On Saturday evening, Bayern Munich visited Borussia-Park to take on the team sitting at the bottom of the Bundesliga standings-Borussia Monchengladbach.
The bottom dwellers were reduced to ten men after only 18 minutes of action when right-back Jens Castrop, following VAR review, was eventually shown the red card for a dangerous tackle on Luis Diaz.
Amazingly, despite playing a man down for the majority of the game, the home team managed to frustrate Bayern for over an hour. The Bundesliga leaders eventually wore down the opponents and took the lead through Joshua Kimmich in the 64th minute. Five minutes later, substitute Raphael Guerreiro scored the second, and in the 81st minute, another substitute, the now seemingly irrepressible Lennart Karl, struck with a beauty of a shot from long range to make it 3-0.
From a game in which Die Roten’s attack was surprisingly blunt in the first half, let’s take a look at three of the more effective players for Bayern Munich in Saturday’s victory.
Joshua Kimmich
During the first half, Bayern were unable to crack the Gladbach code. However, Joshua Kimmich showed how to do it midway through the second half when he smartly converted a cross from substitute Serge Gnabry, with his left foot, albeit after the initial attempt with his right foot was blocked.
Apart from scoring the all-important first goal, in the absence of Manuel Neuer, Bayern’s stand-in captain for the night had a fine all-round game. Kimmich found a teammate with 96% of his passes (105/109) and created two chances. Although Gladbach seldom threatened going forward, the 30-year-old midfielder was present defensively when required. He completed three recoveries and won his sole tackle.