Four takeaways as Bayern Munich book place in DFB Pokal final

Fatigue is starting to affect Bayern Munich players

The issue with Bayern the past two seasons is that they have fallen behind in the Bundesliga title race in the fall and have to play catch up in the spring. On both occasions, managers needed time to find their best starting XI. What this means is that there is a lack of rotation, and when there is a lack of rotation, fatigue quickly starts to affect the team, especially when there is a packed schedule.

Several times on Wednesday, Bayern players looked slow to react on the pitch, and especially in the second half, did not look up to finishing the match. Die Roten speedster Alphonso Davies, who has been an every match starter under Flick, started to lose foot races that he would normally win comfortably. Leon Goretzka looked a little sluggish towards the end before getting substituted off, and Joshua Kimmich once again played full 90 minutes.

Bayern have a fairly small size with a lot of youth players on the bench. In an ideal scenario, youth players will get a lot of playing time due to the number of matches in a season. The downside is that Die Roten play close to 50 games a season, and if there isn’t a lot of rotation, those main players will fatigue, especially at the end of a season. And when there is a midweek game, sometimes this can become overly obvious.

With the season and title almost wrapped up, Flick should start implementing rotation into the starting lineup more often. There are some injuries to first-team regulars like Niklas Sule, Philippe Coutinho, and Corentin Tolisso, but that doesn’t mean that rotation is out of the question. Flick needs to work on this if Die Rotenare to seriously contend on all three fronts for next season.