The once 10 time consecutive Bundesliga champion who won two Champions League in the last 11 years is now in completely different situation. The Bavarians are first at the domestic front (at the moment), but in Europe, they are all but the ‘old’ Bayern. After three games in the Champions League, Munich is in 23rd place with two defeats already. After Aston Villa, Barcelona was the next one to defeat the Bavarians, but this defeat was much heavier. Not only were they hammered 4-1 in Catalonia, but they were defeated by young Barca team led by their former coach. Hansi Flick is so far doing wanders with basically the same time Xavi had just months ago and his kids just ran over the mighty Bavarians. And the German press is all over them.UCL: Hansi’s Brutalona! Barca destroy Bayern the way nobody could possibly imagine‘Bild’ told their readers that “Flick dismantled Bayern” and its editor-in-chief, Matthias Brügelmann, described Bayern as “shameful and shocking”, while Kicker described the game as “Bayern’s debacle”. Sport1 ‘ portal followed the similar line with “Flick’s Barça humiliates Bayern” headline. Everybody was criticized, but defense the most. Even the legendary Lothar Matthaus had to criticize the ‘untouchable’ Manuel Neuer.“I don’t normally want to criticise Manuel, but at the moment he is not the support for the team that he was in the past. Manuel Neuer is no longer Manuel Neuer. Because he doesn’t save the unstoppable balls, his goalkeeping has changed. He used to anticipate every situation, he had a 360-degree view, and he would initiate attacks with a build-up pass. At the moment he is not giving the defense any security. This is also demonstrated by the rate of just over 40 percent of balls saved in the Bundesliga. I hope that he will soon find his way back to his old game and confidence” said former Bayern captain.##NAJAVA_MECA_8435333##But the critiques didn’t stop there. The journalists are now wondering if Vincent Kompany system will work in the long term? Do the current players fit into the system? And are they really good enough in terms of quality for Munich’s project at the highest level? For example, they did won 4-0 against Stuttgart on Saturday, but not against the current champion Leverkusen (1:1), Aston Villa (lost 0:1) and Frankfurt (3:3), while Barcelona was clearly better team in all aspects. In last night’s game, Barca outmatched the Bavarians in running too. The Catalans ran 126.55 kilometers, compared to Bayern’s 120.58km. Barca’s last matches against Bayern in the group stage of the Champions League two seasons ago was so different: Barca finished with 118.59km and 117.8km covered.Bayern Munich already robbed in Barcelona, and the game hasn’t even startedThe fact that the defensive mistakes were obvious was visible in Max Eberl’s comments after the game. Bayern’s sporting director snapped at the reporters who just pointed at the obvious defensive problems.“Get your coaching license, then you can do it better! It’s so easy to blame the defense when we concede goals. That’s exactly what it is: you want to divide us. We won’t allow that” he said. The next few games in the Champions League could be crucial as the Bavarians face Benfica and PSG at home.
