The well-worn cliché in England states that league titles are captured by winning games on your worst days. In Germany, Bayern Munich claims titles by demoralizing opponents on its best days.
Bayern looked well on its way to an eighth straight Bundesliga championship with a 5-0 win over Fortuna Düsseldorf on Saturday at Allianz Arena. The German giants never let up the pressure against relegation-threatened Fortuna, squeezing the life out of the visitors for 90 minutes.
Bayern increased its lead to 10 points over Borussia Dortmund, which plays Paderborn on Sunday. With seven matches left to play, BVB (or RB Leipzig or Bayer Leverkusen) has a huge mountain to climb to catch the seven-time reigning champions and deny a 30th Bayern championship.
Robert Lewandowski scored twice while fullbacks Benjamin Pavard and Alphonso Davies also scored as Bayern cruised to victory on Saturday.
The first goal arrived via, of all things, an own goal — but it might’ve been the best display of Bayern’s dominance.
As Fortuna attempted a counterattack, Canadian whiz-kid Alphonso Davies said “nope” by quickly tracking back to regain possession. Soon, Thomas Müller was picking out a back-post run from Serge Gnabry, who played an acrobatic first-time cross to Benjamin Pavard. The French right back’s shot wasn’t great and probably going off target before being inadvertently turned in by Fortuna center back Mathias Jørgensen.
Bayern’s second was the most boring of the lot. Pavard fought off his defender to head in off a corner kick, the only notable aspect being that four different Fortuna defenders were grabbing the jerseys of Bayern players.
The third goal highlighted incredible unselfishness from two different Bayern players following sustained pressure.
Joshua Kimmich was sprung in behind the defense by a clever flick from Robert Lewandowski. Kimmich could’ve shot but instead sent a pass back to Müller, who himself could’ve shot but instead sent a pass back to Lewandowski.
The Polish striker was never going to miss after such a delightful move.
Up 3-0 at halftime, Bayern coach Hans-Dieter Flick brought on 20-year-old French midfielder Mickaël Cuisance for just his sixth Bundesliga appearance. His prior appearances netted less than the 45 minutes of play he received on Saturday, but the youngster showed excellent calm on the ball and silky passing. Flick also found some playing time for 19-year-old Dutch forward Joshua Zirkzee, who made his 10th appearance with the senior squad in the 75th minute, and Oliver Batista Meier, a 19-year-old German winger making his senior Bayern debut in the 78th minute.
But it was the usual suspect who continued the scoring in the second half.
Not long after the break, Kingsley Coman’s ball somehow found its way to Gnabry, who could’ve easily shot but instead picked out Lewandowski. The Pole supplied a lovely backheel finish, nutmegging the keeper for his 29th Bundesliga goal of the season. Lewa is one goal shy of his personal record for league goals in a season with Bayern but still 11 shy of the all-time record set by the legendary Gerd Müller.
Davies finished the scoring with his third goal of the campaign and second in a week. The Canadian teenager simply wanted it more than the Fortuna defense, fighting his way through a mess of players to slam home the final goal of the day.
As has been customary from Fox’s give-no-fucks coverage of the Bundesliga lately, as soon as the final whistle sounded, FS1 went to commercial and switched programming to horse racing without any sort of postgame. The Bundesliga is the only game in town when it comes to top-level sports in America and Fox Soccer still has yet to show it cares even a little.
