Bayern Munich vs Gladbach: Lineups, team news, making an XI out of this mess, and more! (Updated)

So game day is almost here, and we still don’t know for sure if Bayern Munich vs Borussia Monchengladbach will go ahead as planned. TEN Bayern players have tested positive for the virus, including Alphonso Davies who actually trained with the team yesterday, so you can assume that a majority of the squad is compromised. However, the current attitude towards the pandemic seems to be “the show must go on”, so here we are discussing a crazy situation.

Team news

At this point the situation is so fluid that it’s impossible to say who will or won’t play. For now, we can only guess what the lineup will be like. Given what we know so far, here is an option with all available first XI players:

As you can see, it’s akin to a 3-5-2 and nothing like any formation we’ve ever seen Bayern Munich play before. Robert Lewandowski and Thomas Muller are the main hope of the XI — they’ll be the ones trying to get goals. If given service, these two WILL score. It’s the rest of the team’s job to get it to them.

Jamal Musiala and Serge Gnabry are pretty good defensively, so Nagelsmann may be forced to deploy them at wingback. Marcel Sabitzer, Malik Tillman, and Marc Roca will need to pair up for a midfield three, while Niklas Sule, Joshua Kimmich, and Benjamin Pavard are the only fit defenders remaining on the whole team. Sven Ulriech will get his second outing in place of Manuel Neuer, with the Bayern captain out for the moment after testing positive.

That ... is not a great XI. It’s not even a clever XI, because it uses pretty much whoever’s available at the moment.

Currently, there are some reports that Omar Richards and Corentin Tolisso could be let out of quarantine today, with Kingsley Coman maybe coming back tomorrow with a negative test. They haven’t trained much, but all three would become big candidates for the starting XI in that case. Richards’ return would be especially important, since the lineup has no natural left-backs at the moment.

Of course, other developments could happen as well. We’ll keep you posted. Check back here on BFW from time to time to see if there are any updates. Any and all news on the game will be here where you need it.

Update

Bild seems to agree with our lineup. Let’s see how it goes.

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