals Bayern has coughed up across all competitions this season, and I’m here to present you with some possible explanations.

Theory 1: Niklas Süle Is No Jérôme Boateng

I mean, the real problem here is that Jérôme Boateng is no Jérôme Boateng. Bayern’s starting center back for the last decade has had a hell of a career, winning a World Cup and two Champions Leagues along the way, but at 32 he’s about ready to slip on those adorable gold-rimmed reading glasses he wears off the pitch and, I don’t know, go memorize Goethe’s “Erlkönig” or something.

Good thing Bayern, being their extremely German selves, planned for this transition years ago by purchasing a young defender at a responsible price from Hoffenheim and easing him into the lineup as Boateng’s prime receded. By 2018-19 Süle was an every-game starter, until an ACL tear knocked him out almost all last season. The good news is he’s fit again and rotating regularly with Boateng at right center back and occasionally Benjamin Pavard at right back. The bad news is he’s been a little bit of what the internet tells me Germans call an Arschgeige, or “butt violin.”

Süle’s been on the field for less than two-thirds of Bayern’s minutes this season, but by my count his defensive errors and 28.8k dialup speed have been a problem in 13 of the team’s 39 goals allowed, more than any other player. He gets dragged out of position, botches offside traps, whiffs one on ones, and watches the ball while attackers cut across his back shoulder for point blank shots.

The one that sticks with me is in January against Gladbach when Süle panicked under pressure and gave away the ball in Bayern’s buildup, then took a bad angle on the counter, let the ball carrier inside, and watched helplessly as Florian Neuhaus scored the winning goal. “That shouldn’t happen and it’s not a nice position to be in,” Hansi Flick said dryly after the game. He didn’t play Süle at center back for the next month.

Theory 2: They Miss Thiago

Only two prominent players are missing from last season’s roster, and I don’t think Philippe Coutinho heading back to warm the bench in Barcelona is the source of Bayern’s defensive woes. Thiago Alcântara’s cello sonatas have been an awkward fit with Liverpool’s dad rock midfield so far, so perhaps you’ve forgotten just how important he was to his former team. Jamie Carragher even went so far as to call him a “defensive liability,” which is kind of a weird thing to say about one of the top ballwinners on the most recent best team in the world, but whatever.

The real reason I think Flick might be feeling some saudades for his Brazilian-Spanish ex right about now isn’t defense per se but a loss of control. At least half a dozen of Bayern’s goals conceded have started with turnovers in their own half, which are less of an issue when you’ve got one of the world’s most press resistant pivots pulling the strings. Yes, current showrunner Joshua Kimmich is spectacular, but he’s a more aggressive north-south passer than Thiago, and Bayern’s other defensive mids aren’t on those guys’ level.

“We suffered similar situations on their first two goals. We moved forward too quickly and opened the center without covering the deep position,” Flick said after two own-half turnovers cost his team points in the Gladbach fiasco. They need someone who can calm things down and bring them upfield as a unit to set that high line they’re so good at.

About that …

Theory 3: They’re Getting Sliced Open by Throughballs

I thought when I started digging into this that I might see Bayern’s high line getting exposed, which was a popular concern heading into their big date with Kylian Mbappé. It’s easy to remember times this season I’ve seen them beat by longballs over the top, which are always so cinematic and lend themselves to a tidy little moral about hubris. But only four of the 39 goals actually played out that way, and only eight were fast breaks of any kind. For a team that spends as much time upfield as Bayern, that’s a pretty solid record.

The more general problem seems to be throughballs, which are carving up their back line at various heights. Last season about 3.5% of opponents’ key passes against Bayern were throughballs; this year it’s nearly double that. Last year shots against Bayern came from possessions traveling upfield faster than against any other team in the Bundesliga. This season they’ve somehow picked up the pace another 5%.

Sometimes Flick’s team gets split open at the center circle, yeah, but the bigger risk is the intermediate line they set during the second phase of possession, midway between the halfway line and the top of their box. Play tends to be a little more disorganized at that stage. The midfield doesn’t always get pressure on the ball, which is a problem when the ball’s just 15 or 20 yards away from the back line and there’s still room for strikers to run in behind. Bayern’s veteran center backs have won lots of things over the years, but none of them was a foot race with Erling Haaland.

Theory 4: There’s Also This Weird Thing With Throw Ins?

Thirteen percent of Bayern’s goals against have come immediately after an opponent throw in near the edge of the defensive third. Am I crazy or does that sound like an awful lot? I haven’t had time yet to do a data deep dive into whether those five goals were flukes or this year’s Bayern really does allow a disproportionate amount of danger from throws, but if anyone reading this gets to it first, tag me, I’m super curious.

There’s not enough of a pattern in how these five plays developed to say there’s One Weird Trick to beating Bayern Munich from the sideline. Some throws were short and straight ahead, one was toward the corner flag, one was diagonal to the corner of the box. Once or twice Bayern didn’t track the return pass to the guy who threw it, and a couple times the far midfielders who weren’t man marking kind of spaced out, which—surprise!—led to the back line getting split by a throughball. But the more common danger is the one you’d expect from this kind of throw: combination play that shakes a runner loose up the wing so he can dribble to the endline for a cutback. Maybe Flick should hire Jürgen Klopp’s throw in coach.

Theory 5: Manuel Neuer’s Not the Clean-Up Guy He Used to Be

Early in the season Bayern’s defensive troubles were painted over a little bit by a stretch where Manuel Neuer was stopping way more shots than Statsbomb’s post-shot expected goals model would have predicted. Unfortunately PSxG is a lot like the shooter xG you’re more familiar with, in that it’s rare for anyone to consistently beat the model. Neuer’s four seasons of advanced shotstopping data on FBref have been dead even with expectations, and he’s slid back toward average as the season’s worn on.

Of course the Neuer legend isn’t really about saves. Jan Oblak can stop shots if that’s what you’re into, but he’s boring. Neuer is the ur-sweeper keeper, the guy who bails out Bayern’s defense by being Beckenbauer in the streets and Kahn in the clean sheets.

Until he isn’t. At 34, Neuer’s not quite as quick off his line as he once was, and he gets rounded and chipped a little more regularly than he used to be. He’s still very much a plus as a sweeper type, but losing a step has also made him more cautious in the box, where he’s stopped just 2.1% of crosses this season after averaging around 7% the last couple years. With more throughballs and poorly marked crosses heading his way than there used to be, little margins matter.

All good things come to an end. It’ll happen one day for Neuer and Boateng, and it might happen even sooner than that for Bayern’s European dominance if they don’t clean up their act at the back. Then again, everyone kind of sucks in different ways this season, so Bayern’s still a comfortable second favorite with the bookies—right behind Man City, who are looking weirdly perfect. ❧

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Image: Hans von Gersdorff, Feldbuch der Wundtartzney