Bayern Munich had to have a new beginning after a first trophyless season since 2012 last term. With Vincent Kompany coming in as a young and largely untested coach, certainly at a high-stress environment like the Bayern hot seat, people didn\u2019t know what to expect. In the end, the side finished well on top of the Bundesliga, while for the fourth time in five seasons, they exited the Champions League at the quarterfinal stage and unluckily crashed out of the German Cup at the Round of 16 stage. In this piece, Last Word on Football brings you our Bayern Munich season review of what was a good season with ups and downs.<\/p>\n
After finishing third last season and underperforming domestically in a historic fashion,\u00a0 the most important thing was to bring the Bundesliga trophy, the Meisterschale, back to Munich, the place where Bayern\u00a0fans and club officials alike think it belongs.<\/p>\n
The team managed to do that, and indeed spectacularly so. In the 34-game-season, Kompany\u2019s side earned 82 points, with 25 victories, seven draws, and only two defeats. They scored a remarkable 99 goals in the process and conceded 32, both of which were the highest in the league.<\/p>\n
Also amazingly, this term, they went without losing a single league game to a fellow traditional heavyweight of German football. Instead, they only lost to surprise sixth-place finishers Mainz 05 and the now-relegated VfL Bochum.<\/p>\n
The 82 points were a full ten points more than last season under Thomas Tuchel. That type of improvement was what the team needed to retake the title.<\/p>\n
Read More:An Analysis on Whether Vincent Kompany Was An Upgrade on Thomas Tuchel for Bayern Munich<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Yet, it wasn\u2019t all rosy this term, not even in the Bundesliga alone. There were still too many unnecessary goals conceded. Whenever the press asked Kompany about that, he correctly pointed to the fact that, as we have noted above, they still had the best defence in the country.<\/p>\n But, fairly or not, Bayern are always held to a different standard than any other Bundesliga team. One of the low points in the league was a completely unnecessary 3-3 draw away to Eintracht Frankfurt early in the term. It was a match full of bad Bavarian defending.<\/p>\n Read More:An Analysis Of the Early Days Of Vincent Kompany At Bayern Munich<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Worst of all was the fact that they were pressing forward as a unit in the second half, added time, while 3-2 ahead, and ultimately didn\u2019t have enough players back to deal with a quick counter-attack and prevent the equaliser by now Manchester City player Omar Marmoush.<\/p>\n While they learnt from this particularly egregious mistake, a lack of concentration in defence is a theme that has ran throughout this season. In fact, months later, in a home game against relegated Holstein Kiel, Bayern were 4-0 up after less than an hour, before conceding three late goals that made the match interesting at the end.<\/p>\n Read More:Bayern Munich\u2019s Coaching Carousel: The Five Short-Term Coaches Since 2016<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n But Bayern\u2019s Bundesliga season was nonetheless very good, as the team jumped to the top of the league on Matchday 3, without ever relinquishing the lead again. That is truly exemplary, which cannot be said of the Bavarians\u2019 performances in the cup competitions overall.<\/p>\n Again, fairly or not, whether a Bayern Munich season review is positive or negative, it often hinges on the question of how the Champions League went. The new league phase format created a different kind of challenge for all teams in Europe\u2019s greatest club competition.<\/p>\n Unlike the last several seasons in the group stage, Bayern did not dominate the league phase. After eight matchdays, they finished in 12th place, although everything began on a high note, with a 9-2 demolition of Dinamo Zagreb. After that win, there were many comparisons made to similar recent Bayern results in the Champions League group stage.<\/p>\n Read More:What Bayern Munich Must Fix to Win in Europe \u2013 Opinion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Yet, things quickly went in a negative direction from there.\u00a0 They lost three games in the league phase, all of which were away from home. Bayern played na\u00efvely at times on their travels in Europe, always thinking that they should boss every game, particularly early on in the season.<\/p>\n Barcelona gave them a footballing lesson, showing them, that they couldn\u2019t go to the Catalan giants and dominate. Meanwhile, Aston Villa and Feyenoord just outsmarted them tactically, by beating them on the counterattack.<\/p>\n The team did adapt its high pressing style to a degree, proving that this season with a new coaching staff and its different philosophy, was a learning process for the side. The league phase wasn\u2019t all bad either, a 1-0 home win against eventual finalists PSG was one of the highlights in retrospect.<\/p>\n As noted above, they finished 12th with their five victories and three defeats, thus needing to play an extra round, in order to get to the last 16. The opponents were Celtic, the Bavarians won 2-1 in Scotland, before falling behind 1-0 at home and, ultimately, being rescued by a late equaliser from Alphonso Davies to win the tie 3-2.<\/p>\n In the round of 16, they won 5-0 on aggregate without much fuss, in an all-German encounter with Bayer Leverkusen.<\/p>\nChampions League<\/h3>\n