The scent of fear at Bayern Munich is a rare phenomenon. But you know it's there when you catch a whiff of covetousness.
If an opponent makes Bayern anxious, they think about an acquisitive raid. For half a decade, while Borussia Dortmund put up the most sustained challenges to Bayern's authority in the Bundesliga, Bayern busily recruited Dortmund's best players, and let it be known out loud they thought the Dortmund manager for most of that time, Jurgen Klopp, might one day be a suitable manager for them.
There are echoes of that ahead of Wednesday night’s summit meeting between the champions and the sensational new arrivals in the top flight of German football, RB Leizpig, who trail Bayern only on goal difference.
Uli Hoeness, recently returned to the presidency of Bayern after serving a sentence for tax evasion, has been voicing his admiration of Leipzig’s Austrian head coach, Ralph Hasenhuttl. “He is doing a great job,” said Hoeness, before adding, pointedly. “If at any time we were looking for a German-speaking coach, he would have to be among our top three candidates.”
Flattering, certainly, to Hasenhuttl, who has overseen the best start to a Bundesliga season by a newly promoted club, with a single defeat and just nine points dropped from the opening 15 fixtures. Interesting listening, too, for Bayern’s Carlo Ancelotti, an Italian whose spoken German is still flawed and whose yield of the same 36 points from his first 15 matches as a Bundesliga coach is deemed as somewhat under par. Bayern tended to find themselves strolling clear at the top by the winter break – which begins in Germany on Thursday – over the three years of Pep Guardiola, Ancelotti’s predecessor.
If Hasenhuttl’s head was turned by Hoeness’ comments, he was not showing it as he assessed his side’s chances, over a 90 minutes that will leave both clubs with plenty to think on over the month of vacation that follows.
“I want our opponents to have to run 110 kilometres so they really feel the next day they have come up against Leipzig,” said Hassenhuttl. And, upping the ante, he predicted, with a flourish “anything but a win for these opponents will be a magisterial setback”.
Teams who have met upstart Leipzig so far in this most intriguing German season certainly feel they have sweated.
Hasenhuttl’s success may have caught the acquisitive eye of Bayern’s long-term strategists, but his tactics at Leipzig are no copy of the ones that have claimed the last four Bundesliga titles. Leipzig break quickly, press feverishly, have collectively covered more yards than any other team in the division so far this season and, in Timo Werner and Emil Forsberg above all, have players to make the most of their attacking blitzes.
Bayern have a distinct signature, the possession game cultivated by most of their managers of the last decade and prized and nourished by Guardiola. Ancelotti’s evolution of a successful system has been criticised at times for its sluggishness. Bayern may be top but they have shown flaws, and they finished second in their Champions League group – a modern rarity – largely because they struggled against the robust counter-attackers of Atletico Madrid.
Hasenhuttl has, he says, enjoyed the process of video analysis into where Bayern might be hurt.
“It’s fun to look for the possibilities and problems you might create against the best team in Germany, and one of the best in the world,” said the Austrian. “But this is a Bayern who have lost games this season. They are not unbeatable.”
At the Allianz Arena, Bayern would expect to have most of the ball, and, to borrow Hasenhuttl’s phrase, to provide more “magisterial” moments in midfield. What they will not anticipate is the suit of cruise that has become a regular part of their schedule over the last four seasons.
“We will be brave, we have a plan and we will be self-confident,” promised Hasenhuttl.
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