Arsenal 2 Bayern Munich 0: Pep Guardiola’s masterful side prove to be worth the admission fee
Arsenal took the points but the plaudits return to Germany
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Your support makes all the difference.You can’t win them all. That is all the consolation Pep Guardiola needs after another, at times breathtaking, demonstration by Bayern Munich of football’s advanced arts.
It was an old English punt from a set piece that caught out his team, aided by a cock-up from a keeper not used to defending a packed box. The result shows Arsenal took the points, and good luck to them, but the plaudits return to Germany with Guardiola’s exceptional team.
Football is in a way like the philosophy of Friedrich Hegel, thesis begets anti-thesis begets thesis in a necessary sequence. Hegel was German, too, but that is just co-incidence. This Bayern Munich machine is an expression of the evolution of a certain football theorist from Catalunya.
Guardiola’s first ground breaking construct gave us the Barcelona of Messi, Xavi and Iniesta, an aesthetic of outstanding poise and beauty. Bayern might be seen as the logical development of that possession-based ideology, the emphasis is always on relentless retention of the ball but in this iteration there is a direct element that Guardiola’s Barcelona eschewed on principle.
The Barcelona template was eventually mastered by the kind of compact, counter attacking units perfected by Jose Mourinho. It was no longer enough to keep the ball, there had to be an added, pacey dimension to disrupt the shape of packed defences. Guardiola worked this out and has given us his answer, arguably the finest club side in the world today.
The first blow of the evening was landed by the Bayern fans hoisting a banner that read: “£64 a ticket but without fans football is not worth a penny.” So they are philosophers, too. The greater glory of the Bayern project is how little it costs to watch compared to the fare in London. A season ticket at Arsenal is north of two grand, in Munich some lucky members can enter the Allianz Arena for as little as a tenner (€15), providing they stand behind the goals.
Pitchside Guardiola is a study in bespoke contortions, his arms either rammed in his pockets or pointing frantically. The suit moves with him so that his comportment is never less than sharp, like an extra in Madmen giving a presentation. The choice of V-neck sweater in colour co-ordinated grey, is a typically Spanish infraction, and wholly unnecessary on a temperate night in the capital.
The team built by Guardiola is a fast-moving composite of skilled athleticism and changeable parts. The full-backs become wingers, the centre backs midfielders and the keeper a defender of any hue depending on the point at which he races out of his box.
Arsenal, so destructive in the opening 20 minutes on their last engagement at the Emirates against Manchester United spent the opening period here falling deeper and deeper towards their own goal. Robert Lewandowski made his first incursion into the Arsenal box inside 60 seconds. The tone was set. Any breaks Arsenal fashioned were isolated and disconnected.
On the left Douglas Costa, a summer recruit from Shakhtar Donetsk, is an electric shock in boots, fizzing this way and that at alarming speed. This must have been what Manchester United thought they were getting when they paid top dollar for the largely ineffective Memphis Depay.
Thiago Alcantara, Xavi Alonso and Arturo Vidal offered complimentary methods of torture in the middle of the park, Thiago’s darting feet bringing the first world class intervention of the night from Petr Cech. The second was prompted by Vidal, a hustling ball of destruction on the left of the diamond. Alonso was content with the quarter back role, picking out Costa at will with those raking diagonal blows.
Arsene Wenger claimed beforehand that this Bayern team is not without flaws but chose not to identify them. On 35 minutes his team finally did his talking for him, exposing the only gear Bayern do not have, reverse.
A rare mistake in attack set Arsenal away on the counter, the ball was transferred at pace and when the cross came in from Nacho Monreal on the left, Theo Walcott had all the time he will ever need to find the net. Instead he steered his header too close to the diving Neuer, who saved.
Suddenly the Arsenal that tore through United were before us with Alexis Sanchez, Santi Cazorla and Walcott to the fore. But confidence born of a 100 per cent start to the season at home and in Europe does not bat an eyelid in circumstances such as these. Bayern simply sucked it up and came again, ending the first half as they started it, all over the Arsenal goal.
It is the intensity and oppressive cohesion of this Munich side that hitherto proved unanswerable. Arsenal pulled a stunt last night, larceny on a grand scale, the nicked second at the death prompting the rolling out of that old cliché; football, funny old game.
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