Bayern Munich begin Philipp Lahm send-off in time-honoured tradition

There simply had to be some sort of tribute and, in the event, there was more than one, conscious and subconscious. As Bayern Munich worked to just about chisel out a win at struggling Ingolstadt – which ultimately proved to be even more valuable than it might have first appeared – it was impossible to ignore the context of the match, unfolding just four days after Philipp Lahm confirmed that he would indeed be retiring from football at the season’s close.

The most ostentatious hat tip to the captain was in the aftermath of Arjen Robben’s stoppage-time clincher, after Arturo Vidal’s 90th-minute goal has finally broke the dogged resistance of Maik Walpurgis’ team. The Dutchman ran roaring to the touchline where he, and his team-mates, embraced and eventually submerged Lahm, who had been substituted some 10 minutes before, in a jubilant huddle. This one’s for you, skipper.

The real offering to Lahm, though, was perhaps in the overall manner of the win. This was the spirit of Old Bayern, as they are perceived nationally – not stylish but scratchy, with the win somehow falling into their laps at the end. It’s what they call Bayern-Dusel, something more than luck and perhaps better described as jamminess. It was something Karl-Heinz Rummenigge inadvertently alluded to post-match, too; with Robben insisting the Bundesliga wasn’t won yet, his president was saying, with a grin, that “the winner is Bayern”. The winner, it seems at times like this, is always Bayern.

Hermann Gerland, another (albeit less globally celebrated) Bayern lifer who recently stepped up to replace the departed Paul Clement as Carlo Ancelotti’s assistant, talked it about it in the manner of a man who has been asked the question a million times before. “Good luck is always about skill,” Gerland said after the game.

Many in the national media, including Kicker, pondered what exactly he meant, but it seemed pretty clear – you make your own luck. On this occasion, it was a quite reasonable assertion. Bayern banged on the door with increasing insistence as the game went on. By the time Vidal broke through, Robert Lewandowski had pummelled the woodwork, and Thomas Müller lost out to what looked a certain goal early in the second half through an uncommonly heavy spin on his firm shot after it nicked goalkeeper Martin Hansen, allowing Florent Hadergjonaj to hack it off the line – “teasing from above”, as it was described by Müller, who has still scored only once in a perplexing Bundesliga campaign for him.

Nobody represents that willingness to dig in more than Lahm, and he was leading the chorus here with hymn sheet in hand, starting what Süddeutsche Zeitung called his “official farewell tour” by playing his “greatest hits” – an overlap here, an interception there, and even a fairly cynical foul on Ingolstadt’s Matthew Leckie to put the brakes on a first-half counterattack.

What Bayern (and Lahm especially) won’t want is for this to turn into Kobe Bryant’s last lap with the Los Angeles Lakers, with the Black Mamba’s curtain call at every arena being the only element giving meaning to an ailing season. The exact same scenario cannot and will not happen to Bayern, of course, but a premature exit from the Champions League would give Lahm’s final campaign a similarly awful feeling of anticlimax.

Everything is about this week’s tie with Arsenal, and that was partly reflected in Ancelotti’s team selection, with a reasonably cautious – and, the first half, notably width-free – Christmas tree formation allowing Robben to take a breather on the bench, at least until he was sent on to save the day with 15 minutes to go.

In the end, it all worked out perfectly, with the galvanising effect of a win sealed late on, as Lahm underlined after the game, being a highly positive one. With a dimmer intensity to Bayern post-Guardiola, they have needed moments like this – and like the last-gasp win at Freiburg, in the first game back after the winter break, or the pre-Christmas mauling of RB Leipzig, who arrived with the hope of taking the Herbstmeister (mid-season leaders) crown from their illustrious hosts.

That Bayern, without being spectacular, have taken 25 points out of the last 27 available and suddenly moved seven points clear at the top (with all the teams from second to seventh losing this weekend) means that they have the perfect platform to motor towards giving Lahm the perfect send-off in Cardiff on 3 June. Club and captain may not have found the common ground to integrate him into the staff for now, with a break from football the plan following the season’s end, but it is hard to imagine him and the club not reuniting later along the line. As this weekend reminded everyone involved, Lahm is Bayern, and Bayern is Lahm.

Talking points

You could forgive Werder Bremen coach Alexander Nouri for looking wistfully to the opposing bench on Saturday, where in the space of three straight wins – the latest of which was at Werder’s Weserstadion – Dieter Hecking has revitalised Borussia Mönchengladbach’s season. Nouri, meanwhile, is the rookie trying to turn around a run which now comprises four straight losses in 2017, with Werder now occupying the relegation play-off place. They had been able to plead bad luck in the previous reverses but not here. Gladbach were clearly superior, and the Werder sporting director, Frank Baumann, was heavily critical of the players afterwards, saying that the club needed to work out “which ones are fit to wear the shirt.” With that said, his backing of Nouri was hardly resounding either, as he confirmed that he will be in charge “for the next game,” away to Mainz on Saturday. Yikes.

There is also the growing feeling that Thomas Tuchel is playing for high stakes at Borussia Dortmund, with Saturday’s miserable reverse at wooden-spooners Darmstadt making this week’s Champions League trip to Benfica even more vital. He should at least be able to count on a reaction from his players, with Marco Reus criticising his and his team-mates’ display as “unacceptable” after the game. Certainly the club could do with a lift, especially after the confirmation of a €100,000 fine and closure of the Südtribüne stand for Saturday’s match with Wolfsburg, following the unsavoury incidents surrounding last week’s home game against Leipzig.

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Leipzig, meanwhile, had their own banner bonanza this week for Hamburg’s visit to Red Bull Arena, defending the rights of “Füssball für alle” in the aftermath of last week’s nadir of the shade that’s been thrown their way all season. On the pitch, though, they were unrecognisable, slumping 3-0 at home in a performance coach Ralph Hasenhüttl called “not Leipzig-like”. Kyriakos Papadopoulos, fresh from heading the winner against his parent club Leverkusen last week, nodded the opener here against the club with whom he spent the first half of the campaign on loan. It all got to the Leipzig captain, Willi Orban, who felt Hamburg were wasting time in a second-half injury stoppage and threw the physio’s bag off the pitch to hurry up his exit – the subsequent booking was his fifth of the season, and he will now miss next week’s trip to Gladbach.

Results: Darmstadt 2-1 Dortmund, Freiburg 2-1 Cologne, Ingolstadt 0-2 Bayern Munich, Leverkusen 3-0 Frankfurt, Mainz 2-0 Augsburg, RB Leipzig 0-3 Hamburg, Schalke 2-0 Hertha Berlin, Werder Bremen 0-1 Mönchengladbach, Wolfsburg 2-1 Hoffenheim.