‘A decisive moment‘ – FC Bayern rally round for final game of the year after defeat in Mainz

It’s probably frivolous to speculate how Bayern’s game in Mainz could have gone, had Michael Olise’s shot in the sixth minute, which struck the post, been aimed just a couple of centimetres to the right. The Frenchman had the first big chance of the game, receiving the ball from Thomas Müller on the edge of the box before taking a shot from around 15 metres out. But the ball just missed it’s intended target, smacking against the left post instead.

In that moment, it just wasn’t to be for Olise. And over the course of the afternoon in Mainz, it wasn’t to be for FC Bayern either, who suffered their first Bundesliga defeat of the season. As has so often been the case this season, the Munich side dominated possession (69%), had more shots on goal (13 to Mainz’s eight), and played more than double the number of passes than their opponent (648 to 290). However, the decisive moments favoured the home side.

Eberl: "Mainz were sharper"

“In the end, you’ve got to say that Mainz deserved it,” admitted board member for sport Max Eberl after the final whistle. “Mainz were sharper and more aggressive in the individual duels. We rarely had control of the match, allowed Mainz to impose their game upon us, and were unable to turn it around at the end.” Bayern felt the aforementioned sharp sting of their opponents in the 41st minute, after they were robbed of the ball in their build-up. Mainz countered quickly with Jae-Sung Lee eventually scoring on the end of a good cross to make it 1-0.

The fact that the decisive pass into the South Korean took as a big of a deflection as that of his second goal aptly summarised the afternoon for Bayern. It was precisely this element of luck that was missing for Vincent Kompany’s side in the match. Leroy Sané sent a volley over in the 64th minute, Jamal Musiala guided a header just over the bar 74th, and Mathys Tel had a shot blocked by a Mainz defender, who threw himself in front of the ball, in the 80th minute. It was only towards the end of the match that the pendulum swung back in the visitors’ favour, when Sané was quickest to react to a blocked Joshua Kimmich effort to get one back for Bayern three minutes before the end of normal time. But it was all too late.

“Mainz kept on hitting the target. We didn’t play a bad game per se – you could see our commitment. But we failed to hit the target too often from inside the box. In the end it’s about scoring goals,” analysed Müller. The fact that Sané’s effort was the only shot on the Mainz goal that was on target is indicative of this lack of sharpness. After three consecutive weeks with midweek matches, Bayern, who had travelled to Mainz without the likes of Harry Kane, Manuel Neuer, Serge Gnabry and Alphonso Davies, perhaps lacked the energy to step their play up a gear again. But that’s not to be used as an excuse.

“We’ve made no excuses from day one. We have the quality to win games like these. Today we made too many mistakes,” explained Eberl, immediately turning his attention to the final game before the winter break in six days’ time. “Now, we have to pick ourselves back up and get the points on Friday against Leipzig.” Kompany came to a similar conclusion: “We weren’t at our best today. We’ll use this defeat to build that fire over the next few days before the Leipzig game on Friday.”

Rallying cry for the final match

To echo Kompany: you can’t retrospectively change the defeat. What you can change, however, is what comes next. And so, after the game in Mainz, Bayern’s top priority is to once again focus all their energy on their last home game of the year, in order to say goodbye to 2024 with a win. “We can still win plenty more in the future. The feeling here is that the team always wants to continue to take steps to improve. The next game is our only goal,” said Kompany. Kimmich felt that the team’s reaction after their first defeat could also be a something that the rest of the Bundesliga will be looking towards: “It’s crucial that we stand together and continue to work hard in a moment like this. It will be important to win our last game. Every player has to make sure that we go into Friday at our absolute highest level. Leipzig must face us at our best.”

All the reaction to the match against Mainz: