Many threatened Bayern, but anyone who dared would end up getting slaughtered. Because no matter how good the challengers were – Bayern were better. And so for ten years. But this season, for the first time in a full decade, Bayern are not first in the table after 25 rounds of the Bundesliga. Defeat against Bayer Leverkusen (1-2) allowed Borussia Dortmund to overtake the Bavarians and take first place in the standings.Quite enough to cause nervousness in the ranks of the current champion, so coach Julian Nagelsmann and sports director Hasan Salihamidzic criticized the team like never before.”Except in the last 10 minutes of the game, we were the worse team. How we played with and without the ball has nothing to do with what we practiced in the past weeks. There were too many long balls. We didn’t play well and we deserved to lose,” said Nagelsmann before giving his explanation.”It happens to us all the time. It’s been better in recent weeks, that mix of emotion and quality. We were lazy today. We were really weak”.Two penalties enough for Leverkusen to defeat Bayern MunichAfter all, everyone could see that. In the first 17 minutes alone, Bayer had four shots on the opponent’s goal compared to Bayern’s zero. The same ratio as far as the corners go. And although Joshua Kimmich scored to give the Bavarians the initial lead – undeserved as Nagelsmann admits – the team from Leverkusen turned the score around with two penalties. No one from Munich complained about those penalties, because as Thomas Müller said…”There are more important things we should talk about.”Sports director Hasan Salihamidžić tried to clarify.”This is not Bayern. We were missing everything. We allowed ourselves to be run over by the team that played the game on Thursday. Bayer were better in every respect”Nagelsmann: “Congratulations to Xabi and Leverkusen for their deserved win. We were the worse team for 80 minutes. We had 10 good minutes at the end. The way we played with and off the ball had nothing to do with what we did in the past weeks. We played a lot of long balls” pic.twitter.com/OXxc915zlL— Bayern & Germany (@iMiaSanMia) March 19, 2023 And what exactly was the problem?”I have rarely seen such little energy, such a bad mentality, so few duels… This team is good when it enters the game with 100 percent desire. We were lazier, we thought we could solve everything with mere individual quality. It can not be done like that. We missed everything today”.Don’t be fooled on the first of April – it will be an interesting Saturday as Bayern vs Borussia face off in Munich.The Billy Goats opened the door for Dortmund to score – quite a milestone for Marco Reus
