Bayern yet to hit their stride this term

If you’d witnessed Bayern in training on Thursday and Friday, you’d have felt sorry for Werder Bremen. Miroslav Klose, Ivica Olic, Franck Ribéry and Co were hitting the target in warm-up games and shooting practice with unerring accuracy. Furthermore, Werder arrived in Munich with a makeshift defence. Most gamblers would have put money on a first FCB home win over Werder in almost five years.

As it turned out, the gamblers would have lost, as the encounter finished goalless. Munich had chances to win, especially in the second half of a match which generally lived up to its big-game billing. Afterwards, Louis van Gaal felt he had witnessed yet more evidence of a general truth, learned in 24 years as a coach: “You can’t train the taking of chances. You can only train creating chances by playing a certain way. And that’s exactly what we saw today.”