Bayern Munich make solid case for defence under coach Vincent Kompany
Teamwork makes the dream work, so the saying goes, and at Bayern Munich they are living by that maxim as improvements in defensive solidity continue under coach Vincent Kompany.
Racking up five successive clean sheets across all competitions since a 4-1 blip at Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League proves that Kompany's men were keen to learn from a stinging experience in the Catalan capital.
Sure enough, the Bavarians subsequently got down to business at the training ground and ironed out some creases that resulted in shutouts against Bochum, Mainz, Union Berlin, Benfica and St. Pauli.
“It’s not like it’s just the back four working for it, but the whole team works off the ball," Joshua Kimmich explained, in quotes appearing on Bayern's official website. "At the end of the day, that brings us clean sheets but also dominance with the ball. You can see everyone’s working together, that everyone’s hungry to defend our goal."
The stats back up the 29-year-old's words. Bayern broke new ground by only allowing 49 shots on their goal in the first nine games this Bundesliga season, the lowest total of any team since data began being recorded back in 1993/94. They then limited St. Pauli to just three shots - and none on target - in front of their passionate fans.
Bayern's current run of four Bundesliga games without conceding, meanwhile, was last seen back in December 2018. Add in all competitions and it's five without concession.
"There was some criticism of our style of play," said Thomas Müller in reference to the reaction to Bayern's previous defensive fallibility. "But I think, on the whole, everyone who's watched us a bit can see that it's very effective what we're doing, especially off the ball."
Watch: Bayern made it five clean sheets in a row when beating St. Pauli on Matchday 10
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“We never said that we don’t learn from mistakes that happened or from the games we’ve played," board member for sport Max Eberl added on fcbayern.com. "Obviously we look at it all; [the coach] and his backroom staff do so very intensively."
That studious approach has seen Bayern decrease the amount of big chances afforded to opposition teams from eight across the first six matchdays to just one in the four games from matchdays 7 to 10. The side's xGoals concession rate has also dropped from 5.2 (0.87 per game) to just 1.28 (0.32 per game) over the same period.
Perhaps even more notable, though, is the fact that the Bavarians haven't allowed opponents a single shot on goal as a result of a counter over those four games, compared to the three goals they conceded on the break (from seven such attempts) in the first six matches - only bottom side Bochum let in more.
Much has been made of Bayern's goalscoring exploits this term, and for good reason with a full 33 strikes from their opening 10 matches. Yet as much credit as the team's forwards deserve, the defenders, too, have rightly come in for praise as their confidence and understanding of the coach's instructions grow and their respective performances continue to improve. To flourish up front, Bayern need solidity at the back, and they have worked on a previous susceptibility to counter-attacks while looking to form a tighter unit all the while.
Watch: Bayern's Manuel Neuer outlines Vincent Kompany's approach at the start of the season
Dayot Upamecano and Minjae Kim have been ever-present in Kompany's central-defensive set-up in the Bundesliga this season, and although both took a little time to find their feet together in 2024/25, things are working out better for the pair as each game passes.
“It's quite something that they're defending with such a huge space behind them," Kimmich explained. "Obviously we always try to support them, but it really helps us that both have great speed, that both are very strong in challenges. Both are making really clever decisions in their duels with opponents, and that really helps us with confidence."
In Kompany's tighter approach, the average distance between players has dropped to 21.5 metres over Bundesliga matchdays 8 and 9 from 22.4 metres in the first six.
After the 1-0 victory over Benfica, Upamecano said, "Everyone wants to keep a clean sheet together, everyone wants to win together. This is how we have to keep going." The France international won six out of 10 tackles during the victory against the Portuguese side and boasted a 97 percent successful pass rate. Kim fared even better, with a 100 percent pass rate and winning 78 percent of his duels.
“I’ve always seen him as a monster in challenges but he’s also made progress with the ball at his feet," Kimmich said of the Korean. "You can see that he understands the coach’s ideas and wants to implement them.”
St. Pauli's Millerntor has generally been a happy hunting ground for Bayern in the past and the Bavarians succeeded in making it four consecutive Bundesliga games without concession for the first time since 2018, a feat neither Hansi Flick, Julian Nagelsmann nor Thomas Tuchel managed before Kompany's arrival at the helm.
With Augsburg visiting Munich when the Bundesliga resumes after the international break on Friday, 22 November, there is every chance Bayern's brilliant backline nail yet another clean sheet on Matchday 11 to add to their increasingly impressive collection.
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