Stars don't shine

It's not hard to identify the turning point in Bayern Munich's abject defeat to Mönchengladbach on Sunday. In the 62nd minute, Gladbach defender Roel Brouwers launches a speculative long ball over the top from his own half.

Two players chase it down - Bayern's central defender Jerome Boateng and Igor de Camargo. Boateng has a clear head-start on the Gladbach striker, and seems about to nod it back to goalkeeper Manuel Neuer, when he suddenly notices an eager blond flash storming out to claim the ball - and backs off.

Then, to use Neuer's own description, the ball "somehow stops" outside the penalty area just long enough for de Camargo to head it past the goalie's flailing fist, and it bounces apologetically into the empty net. Boateng looks bemused, and angry words are exchanged.

Bayern can't reply to the effort, and Gladbach win in Munich for the first time since 1995. It's a miserable start to the season for Bayern, and it's hard not to notice that it was the work of Bayern's two biggest summer signings. Jerome Boateng was bought from Manchester City for 13.5 million euros ($19.3 million), and Manuel Neuer eventually made a fraught trip from Schalke for 28 million euros.

Best player of the season

To sweeten the irony even more for non-Bayern fans around the country, Neuer - who took full responsibility for the goal - received Germany's player of the year award before the match began. The highlights shows on TV did not fail to show the pictures of Neuer receiving his spherical trophy amid the adulation of the fans (the anti-Neuer bias among Munich's "ultras" seems to have subsided), and the papers had a story to pin their match reports too.

It was a telling moment in many ways, and the match in general provided a stark contrast to Dortmund's storming 3-1 victory over Hamburg on Friday. As many a pundit remarked, the champions - and Bayern's most obvious rivals - seemed to have actually improved over the summer, flashing the ball around on the floor even faster than ever, and haring up the pitch in lightning counter-attacks.

A few media reports have drawn comparisons with Barcelona (in style, if not quality), and noted that Dortmund have their own diminutive midfield genius in Mario Götze.

Individual vs. system

But one man saw it coming. As an expert on Sky TV's highlights show after the Bayern game, Wolfsburg coach Felix Magath declared he was "not so surprised" by the result. He said, "I'd rather play Bayern at the beginning of the season, before they're warmed up."

He also had an interesting theory. "Bayern have a lot of great individual talents, but Dortmund have a system," the sage observed. "Dortmund's players are interchangeable - they all fit in." This sparked a long discussion, during which Bayern's honorary President Franz Beckenbauer defended Munich's time-honored approach of offering the nation's best players more money than anyone else can.

"Talents like Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery can change a game," he contended. He's right, of course, and it's hard to argue with Bayern's creaking trophy cabinet.

And of course the debate is not exactly new. It's one of the imponderables of the sport itself. You only have to remember Holland's total football back in the 1970's (where players even trained to play in any position) to see the powerful primacy of a system, and yet allowing an idiosyncratic genius to roam unshackled behind your strikers can be one of the most devastating tactics there is.

Soft in the head

In recent years, though, the media torrent about football has created a lot of individual stars. That has inevitably over-inflated not only their market value, but also their value on the pitch.

Manchester City coach Roberto Mancini commented last week that modern footballers were "mentally weaker" than they were in his playing days, and he blamed the money. Whether that's true or not, the burden of expectation has certainly increased for certain stars in recent years.

And nothing supports Mancini's theory better than the two abiding images from Bayern's game - the 28-million-euro Manuel Neuer receiving a trophy and being celebrated by 70,000 Bayern fans, and Manuel Neuer sailing through the air past Igor de Camargo and the ball.

It is tempting to speculate that Neuer's reputation as a pro-active "playing" goalkeeper - the kind who likes to leave his area in exactly the kind of situation that led to the goal on Sunday - colored his thinking. It is certainly one of the reasons why he has become so valued as a keeper in the past few months.

This might also be why there seem to be a creeping trend in modern football towards the systemic approach - or more specifically, to ape Barcelona. As even Beckenbauer admitted, "Everyone wants to be like Barcelona now, and from a German point-of-view the team that most resembles them is probably Dortmund."

On the other hand, it could just have been a misunderstanding between two new signings who have not played together much before.

Either way, it was a bad omen for Bayern.

Author: Ben Knight
Editor: Matt Hermann