It wouldn’t be a football game at Lambeau Field (boo) without some July storms. As a lifelong Midwesterner, I kind of chuckled when I saw the game date, given the notoriety of these storms during what is one of the wettest seasons of the year.
I mean, they’ve had weeks of extreme weather forecasts and they could have done anything to push the start time up, but as the old adage goes, “if you play with fire, you might get burned.”
Although the game was supposed to have started at 18:00 CT, it took until 19:25 CT to get past the twelfth minute as a sporadic warning of thunder sent players and fans scrambling for cover.
Bayern dominate early but Manchester City take the lead
Bayern were the better team in the first 12 minutes until stoppage time, and although the score reads 1-0 to Manchester City, it should be 1-1 with a good build-up and a goal from Serge Gnabry and Thomas Müller, but the referees were wrong. he called them offside. Just before the second lightning delay, Erling Haaland and Jack Grealish combined to score Haaland’s first goal as a Manchester City player.
The best part of Bayern’s game took place before the lightning delay. Once the shortened game resumed, Bayern looked to be a clear step away from Manchester City. Why in the end remains to be seen.
Office problems
Well, not to completely write off America’s #2 professional soccer league, but if that’s the best the USL can offer officials, then yes. Like, I’m sorry. This should be at least an MLS referee. This was more or less incompetent and embarrassing for the biggest European party in the US this year. Five bookings in a friendly is not a good sign either. This was a horribly refereed game with fouls being called when they shouldn’t have been called, and fouls being ignored when they should have been called. Not to mention Bayern were knocked out of the lead by a clearly incorrect offside decision. The next time elite European teams come to the United States, do better.
Nagelsmann has work to do
Look, I’ll be out in the open with the fact that I strongly believe that Julian Nagelsmann has what it takes to be an elite manager in Europe. If you ask anyone on the BFW Slack channel (Howdy Teddy and INNN) they’ll tell you that I’m probably the biggest Nagelsmann apologist on the chat.
That said, it needs work. First, you need to decide on your preferred starting XI and stick with it. You should also find out as soon as possible what the training will be. I know he really likes a back-3 (as do I) but he has to pick it and stick with it. With Bayern having so many new additions, especially those expected to be senior players this season, Nagelsmann has to figure out the best combination. Bayern were thoroughly dominated by Manchester City (albeit in a random and pointless friendly).
Bayern saw plenty of positives tonight, especially from Kingsley Coman, Marcel Sabitzer and Dayot Upamecano. But we also saw some concerns, including Joshua Kimmich’s recurring inability to recapture his pre-Covid form and massive problems in attack following Lewandowski. How Nagelsmann will tackle remains to be determined, but early signs show that new additions Sadio Mané and Matthijs de Ligt will play a big part in that.