Ferdinand: Bayern is a bit difficult to play against a comprehensive team, and Lager s rigor is like Moo

Bayern Munich lost to Benfica, which is also a big unpopular match in this Club World Cup. Former England star Ferdinand believes that Kompany's tactics for this game are a bit lax, after all, Bayern has appeared in advance. Moreover, Benfica is the top team in the Portuguese Super League. The Portuguese Super League is no worse than the five major leagues. It is normal for the Southern Star to lose to them when they are not prepared. Furthermore, tactical incompatibility is also an important reason. Ferdinand said: Bayern is a bit difficult to play against a comprehensive team. Benfica combines the technical characteristics of the Latin faction and the rigorous tactics of the European faction. This is a typical comprehensive team. In the previous game, the Southern Stars had already struggled against the technical team Boca Youth, and they would definitely be more difficult against the comprehensive team.

After Bayern won the Big Ear Cup in 2020, the club actually has the strength to win the Champions League every season. Why is it difficult for them to enter the Champions League finals since then? The La Liga strong teams are their victims. The Southern Stars during the Naglesmann era were eliminated by Villarreal. In the past two seasons, they lost to Real Madrid and Barcelona respectively. These La Liga strong teams are comprehensive teams. So Ferdinand emphasized that no matter who Bayern's coach is or how much the lineup has evolved, it is still a bit difficult for them to play against a comprehensive team, and the probability of "smashing the pot" in such teams is high. Benfica coach Bruno Lager was praised, and Ferdinand analyzed his strengths - Lager's rigor is like Mourinho.

Most Benfica players have excellent skills and the strong teams in mainstream leagues don't know them well, so this club has an advantage in the technical level. Lager started with rigor, which really brought together the club's strengths, and his rigor was like Mourinho. Although Mourinho failed in the middle and late stages of his coaching career and gradually left the ranks of famous coaches, his advantages are very obvious, and his rigor is still a role model that other coaches in football need to learn from. Large knows that a rigorous tactical system needs to be based on the players' high level of execution. During the pre-season preparation stage, he introduced the "tactical black box" training method - recording each group confrontation through a 360-degree camera, and using three-dimensional modeling to restore the running errors of each player after the game. Portuguese media once photographed dense running heat maps on the whiteboard of the locker room, and the corrected position requirements of the centimeter level were astonished by young players.

This almost paranoid detail control quickly achieved results, and each time it was grabbing, it was accurately stuck in the blind spot of the rhythm of 0.3 seconds before De Jong received the ball. The "three-finger gesture" that Lager constantly gestures in the technical zone actually requires winger Rafa Silva to strictly maintain a distance of 11.5 meters from the sideline. This data comes from the running analysis of Alves' 300 games in his career. What is even more commendable is that Lager will inject rigor into the players' daily lives. The club nutritionist customized the "metabolic clock" for each player, and divided 34 different breakfast combinations based on the DNA test results. When a German "Kicker" reporter visited the training base, he found that the seats in the locker room were equipped with pressure sensors, which could monitor the players' fatigue index in real time.

As for Bayern's struggle to play against a comprehensive team, Ferdinand believes that the cause of this dilemma may be related to Bayern's tactical inertia. For a long time, Bayern's offensive system has been based on high-pressure pressing and wing blasting. When facing technical teams, they can rely on high-intensity running and physical confrontation to suppress their opponents; but when encountering a comprehensive team, the opponent can not only resolve pressing through delicate passes and cuts, but also use rigorous defensive counterattacks to disrupt Bayern's rhythm. For example, Benfica's midfielder João Neves can not only use dribbling to get rid of the encirclement like a Latin player, but also use Bundesliga-style running to cover the series offense and defense. This "dual attribute" is exactly what Bayern lacks in the midfield.

The author believes that the deeper problem lies in the nature of the game in the Champions League knockout stage. Comprehensive teams often have stronger tactical flexibility. For example, Villarreal used five defenders to lock Bayern on the wing, while Real Madrid relied on Kroos and Modric's control ability to eliminate Bayern's impact. In contrast, Bayern's tactical changes rely more on the players' personal state - when Musiara is injured and Kane retreats too deeply, the offense is prone to falling into a single fight. The "smashing" phenomenon mentioned by Ferdinand essentially exposes Bayern's shortcomings in tactical error tolerance. The sad tactical tradition of the Southern Stars also caused them to be unfair in dealing with teams with a comprehensive style.

To break through this bottleneck, Kompany's coaching team may need to reevaluate the logic of team building. In recent years, they have introduced top-level combat power such as Kane and Kim Min-jae, but the midfield lacks rhythm controllers like Thiago. In the future, whether it is to introduce a midfielder with the ability to drag down the organization or try to increase the defensive level of the three central defenders system, it may become the key to cracking the comprehensive team. After all, in the Champions League, the diversity of tactics is always more deadly than paper strength. Ferdinand hinted that it was a pity that Allianz missed Werz, and Werz could have been the candidate to make up for Bayern's traditional weaknesses.