Nagelsmann’s plan
Robert Lewandowski’s departure from Bayern Munich marked the end of one of the most prolific Bundesliga careers ever witnessed. The Poland captain has left the Bundesliga just 53 goals away from Gerd Muller’s record of 365 strikes, having played 43 less fixtures. However the former Dortmund and Bayern Munich striker departs as the runaway all-time top foreign goalscorer. His 312 goals are 224 greater than Andrej Kramaric the next active non-German on this list.
For most clubs filling the void of a 40+ goal per season striker is an unfathomable ask. Thankfully for Germany’s ‘Rekordmeister’ the Bavarian giants aren’t like most clubs. Last season, in 34-year-old manager Julian Nagelsmann’s maiden campaign, Bayern clinched their 10th consecutive league, 32nd overall. Once again, for the 5th year in a row, Lewandowski led the league in goals scored, with his 35 goals guiding Nagelsmann to a first major trophy.
Don’t doubt that there was a severe reluctance to allow Lewandowski to join Barcelona, there was, but in a little over a month the Polish forward will be 34-years-old. £40.5million was too large a fee to knock back given the striker’s age. Understandably there are apprehensive Munich natives. Largely the older generation, who have become far too accustomed to an in-and-out striker, fox in the box number 9. From Gerd Muller in the 60s/70s, Karl-Heinz Rummenigge in the 80s, Giovane Elber in the late 90s/00s, Luca Toni in the 00s, Mario Gomez in the 10s and Lewandowski himself since 2014. Munich football fans have been spoilt perhaps more than any other European super club in this position.
Bayern have always had their superstar number 9, but when Julian Nagelsmann was appointed the head coach of the club at just 33-years-old for a managerial world record fee of £25million Euros, it became clear that the club would sooner or later adopt his managerial philosophy.
Nagelsmann’s philosophy is based largely on the German tactic gegenpressing for which ex-Manchester United and Leipzig boss Ralf Rangnick is credited with inventing. Rangnick’s influence has inspired some of Germany’s greatest coaches, as well as Nagelsmann, Chelsea’s Thomas Tuchel and Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp have both implemented this method leading each coach to a Champions League title.
Nagelsmann’s new look Bayern:
Yes he’ll miss the convenience of a guaranteed goal machine in Robert Lewandowski but Julian Nagelsmann’s managerial style doesn’t rely on a traditional centre forward as the Bavarian giants so often have. Fitness is perhaps the most crucial attribute that a Nagelsmann side requires to click. Gegenpressing relies on the team pressing each opposing player immediately after losing possession. It translates into ‘counter-pressing’ and requires your players to press the opposition as high up the field as possible, preferably in their own half to force mistakes or force a quick change in possession. The translation to ‘counter-pressing’ tells you exactly how this should look. When ‘counter’ attacking you flood the opponents with many squad members pressing up the pitch to try and give yourself a numerical advantage to trouble the opponents. The ‘counter-pressing’ is similar in that you need to flood the opposition again, but to try and regain possession. The movements in a counter press and counter attack look very similar.
Nagelsmann’s approach begins in a 5-2-3 formation but this is far from straight forward. The formation shifts depending on who is in possession and whether or not his side are defending or attacking.
This is a common starting formation of a Nagelsmann side during his time at Leipzig and occasionally during his Hoffenheim tenure, but with his Bayern boys for the upcoming season. The three central defenders circled in red seldom venture forward and the positional choice of the three is also key. Lucas Hernandez will likely feature as the left centre back as a versatile central defender and full back. This is because when Nagelsmann urges his wing backs to press down the wings the two wider centre backs can drift out wide to become a back 3 with Hernandez (or Halstenberg at Leipzig) the left back/centre back and likely Dayot Upamecano as the right sided centre back/right back and De Ligt in the centre. As mentioned Davies (a converted winger originally) and Mazraoui will effectively transform into wingers when Bayern, as they often do as the top dogs in the Bundesliga, bare their teeth and attack at will.
Kimmich and Goretzka are circled as they will have their own half of the midfield to marshal, something both are highly capable of doing. It may be interesting to see whether Nagelsmann opts to mimic his Bayern predecessor Hansi Flick’s use of Kimmich at Euro 2020 and deploy him as the right wing back given his experience at the full back position and danger creeping into the penalty area. Although if Nagelsmann plans on experimenting with this approach he will likely need to wait a couple of months after Leon Goretzka was recently ruled out for at least six weeks and the lack of cover in the centre of the pitch may restrict experimenting. Marcel Sabitzer, Jamal Musiala and newcomer Ryan Gravenberch could fill in for Kimmich but it’s unlikely Nagelsmann will force one of the most influential midfielders in Europe out at full back.
Thomas Muller looks poised to keep his role as the headless chicken of the side by executing his Duracell bunny nature in the attacking midfield role. In a sort of mock false 9 role Muller, a nag lover in his down time, is the work horse within the Bayern camp. With the wing backs pressing forward to create chances from out wide the original wingers Sadio Mane (as of this season) and Serge Gnabry can squeeze in to fill in as strike partners. This allows Muller to continue filling in his utility role, sitting back to help spread passes around, creeping into the box as a capable goal poacher, or drifting wide between the wing backs and the wingers-turned-strikers to help create chances. Thomas Muller has been the heartbeat of the Bayern Munich side for several years and in Lewandowski’s absence his influence may be more vital now than ever before to connect the dots.
On the attack: When in possession this is a very common formation for a Nagelsmann side. Green arrows mark the runs/paths which the wing backs, Davies and Mazraoui, will make. The red circle and arrowsare the defensive structure left over as a result of the high pressing wing backs. Hernandez and Upamecano spread wider to compensate for the lack of left and right backs respectively. Bayern are now essentially in a back three.
In the middle of the pitch Kimmich and Goretzka will literally go with the flow. When Bayern press they too shall push on should it not leave their defenders more vulnerable. They would do so in turns unless the opportunity for both to creep forward presents itself on the rare occasion.
The black target symbols show how Mane and Gnabry will step forward into a strikers position where they will provide the largest goal threat. The blue lines stemming out of Muller, forward and either side of him indicate the runs he could make when Bayern are on the front foot, or similarly the areas he might look to thread passes into as one of the league’s most creative individuals.
Whilst defending: In the rarer occasions, domestically anyway, when Bayern have their backs against the wall defending this is the type of shape that puts a grin on Julian Nagelsmann’s face. The red circle and arrows, which had previously incorporated just three defenders, now include all five defenders on the field. The red crosses seen show the very narrow pockets of space now available to the opposition as a result of a more stubborn back five. Davies and Mazraoui may remain slightly further forward than the three central defenders so the back five is not a straight line which would be easier for the opposing team to exploit and get in behind.
In a not too dissimilar way in which Pep Guardiola insisted on enforcing triangles into Barcelona’s passing game when he unleashed tiki-taka on the world during his early Barcelona days, the defensive aspect of gegenpressing follows the pattern when defending and attempting to regain the ball. With oppositions attacking down Bayern’s right flank you can picture the sort of pressing triangle that Davies, Hernandez and Goretzka could structure to pile pressure on the ball carrier. The same can be said across the pitch as the back five, and two box-to-box midfielders, form a pyramid shape which can easily be broken down into triangular shapes to assist with the gegenpress.
Mane and Gnabry will continue to monitor the wings, their natural shape, in the hope that Bayern’s high press pays off and they can be released down the wing to cause havoc. Once again Muller is the sort of free roam he performs so flawlessly, however with such an influx of personnel pressing, and looking to earn the ball back, he can relax ever so slightly in the false 9 role again waiting to either break forward or collect the ball deep and distribute an attack.
No Lewa no problem:
Robert Lewandowski was controversially robbed of a Ballon d’Or following the award’s cancellation during the first COVID struck campaign. As Bayern added another treble to their illustrious history books Lewandowski was sure to break the La Liga trend of Ballon d’Or recipients. So it does sound mad to be so calm about his departure. But Bayern really needn’t stress.
Nagelsmann’s philosophy worked incredibly smoothly at Hoffenheim and Leipzig. In Nagelsmann’s first season in charge of Hoffenheim he clinched 4th spot in the Bundesliga and a Champions League qualifier for the first time in club history. One year later, 2017/18, he went one better and finished 3rd taking the club into its maiden Champions League Group Stage. In his first year in Leipzig Nagelsmann also steered the club to their greatest Champions League berth, a semi-final, the Red Bulls had never progressed out of the group stage previously. His second, and final campaign with Leipzig, Nagelsmann reached the Round of 16 in the Champions League falling to Klopp’s Liverpool, and also collected a runners up medal in the DFB Pokal Final losing out to Borussia Dortmund. Yet he did lead Leipzig to 2nd place, 13 points off of Bayern Munich, the club’s highest ever finish. Now with a higher standard of personnel it feels like he can finally add honours to the kudos he’s received for his application of tactics.
Julian Nagelsmann has built teams on the gegenpressing philosophy and on the trust in a variety of goal scorers, versatile players and a strong youth system.
In the table above you can see just how much faith Nagelsmann places in the future generation. His oldest teams have never exceeded the 6th youngest squads in the league with his two oldest sides coming in his first year in charge of Hoffenheim and Bayern Munich respectively. This shows that even his most seasoned of squads have been via teams he has immediately inherited. Once Nagelsmann gets his say the youth crops up far more frequently. For four years, between 2017/18 and 2020/21, only RB Leipzig in 2018/19 had a younger group of players than Nagelsmann.
Youth is one of the key components to the gegenpress alongside a wide range of goal scorers and playmakers. That second part of the gegenpress plan is something else Nagelsmann’s sides have historically excelled at. In the 2020/21 season only Eintracht Frankfurt (17) and Borussia Dortmund (18) had more different goal scorers in the Bundesliga than Nagelsmann’s RB Leipzig. But whilst Frankfurt and Dortmund could boast a double digit goalscorer, unlike Leipzig, the Red Bulls had 6 different players with 5 or more goals compared to Frankfurt’s 2 and Dortmund’s 5. Then rewind to the 2017/18 season, in his second season at Hoffenheim, it was Nagelsmann’s turn to flaunt more double digit goal scorers than anyone else. Hoffenheim had 3 players with over 10 league goals, the most in the league, more than Bayern’s 1, Dortmund’s 1, or Hertha and Augsburg who came closer with 2.
With a wide variety of personnel capable of finding the back of the net this reduces the dependence on the workload of one man for the squad.
In short, it’s tempting to declare ‘No Lewandowski, no party’, which I do believe is a fair prediction in the long run. We’ve watched the Polish star light the Bundesliga for close to a decade so it is a sore loss for our viewing pleasure. But now it feels as though the torch has been passed. The Julian Nagelsmann era is truly underway. Bayern have already monopolised German football but now Nagelsmann is looking to conquer Europe.
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