Ten points clear, Bayern Munich need another three victories now from their remaining five fixtures to guarantee their 30th Bundesliga title. They waltzed past relegation-threatened Fortuna Dusseldorf on Saturday, building effortlessly on the crucial win in midweek against their title rivals Borussia Dortmund.
Robert Lewandowksi scored the 41st and 42nd goals of his prolific season, the first of them a marvellous team goal that will have been admired far and wide. That was Bayern’s third, and once they had gone 5-0 up with more than half an hour left, a ragged Dusseldorf would have been entitled to fear utter humiliation. Bayern might have added more, but preserved their energies. They have many targets to plan for.
It was the night that European football was supposed to have staged its grand showpiece, the Champions League final, postponed now until August because of the coronavirus crisis. It is not fanciful to imagine that, had the calendar not been reshaped by the pandemic, we might have been watching Bayern, who are 3-0 up halfway through their last-16 tie against Chelsea, in Istanbul on Saturday.
They are playing like a European superpower again, and in the sort of form that even the likes of Liverpool or Paris Saint-Germain would envy: In 2020, their record across competitions reads played 15, won 14, drawn one.
Dusseldorf had them at arm’s length for merely quarter of an hour, and a fatiguing opening 15 minutes it was for the visiting side. They barely had the ball in the Bayern half, but defended with industry and, for as long as it lasted, with a pleasing rigour for Uwe Rosler, their head coach.
But Rosler, the former Manchester City striker, has been around long enough as a manager to read the signs. His players could barely catch a breath, and once Bayern had their first breakthrough, they threatened a cascade of goals. And, as every opponent has learned of this Bayern team, the menace comes from all zones.
Benjamin Pavard, nominally the right back, keeps scoring the kinds of goals you expect of a target man. Up in the Dusseldorf penalty area to meet a cross, Pavard swept in a shot, slightly off balance, after a floated diagonal ball by the excellent Thomas Muller had been volleyed, first time, towards Pavard by Serge Gnabry. At which point the Bundesliga title-holders had some luck. Matthias ‘Zanka’ Jorgenson deflected Pavard’s rather miscued effort into his own goal.
As if to prove he needs no luck, Pavard set up the next chance, a drilled cross inviting Muller to whip in an effort at the near post, goalkeeper Florian Kastenmeier saving. The relief was short-lived. From Joshua Kimmich’s corner, Pavard timed his leap better than his markers and registered his second goal in a fortnight from a set-piece, his fifth of the campaign.
Dusseldorf interrupted the procession briefly, Kenan Karaman, their most potent attacking presence but a striker starved of service, seeing his shot blocked by Alphonso Davies. The teenaged left-back had anticipated wisely, and, just as in the 1-0 over Dortmund, had preserved Bayern’s command with a key defensive intervention.
Bayern’s third was a wonderful collective construction, initiated by David Alaba, the centre half, with a precise pass to Lewandowski. The centre-forward’s sixth sense told him Joshua Kimmich was accelerating, at startling speed, from central midfield into space. Lewandowski’s subtle flick picked out the run, Kimmich cut the ball back to Muller, who set up Lewandowski’s 28th Bundesliga goal of the season.
Number 29 followed within five minutes of the second half, the provider Gnabry, and the finish, via a backheel and through Kastenmeier’s legs, the mark of a forward at the peak of his powers. Lewandowksi had picked up a satisfying new landmark, too. These were his first goals against Dusseldorf: He has now scored against all 18 clubs in the German top flight during his career.
Davies scored Bayern’s fifth almost immediately, after an understated hopscotch through three half-hearted Dusseldorf challenges. Muller probably ought to have added number six just after the hour, arrowing a volley over Kastenmeier’s crossbar. Rosler’s men were being stretched this way and that at the back, although, with the outcome decided, they had the scent of a possible consolation goal, Andre Hoffman pumping an unchallenged header over Manuel Neuer’s goal and Neuer palming away a fierce drive from Niko Giesselmann.
By then Dusseldorf were longing for the final whistle. At 16th in the table, they are just above the automatic relegation places, but Werder Bremen, 17th, yesterday closed the gap to two points and have a match in hand. Rosler, only appointed in January, has a tough rescue mission ahead of him.
