Qualifying Popularity: Bayern

As long as Bayern plays in the game, they can naturally become popular teams.

But then again, Bayern's life in the Bundesliga has not been easy recently. Their monopoly position in the Bundesliga for 11 consecutive seasons in the 23/24 season was ended by Leverkusen led by Alonso. Fortunately, Bayern, who learned from his mistakes, performed very proactively in the 24/25 season. Bayern under the new coach Kompani has a more proactive and entertaining game style. His unique calmness in Manchester City's career helped ease the tension in the high-pressure locker room.

As most of the veterans who started their ten-year dominance gradually faded out, Kompany relied heavily on a new generation of players. Musiara made a well-known leaps ahead of her injury at the end of the 24/25 season, while Yu Pamecano established himself as a reliable central defender. Oris performed well after joining from Crystal Palace, and Harry Kane was able to continue to contribute goals and assists after joining.

In 34 rounds of the Bundesliga and 14 Champions League games, Bayern's ability to control the progress of the game is unique among the top European teams.

A total of 26 teams from the Bundesliga, Premier League, La Liga and Serie A participated in the Champions League or the UEFA Cup, but none of them had an average possession rate higher than Bayern's 67.2%. At the same time, Bayern has 80 goals behind Barcelona with 82 goals, and its expected goal difference of 76.2 is far ahead of Barcelona, ​​which ranks second (+61.5). Among the sample teams, Bayern also has the highest frontcourt possession rate, reaching a suffocating 76.2%.

Under Kompany's rule, Bayern's secret to success is not only having and regaining more offensive touches than their opponents, but also committed to keeping the ball away from the opponent's team by accumulating touches in the third zone of the midfield.

In the Bundesliga and Champions League, nearly half of the midfield third (48.6%) of their possession time, while 31.1% of the touches occurred in Bayern's offensive third. This strategy leaves the defensive three relatively less intrusion (stayed far in the backfield) and provides plenty of time for a talented and balanced lineup to find ways to exploit opponents’ defensive weaknesses.

In the early stage of the Bundesliga finale last month, Bayern was proactive and tried to lose suspense by scoring early goals. As shown in the picture above, when organizing the offense, Kompany's players boldly adopted a 2-4-4 formation, mainly keeping the midfielders in the central three zones and rib areas of the court, while the width is provided by two wingers close to the wing. This creates a variety of pass lines to deliver shells to Kane and others, while almost always a teammate is ready to respond at any time in case of losing the ball.

Focus showdown

Although Benfica and Bayern are traditional giants with a long history in European football, their confrontation is extremely one-sided. Bayern has not lost in 11 matches with the Portuguese team and won eight games. From this perspective, perhaps the opening match between Benfica and Boca Youth can reveal more highlights.

Before Messi landed in the United States, the Argentine Football Association had already made targeted efforts to establish influence in the United States, opening its headquarters in Miami in 2023, and establishing a training center and a regional youth training academy. As one of Argentina's most prestigious teams, Boca Youth Team's participation in this Club World Cup should further promote this outreach effort - they will play the first two games of the group stage in the city of South Florida.

In the Champions League this season, Benfica played more directly than most teams and was happy to give possession to his opponent. They averaged 3.1 direct attacks per game, ranking seventh among the 36 first-stage participating teams, while their 41.1% front-court possession rate is 11th lowest. Despite this, Benfica can still average 14 shots per game, creating 2.2 "excellent" opportunities per game (11th place), and creating 21% (12th place). This game mode helps to mask the anomaly of its decisive quality deficiency in the offensive third zone; for a club that regularly produces promising offensive stars and attracts some impressive players to join Lisbon, its 68.6% pass success rate of offensive third zone ranked 29th in only 36 participating teams, with poor performance.

So, while Benfica has no problem with sending the ball into the frontcourt area, players often seem unsure how to take these opportunities. Benfica is still struggling to find a replacement after Gonzalo Ramos left the team in the summer of 2023, and the team lost two other front lines to threaten Nerez and Marcos Leonardo, as well as vibrant midfielder Joao Neves.

Although Pavlidis signed in the summer window is a reliable scorer, leading the team with 29 goals in 53 games in various competitions, his "spare tires" Akturkogru and Orkun Kokku's performance is really not stable.

Therefore, while Benfica is looking forward to the 2022 World Cup champion Di Maria who can leave a highlight gift before returning to China to join Rosario Central to end her career, their unstable state may allow Boca youth who have been in a downturn to seize the opportunity and create a big and small upset.

In the best condition, the Boca Youth seeks a quick counterattack. Chile international Carlos Palacios is the team's current organizational core, strategizing behind experienced forward partners Cavani and Milton Jimenez. When the team really works, the Boca Youth is decisive in breaking through the defense, as Defenders learned in March:

The Boca Youth converts a pass from the central defender back to the goalkeeper in just 12 seconds into a sports goal, and the time allocation of each stage of the offensive advancement is the real skill.. However, as of the time of writing, no loan players have joined.

Of course, this is a wise idea for Auckland City regardless of the outcome. After all, Auckland City is the only non-professional team in this Club World Cup. But the identity of non-professional teams does not hinder their previous identity as regulars at Club World Cup. Their record of 12 appearances in the Club World Cup is also the reward they deserve to win the Oceania Champions League 11 times in the past 14 years.

In any case, they may face severe challenges in the face of such a strong grouping.

Things you may not know...

If Benfica is enthusiastically sought after by American fans after setting foot on the land of America, please don't be surprised.

On February 28, 1904, 24 people gathered together to establish the Lisbon Sports Club, and four years later they acquired the Group Sport Benfica and followed the Benfica name. At that Creation Conference, these Creation Team bosses proposed some key team logo elements, which also accompanied the team for more than a century - they established red and white as the team's jersey color, and decided to adopt a Latin motto - "E pluribus unum" ("Union in One").

It happened to be a coincidence in this Latin motto, which the United States used on its national emblem as early as 1782, and to this day it can still be seen on the presidential spokesperson, coins and the state flag of New York.

(Armour)