Bayern Munich on the international stage: England vs. Germany

While breaking again for the sake of international friendlies seems unnecessary and risky, England and Germany is — on paper — a fairly high-profile fixture. The match, however, ultimately played out to relatively dull 0-0 draw in London.

Bayern Munich once again break and report to their respective national teams for duty. Given World Cup qualifying has passed, various nations are breaking to play friendlies.  With that context in mind, Joachim Low’s XI was mainly composed of promising youth players. Players like Manuel Neuer and Thomas Muller were naturally forced to sit this out due to injury, but other big names also remained either sidelined or with their club.

Jerome Boateng also rested this match for precautionary measures. Low took this opportunity to deploy an experimental formation as well. However, the match ended with not much to raise eyebrows about.

Promising first-half

Bayern Munich, given the circumstances, didn’t feature many of their players on the pitch in London. Over the course of the 90 minutes plus added timebb there were three Bayern representatives. Mats Hummels started as the main rock in a three-man lineup of center-backs. Joshua Kimmich, meanwhile, played as a right-wing-back in an experimental 3-4-3 formation by Joachim Low. Sebastian Rudy came on as a sub for Ilkay Gundogan towards the end of the match.

The game started in a generally contested manner. Both Germany and England had some half-chances following defensive errors on either end. In the end, Marc-Andre ter Stegan and Jordan Pickford proved up to the task. The two keepers were the few standout performers, both earning their clean sheets.

Leroy Sane of Manchester City was definitely one of the select few head-turners. The former Schalke man has been lighting up the Premier League with his performances. The youngster was left open at the edge of the box by the England defense, and his resulting curled shot painfully rattled off the crossbar and out. Tammy Abraham later nearly got the better of Antonio Rudiger and put his nation up, but was denied by a last-ditch block by the Chelsea defender.

All-in-all the first-half was a good end-to-end contest. However, that was about the end of the excitement for the most part. Timo Werner, Leroy Sane and Julian Draxler soon after all failed to capitalize on what nearly was the opening goal.

Germany dull offensively in the second-half

The second-half saw Germany largely take control of the game possession-wise. The German attackers, however, were static and didn’t inspire any creativity. England and their offensive line were arguably the more productive side going forward. Jamie Vardy and co. did occasionally make their presence known, but the German defense and ter Stegan were mostly organized.

In the end, England and Germany both played to levels that cancelled each other out. John Stones and Harry Maguire were well structured to their credit, along with the rest of the England defense. This made the Germany attack rather harmless and frustrated.

Germany, in the end, lacked the creative spark and showed too much complacency in attack to break through.

Mats Hummels again the star of the XI

While there’s nothing noteworthy offensively — besides Leroy Sane — the defense was generally up to standards. A young back-line including Matthias Ginter and Antonio Rudiger largely showed up when needed. Yet again though, Mats Hummels provided the commanding veteran presence in the middle of it.

Hummels bossed the defense with crucial crunching tackles, interceptions, blocks, you name it. Given that this boiled down to who had the best defensive display, Mats Hummels was surely the stand-out.

Next: Bayern Munich sporting director backs Matthaus

At the end of the day, the biggest highlight was an international match without any injured Bayern Munich players. It was a fair result for both sides. The only hope now is for Germany to end the break free from injuries on Tuesday back on domestic soil against France.