After a couple of setbacks in the Bundesliga, Bayern Munich have bounced back well in the last few days. They got back to winning ways in the league with a 5-1 win against Hoffenheim on Sunday, while their DFB Pokal run was extended to the semi-final on Wednesday with a 2-0 win against RB Leipzig.
Vincent Kompany was able to hand starts to most of their key players against RB Leipzig since he brought them off early in the second half against Hoffenheim. The Belgian coach preferred Josip Stanisic over Konrad Laimer in the right-back position. The Austrian midfielder has just returned to action after a brief injury lay-off.
Despite the dominance shown by Bayern in the recent games against them, RB Leipzig were the better side in the early exchanges on Wednesday. The visitors had the ball in the net through Christoph Baumgartner in the fourth minute, but the Austrian midfielder was marginally offside when the ball left the feet of Yan Diomande.
Die Roten woke up after RB Leipzig’s disallowed goal to gain control of the game. The hosts dominated the possession and started creating chances in the final third. Harry Kane came close in the couple of occasions, but his attempts were either saved off the line or he narrowly missed the target. Kompany’s men were linking up brilliantly in the final third to cause all sorts of problems for Leipzig’s defense.
RB Leipzig’s next big chance came in the 37th minute when David Raum’s ferocious strike from an acute angle was saved by Manuel Neuer. Baumgartner played a clever dinking pass to find the run of Raum in the box.
Bayern got even better in the second half
The home side stepped up in the second half and got better with their usage of the ball in the final third. They created an xG of 2.40 in the second half, which was more than thrice the first half (0.70).
Die Roten moved the ball better along the ground and also went direct whenever needed. A swift move after the hour mark, so Josip Stanisic makes a sublime run on the right flank. The Croatian defender was brought down by the on-rushing Maarten Vandevoordt. Kane made no mistakes in converting from the spot and giving Die Roten a much-deserved lead.
The game was put beyond RB Leipzig a few minutes later as Michael Olise played a terrific first-time aerial pass from the right flank to find the run of Luis Diaz from a central area of the pitch. The Colombian expertly poked the ball past the goalkeeper and doubled Die Roten’s lead in the game.
Alphonso Davies and Michael Olise also had terrific chances to get on the scoresheet, but they narrowly missed their targets.
Kompany will be pleased to see how Bayern fared against a difficult opposition in the DFB Pokal. His men delivered a complete performance on Wednesday and also kept a clean sheet. The Bavarian faithful will hope that the win against Leipzig is the start of another long winning run during the final three months of the season.
Stats courtesy- Fotmob