Bayern qualifies for Club World Cup final

FC Bayern saw its patience tested on Tuesday against a stubborn defence and a crossbar, but it defeated Guangzhou Evergrande 3:0 to make it to the Club World Cup final.

After a rough 40 minutes, the Guardiola-mark Bayern got their thing going in the FIFA Club World Cup semifinal against World Cup-winning Marcello Lippi’s Guangzhou Evergrande. Here is your juicy match report.

This game was a bit of a mixed affair. On the one hand, Bayern exercised tyrannical control of the passage of play, which was almost entirely set in Guangzhou’s own half. On the other, Lippi approached the game with the correct tactical and moral mindset (exhibiting his managerial pedigree) and managed to have his players hold Bayern off for as long as was humanly possible.

So, let’s dissect this thing a bit, shall we?

Guangzhou’s tactical scheme

Let’s get the first thing straight. Marcello Lippi is by no means a lightweight. This guy guided Italy to a World Championship when everyone swore to God that there was no way anyone could beat France to it. He is the only manager to win both the UEFA Champions League and the AFC Champions League. He brought Guangzhou Evergrande back from a match-fixing scandal to win back-to-back Chinese titles and the continental tournament.

So yeah, the guy’s good.

Earlier in the press conference, Lippi said that his team would have to be realistic when facing Bayern. Translated, that means that his players would have to be aware that they were, on paper, no match for die Rekordmeister. That they were the underdog here, by an enormous distance. And they took to the field with this very realistic mindset firmly in place.

I wouldn’t call it “parking the bus” per sé, because this team was very focused on keeping Bayern and their passing game quite far from the box, rather than crawl under the bunker and pray to Confucius that Götze und co. wouldn’t find the target amidst a sea of red shirts. No, they were a bit smarter than that. They knew better than to pull a Chelsea in the world’s ultimate Club competition.

And it worked, for 40 minutes. More on that briefly.

Bayern’s settling into the game

There was a certain contradiction in Bayern’s approach to the game. It was clear from the beginning that all forward initiative would come from us, and the boys certainly had their crosshairs fixed on Zeng’s goal all the time. So they took the commanding approach and had play concentrate on Guangzhou’s half.

Alas, Lippi’s plan worked quite well for most of the first half. Save for Thiago’s low shot that clinched the near post and went wide, and Kroos’ violent volley that slammed itself onto the crossbar, Bayern were really lacking that spark and intelligence required to kill. That smart run in space, that look up to see the striker closing in on space, that dynamic run down the wing to distract the side backs and cross it in to a diminished defence.

All credit to Guangzhou for staying awake during this period. But once they took a nap, Ribéry was there to thrive in the space the right back had given him while covering Thiago, and after a series of rebounds, fired home. Admittedly, the goalkeeper bears some of the blame, as he managed to stop the ball (weakly) and thus deflecting it into goal.

Once that happened, the floodgates were open.

Utter domination

Even more so than the first, the second half was all Bayern. Guangzhou saw their hopes obliterated, and resorted to Chelsea tactics. But without the motivation of not conceding, it was useless. Bayern were there, on the edge of the box, waiting to jump in for the kill.

And with that sublime third goal by Götze (who I am starting to like a lot, I must confess), the only thing that kept Guangzhou from going to the dressing room with seven or eight goals in the bag was their keeper’s sudden and seemingly out-of-nowhere brilliance. The very keeper who had done very little to stop Ribéry from scoring the first was now producing brilliant saves left, right and down, particularly two that came from shots delivered by Mr. I-left-BVB.

Despite a few howlers from Javi and Thiago, the team produced a fair amount of chances, and I must say that Pep was spot-on with the timing of the substitutions. Bringing in Shaqiri and Pizarro in such quick succession gave the team new energy to attack in big numbers, and it almost yielded result.

In all honesty, despite this not being exactly a football clinic by Bayern, Guangzhou were very lucky to walk out with only three goals against.

4-1-4-1

Neuer (aka I’m so bored here)

Rafinha – Boateng – Van Buyten – Alaba

Lahm

Götze – Thiago – Kroos (Javi, 58') – Ribéry (Shaqiri, 72')

Mandzukic (Pizarro, 75')