Closed training sessions really aren’t what they used to be. Somehow, Bild got a reporter to take a peek behind the scenes as Bayern Munich prepare for Saturday’s monumental face-off against Bayer Leverkusen. While Vincent Kompany apparently wanted his lads to train in utmost secrecy, having gray curtains erected around the training grounds, Bild somehow managed to catch a glimpse of the planned starting XI. They even included photos (!) which lends their report a ton of credibility.
Assuming that Xabi Alonso does not read this website, here’s what we know:
- Kompany has different groups of players play each other wearing different colored training bibs.
- Harry Kane, Michael Olise, Jamal Musiala, and Serge Gnabry all wore orange bibs as they faced off against a group of defenders.
- On the other hand, Kingsley Coman, Thomas Müller, and Leroy Sané played in a different group while wearing blue bibs.
- Assuming what Bild saw isn’t some 300IQ gambit by Kompany to confuse onlookers, we can safely assume the orange crew will start against Leverkusen on Saturday, with the blue crew left feeling blue on the bench.
Funnily enough, this is pretty much exactly what we predicted on our recent podcast episode, which you can listen to below or on Spotify.
In fact, there’s a lot more that CAN be said about Kompany’s lineup choices, including the question of the midfield (should João Palhinha start?) and who should play at right-back. We covered all of that and more (including an in-depth dive into the differences between Kompany and Tuchel’s approaches to football) in the episode above. Give it a listen if you’re interested, and let us know what sort of XI you’d like to see on Saturday.
In the meantime, Bayern Munich might want to beef up security around the Säbener Straße on closed training days. If opposition teams are going to get inside intel on lineups and tactics, let them work for it — a cursory glance at Bild’s website shouldn’t be enough to sus out these details. It wasn’t even behind a paywall!
