Will Bayern be better by Leipz and bounds?

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This article was published 07/02/2020 (2377 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

What will it take to bring down Bayern Munich? Not since 2012 has a Bundesliga team sufficiently answered the question. The 2013 retirement of Jupp Heynckes briefly reopened the matter, but then the Bavarian giants hired Pep Guardiola. A year later Toni Kroos and Mario Mandzukic left for Madrid (Kroos to Real and Mandzukic to Atletico), but the club brought in Robert Lewandowski and Xabi Alonso.

More recently, Arjen Robben’s retirement ahead of this season and Franck Ribery’s move to Fiorentina seemed sure to finally and seriously re-launch the inquiry, but Serge Gnabry, Robben’s replacement, went and won Player of the Month for October and a 31-year-old Lewandowski decided now was the time to hit a record goal-scoring pace. On Feb. 1 his 35th tally helped Bayern to a 3-1 win at Mainz and first place in the division.

And so the question remains: What will it take?

For much of the campaign it’s looked as though RB Leipzig might just have the answer. Innovative in their approach and irresistible in attack, the unpopular upstarts led the German top flight in August and September and again from December until last weekend, when they dropped a pair of crucial points in a 2-2 home draw with fellow contenders Borussia Monchengladbach.

It was a result bookended by defeats at Eintracht Frankfurt — one in the league and one in the DFB-Pokal. The former, in late January, will have hurt the most, as manager Julian Nagelsmann rotated his side in the cup. Such has been his, and the club’s, obsession with winning the title this spring. They can still do it, and a win on Sunday would be a big help. Given that it just so happens to be a match against Bayern (11 a.m., Sportsnet World), it could even be vital.

“Duel of the offensive giants” is how German magazine Kicker has styled the top-of-the-table showdown. Leipzig can only hope the headline proves at least somewhat prophetic. Yes, they’ve scored 53 Bundesliga goals this term — only Bayern and Borussia Dortmund have managed more — but they’ve yet to find the back of the net at Allianz-Arena, and Bayern barely concede a goal per game.

They can, however, take encouragement from their only other meeting this season — a 1-1 draw at Red Bull Arena back in September.

Lewandowski, not surprisingly, opened the scoring for the guests after capitalizing on a mistake in the third minute of that encounter, but after Emile Forsberg’s penalty conversion in first-half stoppage time the hosts gave as good as they got. Nagelsmann’s half-time shift from a back five to a back four was key, and he’ll no doubt take that lesson into Sunday. Bayern have won seven matches on the bounce and are as confident as they’ve been all season. Leipzig will need that extra midfielder to sufficiently press them high up the pitch as they like to do.

The goal-scoring battle between Lewandowski and Timo Werner will provide a high-profile subtext to the match.

With 22 Bundesliga goals to date, Lewandowski’s return from 20 matches is Germany’s best since Gerd Muller was popping them in for fun. Werner, for his part, has scored 20 but has also contributed seven assists. At 23, he is not only one of Europe’s top young strikers but one of its top strikers, period, and he may well leave Leipzig in the summer. So he won’t be lacking for motivation. What better time to score his first goal at the Allianz.

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Both teams will also be wary of those others just below them in the standings. With a win at Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund could move from third place to second; but Leverkusen, presently fifth, could pull to within two points of Dortmund with a win on their own patch. Monchengladbach, at home to FC Koln, will vault from fourth to second with a victory coupled with Leipzig and Dortmund defeats.

This is the best Bundesliga title race in quite some time, but Bayern, predictably, are best-positioned for now. Leipzig could pose some questions of their own with a historic win over the record champions, but there remains one that neither they nor any other team have been able to answer in nearly a decade: What will it take to beat Bayern?

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