Borussia Mönchengladbach – Bayern Munich: Trademark Transitions Inspire Fohlen Fightback (3-2)

Gladbach have beaten Hansi Flick’s Bayern Munich again. Coming from two goals down, their elite transitional play exposed continuous defensive issues on the right, as Jonas Hofmann ran riot with his diagonal movements down the channel. 
Tactical analysis and match report by Joel Parker.

Before the Bundesliga marketing department created Der Klassiker, the original big game of German football was played between Borussia Mönchengladbach and Bayern Munich.

The development Gladbach have gone through under Marco Rose means this fixture is holding its weight again, even if recent results in the Bundesliga have not seen them assert their top four position. Gladbach did not win a game in December, even though they did qualify for the Champions League knockout stages in the process. Rose’s team returned from a short winter break to beat Armina Bielefeld, but with an increasingly difficult fixture list within the next few months, Gladbach have a big fight on their hands.

The winter break could not have come quick enough for a tired Bayern. They may still be top, prior to this game, but the bear had to be provoked in order to get a reaction. They conceded first against VfL Wolfsburg and won, they conceded first against Bayer Leverkusen and won, they conceded twice in their most recent game, before mauling Mainz in the second half.

Rose made two changes from the win at Bielefeld, Ramy Bensebaini coming in at fullback for Oscar Wendt, whilst Denis Zakaria replaced Patrick Herrmann in midfield. Hansi Flick made three changes to his team, with Jérôme Boateng, Corentin . . .