All about the next opponent: interview with Bayern fan Stefen

What’s the situa­ti­on with the league lea­ders ahead of the South Sum­mit? We spo­ke with FCB fan Ste­fen about it.

With the Red Stri­pe: In the Bun­des­li­ga, Bay­ern com­for­ta­b­ly sits in first place, but in the Cham­pi­ons League, they bare­ly scraped through against Cel­tic. How satis­fied are you with Bayern’s sea­son so far?

Ste­fen: First place is any­thing but “com­for­ta­ble,” and the sea­son is far from over—even if Lever­ku­sen are alre­a­dy acting like it is.

The inte­rim ver­dict is mixed. It’s gre­at that the defen­se has sta­bi­li­zed and that Kom­pa­ny has impro­ved indi­vi­du­al play­ers (Upa, Davies). But we are not yet a top team with Cham­pi­ons League final aspi­ra­ti­ons.

With an 8‑point lead and 11 games remai­ning, can we alre­a­dy con­gra­tu­la­te Bay­ern on the title?

Abso­lut­e­ly not. Ask me again after the win against Brust­ring and Bayer’s match in Frank­furt 😉.

At the end of the Cham­pi­ons League sea­son, the final will take place in Munich. How likely do you think a new #Final­e­Da­hoam is?

With a lot of luck, we might make it to the next round. We are signi­fi­cant­ly bet­ter than last sea­son in some are­as, but we are still “not a top team” (Kim­mich) if we strugg­le against Cel­tic or just defend for 90 minu­tes like we did against Lever­ku­sen. And serious­ly, who’s sup­po­sed to beat Real and Liver­pool?

How do you rate the new Cham­pi­ons League for­mat?

It’s more enter­tai­ning becau­se it’s new. But still—there are too many games.

At the start of the sea­son, Vin­cent Kom­pa­ny was laug­hed at as a tem­po­ra­ry solu­ti­on for Xabi Alon­so or Sebas­ti­an Hoe­neß. Has the Bel­gi­an mana­ged to impro­ve his repu­ta­ti­on?

Yes. He has ever­yo­ne on board and repor­ted­ly has almost the enti­re dres­sing room behind him, which is why an awful game like the one against Lever­ku­sen didn’t hurt him. If Bay­er hadn’t hit the post twice and Wirtz hadn’t missed so bad­ly, the atmo­sphe­re would be com­ple­te­ly dif­fe­rent. Right now, luck is on our side.

For­mer VfB play­er Hiro­ki Ito is back from inju­ry. How is he doing?

You can tell that his auto­ma­tic move­ments aren’t quite the­re yet after so few minu­tes on the pitch, but that will come. I lik­ed his per­for­mance. Can he win hea­ders? Then he’ll score off a Pav­lo­vic cor­ner.

At home, Bay­ern has won every game except against Lever­ku­sen, but away, they’ve “only” won seven games. What do you think cau­ses this dis­crepan­cy?

It’s a noti­ceable dif­fe­rence, but we are still the stron­gest away team. Unfort­u­na­te­ly, I can’t give you a reason for it.

What are Bayern’s strengths and weak­ne­s­ses?

We still don’t have a solu­ti­on against aggres­si­ve­ly pres­sing oppon­ents who can keep up the inten­si­ty and struc­tu­re for 70–90 minu­tes. Wit­hout Kane, we are vulnerable—just like under Tuchel. Our men­ta­li­ty is usual­ly strong, but not always (see Rot­ter­dam and Cel­tic). So, it depends on the day’s form.

Kim­mich will be miss­ing, but Pav­lo­vic has been rebuilt well and should shi­ne today. The defen­se is lar­ge­ly sta­ble but still allows some big chan­ces. Will Manu be world-class again? Will you was­te your best chan­ces? Can the Brust­rin­ge shut down Oli­se? I’m curious.

What’s the cur­rent squad situa­ti­on? Who will be miss­ing?

Kim­mich will be out, Peretz isn’t ful­ly fit yet. Sané and Gna­b­ry are on the rise, which will help us.

Final­ly, your pre­dic­tion for the match?

Undav will score. But not often enough. 2–3. You’ll have to get your Cham­pi­ons League points else­whe­re 😉.

Note: This inter­view was trans­la­ted from Ger­man via ChatGPT

Pic­tu­re: © Danie­la Porcelli/Getty Images