Bayern Munich: Lessons learned from 1-0 loss against Aston Villa

On matchday two of the newly formatted European Champions League, Bayern Munich travelled to England to take on an Aston Villa side that finished fourth in the Premier League last season.

The Birmingham-based club was making a return to top-level European football for the first time in 41 years. However, roughly one year before that last appearance Villa won the Champions League trophy equivalent of that era, in 1982, with a 1-0 win in Rotterdam over none other than Bayern Munich in the final. Let us look at the lessons learned at Villa Park on Wednesday as history seemingly repeated itself with an identical scoreline to the one from 42 years ago.

Low-block defenses appear to be problem for Bayern to break down

On paper, the clash between Bayern Munich and Aston Villa was supposed to be a matchup between two teams that both prefer to adopt high defensive lines. However, from the first minute, only Bayern looked to play with their usual approach.

Following the 1-1 draw against Bayer Leverkusen on the weekend, this was the second consecutive game in which the Bavarians struggled to score despite dominating possession and outshooting their opponents. Similar to Bayer Leverkusen, Aston Villa decided against trading punches and it worked. It’s still early days yet so a loss on the road against a decent EPL side doesn’t spell disaster for Vincent Kompany and his team. With so much attacking talent at his disposal, no one should expect Kompany to abandon the high-line and gegenpressing tactics, but at the very least he has some adjustments to make when teams sit deep.