Bayern Munich looked at their supreme best on Tuesday as they coasted to a comfortable 3-0 win against Barcelona in the opening group game of the Champions League. The Catalan club is in transition after losing Lionel Messi in the summer, but Die Roten deserves plaudits for dominating the game at Camp Nou.
Thomas Muller opened the scoring with a deflection, but the visitors deserved the lead as they had pinned Barcelona back in their half. The second half can be well described as one-way traffic as Robert Lewandowski grabbed a brace to complete a commanding victory.
Along with the exploits from the attack, the defensive unit of Die Roten was also right on the money. The visitors reduced Barcelona to zero shots on target as Manuel Neuer was a mere spectator for the majority of the game.
Despite the nature of victory, Julian Nagelsmann believes that there is a long way to go before Die Roten are considered as favourites to lift the European title. While speaking to media on Tuesday (via Bundesliga.com), Nagelsmann insisted that consistent improvement is key to go deep in the Champions League.
"“If we always play like that and keep improving, we’re one of the favourites,”“We could have created more chances when we had the ball. Overall, we had too few clear-cut opportunities given our dominance. In the second half, we were more stable and defended a bit deeper.”"
Die Roten has sent a good statement to all top clubs with a victory against Barcelona on the first matchday of the Champions League. The German club should be finishing top of the group after getting over this tough clash with three points. Rekordmeister will be served better by taking one game at a time since things can change very quickly in the Champions League.
Along with consistency and improvement in performances, Die Roten will also need a little bit of luck in terms of injuries during the crucial knockout stages of the Champions League. They were without Robert Lewandowski last season for the crucial quarter-final clash against PSG. The French club went on to progress to the next round on away goals.
Having the entire squad available during the second half of the season will be crucial for Rekordmeister to go deep in the competition. The bigger the squad during the knockout games, the more tactical flexibility Nagelsmann will have against some of the best clubs in Europe.
Nagelsmann has enjoyed a solid start to his time at Bayern. The German manager has enjoyed an unbeaten start to the campaign with the draw away at Monchengladbach in the Bundesliga as the only negative result this season. The team is slowly getting adapted to the methods of the young German manager. The recent performances have been impressive, but the best is yet to come for Die Roten under Nagelsmann.