Carlo Ancelotti got his first dose of defeat with Bayern Munich after his team failed to find the back of the net on Wednesday against Atletico Madrid. The German giants lost 1-0.
Champions League Matchday 2 was fraught with disappoint for Bayern Munich. Aftering opening Champions League play with a strong and decisive win against the Russian Rostov FC, Bayern Munich was hoping to continue their good form as they traveled to Madrid to play a known foe.
One of the biggest takeaways from this match was Bayern Munich’s occasional and uncharacteristically sloppy play. This is highlighted by the truly atrocious error that led to Atletico being awarded a penalty kick and dangerous free kick in back to back plays.
Arturo Vidal recklessly, and quite stupidly, challenged Filipe Luis inside the penalty box, seeming completely uninterested in playing the ball. This challenge happen not less than 10 yards away from the referee, who promptly called a penalty kick for Atletico.
This is where play goes from sloppy to almost ametuer. Atletico’s Antoine Griezmann stepped up to take the penalty kick with the hopes of putting his team up decisively over the visitors. Instead, he hit the crossbar. While this sounds all well and good for Bayern, Griezmann’s miss inadvertently set up another prime set piece because as Artuto Vidal raced outside the box for the rebound, he foolishly and recklessly collided with Saul. This earned Vidal a yellow card, which was fortunately the only was he was shown in this match.
If Bayern Munich wants to progress in the Champions League, they have to find ways to beat strong opponents decisively. While Carlo Ancelotti will certainly bring experience and expertise to the team as they attempted to make this year end with hardware, the Bayern boys need to finish against good opponents when they have the opportunity, which they failed to do in this match.
While getting cut during the group stage is not a concern at this point for Bayern, they need to acquire decisive wins that help build confidence and experience as they hopefully move through later stages of the tournament.