MUNICH — There was a horrible sense of familiarity about Chelsea’s defeat to Bayern Munich.
By the seventieth minute, the Bayern followers have been greeting every go with “Olé”; the victory celebrations had began. For all their efforts, endeavor and eagerness in Munich, Chelsea’s protection crumbled when it wanted to be at its resolute greatest, and Harry Kane and his Bayern teammates profited to win 3-1.
For a lot of this, it felt like the sport was being performed at its stretched restrict. The match was taut; each groups have been taking part in with extremely excessive strains, parking danger and reward proper on the precipice of the competition. With co-controlling homeowners Behdad Eghbali and Todd Boehly each within the stadium tonight, Chelsea began so properly. They pressed Bayern with a relentlessness just like what we noticed within the FIFA Membership World Cup win over Paris Saint-Germain, with Malo Gusto having fun with the liberty of the fitting wing.
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All the pieces was going properly till it stopped going to plan. And Kane, alongside the excellent Michael Olise, have been there to revenue and unpick Chelsea’s optimism to provide them a nasty welcome again to the UEFA Champions League after a two-season hiatus.
Chelsea’s defensive errors allow them to down. Whereas they pressed with nice urgency up entrance, every of Bayern’s three targets may be blamed on the Chelsea protection. For Bayern’s first, they switched off from a drop ball in the course of the park as Joshua Kimmich discovered Olise. Olise twisted and turned and fired a ball throughout the field. Three Chelsea defenders missed and it deflected off the unlucky Trevoh Chalobah for an personal objective.
For the second, Olise discovered Kane in acres of area, and he turned Moisés Caicedo, who promptly floored him within the field. Kane vs. Robert Sánchez from the spot? 2-0 Bayern. Chelsea pulled one again from a beautiful end-to-end transfer, which began and completed with Cole Palmer after a one-two with Gusto.
However Chelsea didn’t construct on this. They grew annoyed, as supervisor Enzo Maresca turned ever extra exasperated on the touchline and posed little menace within the second half. As an alternative, it was Bayern who pulled the strings as Maresca’s adjustments have been ineffective. Moments after Sánchez pulled off a surprising save from Olise, Kane doubled his tally with Bayern’s third within the 63rd minute after Gusto gave the ball away close to his personal field, Kane ran on to the free ball and slid it dwelling.
With 10 targets in six video games this season, his scoring report is straightforward to take without any consideration. However everytime you watch him stay, or see the good statistics, it hammers dwelling how he’s a real phenomenon.
Every of the targets was preventable, as Bayern saved discovering area between stand-in defensive midfielder Reece James and the line of defense, simply ready patiently to hammer dwelling the three match-ending blows.
Chelsea got here into this with such optimism. They’re reigning world champions in spite of everything. However there have been related errors to those we noticed Brentford set off in Saturday’s draw, the place Chelsea have been hit on the counterattack for Brentford’s first, after which missed a ball on the far put up for Brentford’s late equalizer.
It was all too straightforward, and once more, Chelsea’s underbelly was far too weak. However there’s hope. Wesley Fofana’s path again to full health will assist, as will the return of Benoît Badiashile, and Jorrel Hato is an extremely promising expertise who will likely be a beautiful asset as soon as he finds his ft. James must be again at dwelling at proper again relatively than this defensive midfield experiment.
And there have been some positives to have a look at, too. For probably the most half, Gusto was excellent in assault on the fitting wing, whereas Palmer appeared again to his greatest. Palmer’s objective was excellent, a beautiful first-time end into the highest left nook, whereas he had a wonderful second dominated out for offside. However nonetheless, you’re feeling it is a crew adjusting to the brand new faces and discovering its ft. It would not have lengthy to try this, and this was a chastening lesson from Bayern.
For Bayern, this felt like enterprise as typical. A uncommon spell of calm amid a bizarrely turbulent begin to the season. On one hand, all the things is because it often is: Bayern have 4 wins in 4 matches and walloped Hamburg 5-0 on the weekend. However that is all towards a backdrop of a difficult summer season the place they missed out on switch targets and have long-term accidents to Alphonso Davies, Jamal Musiala, and Hiroki Itō.
Over the summer season, Bayern had Thomas Müller, Leroy Sané, Kingsley Coman, João Palhinha and Mathys Tel all depart the Allianz Area. They signed Luis Díaz, Jonathan Tah, and Tom Bischof however missed out on targets Florian Wirtz and Nick Woltemade.
They wanted the last-gasp mortgage signing of Nicolas Jackson from Chelsea to bolster their assault on switch deadline day. However all was not properly, as there was public sniping behind the scenes from among the grand outdated Bayern sages to the crew operating the membership for the time being, and it was all a little bit tense. In the meantime, the gamers ploughed on, although Kane admitted it was a small squad, and Kimmich described the depth as “skinny.”
We noticed a few of that examined in Munich on Wednesday with Josip Stanisic deployed at left again once more after Raphaël Guerreiro joined the harm listing on the weekend. The squad was being additional stretched with Tah off at halftime, earlier than Stanisic bought injured within the early a part of the second half. However nonetheless, they barely broke stride.
If you happen to listened to Bayern legend and supervisory board member Uli Hoeneß’s feedback on the DFL’s normal meeting in Berlin a few weeks in the past, you’d have pictured this iteration of Bayern Munich as Champions League underdogs. “No person is betting on us,” he stated, evaluating Bayern’s probabilities to Hoffenheim’s within the Bundesliga. However again in actuality, we noticed sufficient about Bayern tonight to double down on their Champions League credentials.
They have to be a nightmare to play towards. They swap the ball diagonally by way of the metronomic Kimmich with ease, after which they’ve Díaz and Olise operating at opposition defenders with lethal enthusiasm.
Olise is the darling of the Allianz Area. The gang right here loves him, chanting “OL-I-SE” every time he begins his mazy runs, after which up entrance is the ageless Kane. His engine is unrelenting, and his ending is as ruthless as ever. The query is, having seen Bayern slip out of the Champions League final yr to Internazionale after they suffered an harm disaster, can they deal with one thing related this yr whereas contesting on three fronts? It will be right down to Vincent Kompany’s managerial juggling abilities to find out that.
However tonight, such ideas of the longer term can wait. For Chelsea, they merely must iron out these defensive points. And for Bayern, properly, it is a case of conserving on doing what they do greatest: successful. However amid the grins, you possibly can think about they’re going to be conserving one hand behind their again with their fingers crossed that everybody stays match.