Three Observations from Bayern Munich’s win against Köln

Basically, that was an entertaining “friendly”.

Neither Köln nor Bayern Munich had a lot to play for in this match, and you could tell for the majority of the first half. Both teams were free flowing in their attacking with very little defense being played. Bayern were especially off, while Köln at least had “pride” to play for as this was their final home Bundesliga match before being relegated. As one would expect, Bayern turned the screws in the second half and cruised to a victory. Still, there’s not a lot to take from this match, as it was rather pointless for both teams.

Franck Evina looked solid.

The 17 year old had another solid outing for Bayern. While it’s clear that his teammates don’t fully trust him on the field yet, his physical play on the wing is a boost to the team. He turns 18 over the summer and should feature in some of Bayern’s big summer friendlies where the World Cup bound players are missing. At this point, it’s still hard to tell what kind of future Evina has in a Bayern shirt, but it at least looks like he’s going to fight for a spot until the end.

The fire burns in Robert Lewandowski.

Lewandowski bagged his 29th goal of the Bundesliga season with a tidy finish on a hold up and layoff from Thomas Müller in the second half. When subbed late in the second half, Lewandowski looked frustrated and didn’t acknowledge Jupp Heynckes when he came off the field. While some will try to make this a bigger issue than it is, Heynckes gets it. He was a goalscorer, too. Lewandowski is one goal short of his third consecutive 30 goal season, tying him with the legendary Gerd Müller for the only players in Bundesliga history to score 30 goals in 3 straight seasons. (Müller has five total.) Lewandowski likely saw goal #30 in big letters in front of him with Köln’s defense not trying in the last 15 minutes of the match. Look for him to come out on fire next week in the finale at the Allianz Arena against Stuttgart.