After a relatively short night, Bayern got straight back onto the training pitch at Ajinomoto Field on Thursday morning. Coach Thomas Tuchel had already scheduled the next session to start around 12 hours after the final whistle of the Audi Football Summit against Manchester City. The boss had given each of his players a maximum of 45 minutes against the Cityzens at Japan's National Stadium the previous evening, so the squad was able to go all out again in training the next day - despite temperatures of over 35°C in the morning heat of Tokyo.
The somewhat unfortunate 2-1 defeat against the reigning Champions League winners didn't dampen the mood in the practice session, especially since Bayern had good reason to be satisfied with their performance. "There are things we can still improve on, but for the first game we played some decent football. There's a lot of things we can build on", was Jamal Musiala's apt analysis after the end of the game. If any thing could be criticised, it was the poor finishing against the Sky Blues.
Bayern hone their finishing skills
"We have to be more focused in front of goal," continued Musiala: "We'll work on that and practise shooting in training." No sooner said than done: the men from Munich kicked off Thursday morning's session by doing just that. Split into two teams, the German record champions competed to see who could hit the back of the net of the mini goals more often - and with different degrees of difficulty, depending on how the drills were structured.
The Bavarians were full of energy and enthusiasm, celebrating every point they won loudly, and there was very little evidence of a lack of finishing ability on view. On Saturday, the Reds will have the chance to prove they've taken the next step in their preparations when they play their next game in Tokyo against local heroes Kawasaki Frontale.
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