As the game shaped up, Augsburg’s 4-5-1 formation slowly started to emerge. Ja-Cheol Koo moved out wide, interchanging position with Halil Altintop, who accordingly moved in the middle and the lone forward Dong Won Ji was left alone in case a chance of a possible counter attack. There were problems however.
The pressing from the wide position wasn’t up to the mark as Bayern found it easy to get the ball moving from left to right too easily. Halil Altintop and Jonathan Schmid were the two main culprits. Both of these players also struggled to make use of Augsburg’s counter attacks. Altintop had a woeful game with just one attempted take ons and ZERO tackles! Despite playing for a team with high defensive rigidity.
Schmid on the other hand, was fruitless in the attack as he managed only one cross throughout the game and fluffing a glorious chance where he had time to put a through ball in for Koo but instead he chose to play with the defender and eventually got isolated by too many Bayern defenders.
After the first two goals, Dirk Schuster changed his style of play and his rate of pressing declined and that was his first mistake of the match. Congesting the penalty area means lesser players to operate upfront which results in less pressing upfront.
That was the case for Augsburg as they now had lesser players to press out Bayern, the visitors had immense amount of time to pick their passes and eventually they started to settle in and began to toy with the Augsburg defense. A Gojko Kacar mistake in the second half led to a third goal which was enough to kill the game.
All in all, one would suggest that Dirk Schuster could have gambled a bit more but instead he got too conservative and Augsburg, once again got beaten by the mighty Bayern 3:1. The Reds retain their place at the top of the table with 23 points but newcomers RB Leipzig are breathing down their neck. Augsburg on the flip side, continue to decline due to injuries and bad form. Die Fuggerstadter are currently 13th in the table with eight points in the bag, three above the relegation zone.
