Bayern Munich II Spotlight, Part 1: 2021/22 season review

I’m going to be making a three part series on Bayern Munich II leading up to the season new season’s start on July 16th (hopefully, at least, it all comes out in time). For Part 1, a retrospective on the previous season. Bayern II finished in second and failed to meet their expectations of finishing first. Nevertheless, it was a good season and a lot of fun to follow. Here are three key talking points:

Injuries

Transfermarkt.us gives us a window in to the harrowing injury situation the team faced all year. Jakob Mayer and Moritz Mosandl each missed nine months, and they were not alone. Lukas Schneller was injured for eight months; Johannes Schenk — four months, Manuel Kainz — five months, Yusuf Kabadyi — three months, Eyüp Aydin — four months.

There were regularly eight to nine players unavailable on any given matchday. The injuries severely hurt Bayern II’s consistency, team cohesion and overall player quality and contributed to the team being unable to push for promotion.

Attack sparkles but defense falters

The reserve side took a page out of the senior team’s book here. All season long, the offense powered the team. Only twice did the offense fail to score in 38 games: first against league winners SpVgg Bayreuth and again in a dead rubber match after Bayreuth was already confirmed to be champions.

Bayern II scored an incredible 113 goals in 38 games, an average of 2.97 goals per game. For context, Bayern’s incredible 2019/20 senior team ended the Bundesliga season with an average of 2.94 goals per game. Attackers such as Nemanja Motika, Lucas Copado and Gabriel Vidović really stepped up to make the attack formidable.

However, the defense was frail. The team conceded 50 goals in 38 games, largely from unforced errors. Though some mistakes will happen in a team filled with young defenders, it was still far too much to be acceptable and will have to be fixed next season.

Failure to secure to promotion

Bayern II only finished in second place in the league table, which is a big disappointment considering the season’s goal was to achieve promotion.

But that finish should be put into perspective. It had a lot to do with league winners Bayreuth pulling out 93 points for the season. For comparison’s sake, the last time Bayern II won the Regionalliga — in the 2018/19 season — it was with 2.15 points per game. This past season, Bayern II finished second with 2.26 points per game. Bayern II had an 18-point gap between themselves and the third-place team, SV Wacker Burghausen. It was a fantastic season — just sadly, not enough.

It’s very easy to say that Bayern II did not get promoted because Bayreuth had such a good season and there were so many injuries. But those are not the only reasons, as Bayern II’s defensive problems indicate. Nevertheless, Bayern II still played very well and should expect a similar effort next season to reap promotion. Overall, it was a good year.