It took a spectacular effort from Aston Villa’s Jhon Durán, but there is now finally a proper blip in Vincent Kompany’s start to life as Bayern Munich manager. The 1-0 loss at Villa Park in the Champions League marks the first defeat of the season for the Rekordmeister across all competitions, following closely on the heels of a 1-1 draw with Bayer Leverkusen in the Bundesliga just a few days earlier. Bayern arguably deserved all three points against Die Werkself, but the same cannot really be said of their performance in Birmingham — Unai Emery’s side were the deserved winners.
Even so, there remains a positive atmosphere in the Bayern camp with how brightly Kompany’s tenure has begun, despite it being early days. A 9-2 win over Dinamo Zagreb, a 6-1 win over Holstein Kiel, and a 5-0 win over Werder Bremen have certainly helped boost spirits, but the trio of aforementioned sides are arguably less of a threat than this current Aston Villa team.
Former Bayern and Germany midfielder Lothar Matthäus recently expressed his delight with Bayern’s season thus far and made a bold comparison to the Pep Guardiola-era Bayern teams of the past. He suggested this side might even be better than those Guardiola teams that won a plethora of silverware, excluding the Champions League. However, former Bayern midfielder Toni Kroos feels that comparison might be premature.
“It’s still early in the season. It’s early October, and people are already going crazy again. Stop it. The season is four weeks old, and people are talking about Guardiola football and how everything looks better now, only to say at the end of October, after two bad games, that it looks like it did under… I don’t know, name someone. They’ve played three very good weeks, that’s correct. If they can do it against the strong teams, then I’d happily join in. But to say already it’s better than under Guardiola? You have to be careful,” Kroos recently explained on the podcast Einfach Mal Luppen (via @iMiaSanMia).
Photo by James Baylis – AMA/Getty Images
At face value, the recent Germany and Real Madrid retiree has a point. Against both Leverkusen and Villa, Bayern has a draw and a loss. These are the only stronger sides they have faced so far this season, without taking anything away from their other performances. You have to beat whoever is in front of you, and there are never any easy matches in any competition, whether it’s the Bundesliga, DFB-Pokal, or Champions League. Still, Kroos, who was deemed not worth the money by the Bayern front office at the time of his departure, is wary of anyone at the club getting too carried away.
The opportunities for Bayern to get Kroos on the hype train are there. Both before and shortly after the October international break, they face matches against Eintracht Frankfurt, VfB Stuttgart, and FC Barcelona, offering one of the more challenging stretches of the season.
Looking for some thoughts on the big Bayern Munich match against Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga? Great, we have you covered with our Bavarian Podcast Works — Preview Show. We cover the latest news on each team, their respective form, injury updates, a lineup projection, and a prediction on the match. The show is available on Patreon, Spotify, or below:
