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The first hour or so of the match was a see-saw affair; despite no goals, the 2 teams each had their share in the ascendancy. The first 6 or 8 minutes were pretty equal, but Bayern was starting to control the middle of the field by the 10th minute, and settled in for a period of possession. But despite seeing a majority of the ball, FC Bayern failed to really crack the Dortmund defense, with a long range blast from Kroos and a threatening run from Mandzukic looking like the only half-chances that Bayern had.
Later in the first half, Dortmund started to assert themselves. Holger Badstuber went down with a pretty severe looking injury. We haven't had any confirmation yet, but the Gol! TV commentator said it was a right knee injury. After Jermone Boateng came in, Dortmund continued to pressure Bayern's back line, with a high blast from Marco Reus the best chance anyone had seen. But Manuel Neuer made a good reaction save, and Bayern also had a few good moves forward in the last 10 minutes of the half.
Early in the 2nd, though, it was mostly under Dortmund's control. Bayern's CDMs were back in defense as Dortmund pressed forward, and Mats Hummels could have broken the deadlock after an alert run on a free kick. But the more BVB pressed forward, the more the wings opened up for Bayern to hit back. Starting at about 60 minutes, Bayern had several consecutive attacks that really put Dortmund under pressure. Finally, Kroos broke through with a nice move to create space and shoot:
Immediately, Dortmund pushed forward trying to find the equalizer. Bayern's defense did pretty well to clear a few dangerous balls. But our corner-defending problems reared up again, as a headed clearance attempt fell right to the feet of Götze:
Twenty minutes to go, and neither team was happy to sit back and preserve the draw. But Bayern was definitely more threatening in the final minutes. First, we had 2 consecutive good chances, as Tommy shot just wide and Kroos had a good shot saved by Weidenfeller (after a nice soft-touch Gomez pass). Then, Javi Martinez nearly headed home a corner, with Weidenfeller again making a nice reaction save.
At the end of the day, though, we couldn't do enough to win. The effort was there, and when I go back to look at the numbers, I think Bayern will have more chances, more shots, etc. Bastian was somewhat poor in the first half, but woke up a bit later. Javi Martinez continued his run of good play. Ribery was again excellent, taking guys of the dribble and making dangerous runs. We just couldn't do enough to beat Weidenfeller.
Despite the disappointment of letting MG equalize, I think we were the better team for the majority of the day. The last 25 minutes were exciting and mostly went Bayern's way. Check back later, I want to look at a replay and run some numbers before I say more. Thanks for reading.