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DThe day that ended with good news for Bayern Munich had started with bad news. On Thursday morning, the sports broadcaster “Sky” reported that Thomas Müller had tested positive for Covid-19. The Bavarians confirmed this on Thursday afternoon and announced on their website that Müller had been “immediately isolated” and that he would “immediately go into quarantine” upon his arrival in Munich. They also announced that the rest of the team had been retested for the virus on Thursday. The result: no more positive results. That was the first good news.
Only hours later, Müller, who is doing well according to various media reports, had to watch his teammates win the Club World Cup at the Education City Stadium in Qatar. They won the final with a goal from Benjamin Pavard 1-0 against UANL Tigres de México. That was the second good news.
Flick change
In their short trip to Qatar, Bayern achieved what only the legendary FC Barcelona had before them: six titles in one year. He won an additional four million euros, but also the awareness that the so-called bubble “is obviously not invulnerable”, as Dagmar Freitag, president of the Bundestag sports committee, said in an interview with “Sky”. With Müller, the sixth Bayern professional has already been caught in the course of the season. Midfielders Leon Goretzka and Javi Martínez stayed in Munich due to corona infections.
Hansi Flick had to change his starting eleven again. The coach replaced Müller with Leroy Sané. In central defense, he sent Niklas Süle and Lucas Hernandez onto the field for David Alaba and Jérôme Boateng. The first, actually head of defense, moved to midfield, the second was missing for private reasons. This Bayern also controlled the game. Manuel Neuer only had to intervene once in the first half when he snatched the ball from Luis Quiñones (16).
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Tigres goalkeeper Nahuel Guzmán had to worry more. Twice he was a bit lucky that Robert Lewandowski (6th) and Alphonso Davies (24th) ruined the ball in a promising position. Once he was very lucky that Sané hit the outside post after a quick corner (34th). And he was once very lucky: When a long-distance shot from Joshua Kimmich flew into the goal, an offside position by Lewandowski, which had apparently irritated Guzmán, was subsequently determined by video evidence (20).
A one-sided duel
The duel between the European and North and Central American champions was one-sided, although there were no real opportunities. In Mexico, UANL Tigres is considered a strong team that lets the ball go. In Qatar, she was mainly behind this. Early in the second half, Quiñones accidentally tripped the ball out of bounds during a fast break.
You didn’t have to speak Spanish to understand that he was cursing. At minute 60, the video evidence was used a second time. But this time he did not save the Mexicans, on the contrary. His goalkeeper Guzmán had tried to get a cross pass from Kimmich in the air, but he miscalculated. Lewandowski headed him and right-back Benjamin Pavard just had to shoot the ball into the empty goal. The referees immediately called Lewandowski offside, but they had to correct themselves. After that, the outsiders should have attacked. They just couldn’t do it.
Hansi Flick saw it too. He dared to replace Lewandowski, Sané and Kingsley Coman all at once just 20 minutes before the end. In the 81st minute, Corentin Tolisso shot under Guzmán’s body and hit the post. In the 85th minute, a shot from Douglas Costa flew into Guzmán’s fists. It was already foreseeable that Tigres would probably not fight, but would at least win a title: with three goals, their forward André-Pierre Gignac became the top scorer of the tournament. The third place in this World Cup went to the Egyptian representative Al-Ahly, who won 3-2 on penalties at Palmeiras Sao Paulo of Brazil.
