Julian Nagelsmann’s Bayern Munich is scary in its simplicity

The Bayern team coming to Camp Nou isn’t full of tactical innovations, which is precisely what makes it frightening.

Julian Nagelsmann’s short managerial career has already proven he is one of the brightest minds in football. His work at Hoffenheim and RB Leipzig earned him the most prestigious job in Germany as head coach of Bayern Munich. Many expected Nagelsmann to bring his innovative style of coaching to the best team in the land, but Nagelsmann has already proven how good he is by... changing very little.

Beyond just a great football brain, Nagelsmann has the ability to connect with his dressing room and embrace what makes each player great, and then design a system to maximize their potential. He does like to see football played a certain way — intense, possession-based, always looking to attack — but it is a quiet, modest, patient transformation rather than a complete stylistic metamorphosis right out of the gates.

Nagelsmann realizes that this Bayern team won six titles in 2020 and has several of the best players on planet Earth. They don’t need crazy amounts of information or a deep rewriting of their footballing codes; they need an exciting, smart voice that challenges them to add maybe a wrinkle or two to their games to reach a new level.

Just a couple of months into his new job, Nagelsmann has done just that. His Bayern side doesn’t play his favorite 5-3-2 formation (or does it?), it doesn’t overload one side of the pitch like crazy to create mismatches (one of Nagelsmann’s favorite moves at Hoffenheim) and the players pretty much stay in their favorite positions.

Nagelsmann’s Bayern are a simple team, with just enough added spices to make them potentially even scarier than they were under Hansi Flick when the coach’s philosophy is fully implemented. And if Flick’s team beat Barça 8-2 in Lisbon just over a year ago, the prospects are quite frightening ahead of their visit to Camp Nou in the Champions League opener on Tuesday.

So what exactly does Nagelsmann’s Bayern do? In attack, they build from the back with patience, with a 3-1-4-2 setup (Nagelsmann’s pet formation, which he hasn’t abandoned completely) that gives players several passing options to break out of the press. Dayot Upamecano at the base of the back three and Joshua Kimmich as the pivot are the crucial pieces of the process, and both are truly exceptional passers who can go short and long depending on the level of pressure they’re facing.