Burning

▲ Minjae Kim

Kim Min-jae played full-time in a strong defence, but his Bayern Munich side had their four-game winning streak halted in the opener against ‘defending champions’ Leverkusen.

Munich drew 1-1 with Leverkusen in the 5th home match of the 2024-2025 Bundesliga held today (29th) at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany.

Leverkusen won the cup last season by ending Munich’s 12-match league losing streak.

The Munich players took to the field with enthusiasm and did well to restore their honor that day, but they could not score as many goals as they wanted and had to be content with giving just 1 point.

The opening hitting streak also stopped at 4 games.

They stayed at the top of the league with 13 points.

The gap with second place Leipzig is 2 points.

Kim Min-jae, who started as a center back partner with Dayot Upamecano, played full-time in four consecutive games and showed consistent defensive ability.

In the 12th minute of the second half, he took possession of the ball with three consecutive headers in the middle of the park, and even prompted a yellow card for the Leverkusen midfielder Florian Wirtz, who made a play rough by raising his leg to face level.

Footmob, a football statistics site, gave Kim Min-jae an acceptable rating of 7.4.

Munich conceded the first goal in the 31st minute of the first half thanks to Robert Andrich’s stunning midfield shot from a corner kick.

Munich responded eight minutes later with Aleksandar Pavlovic’s stunning long-range goal.

When the opponent’s header went out of the penalty area from the front, Pavlovic caught it once with his chest and then fired a powerful shot with his right foot.

The shot, which stretched out like a ‘laser beam’, went past the goalkeeper’s hand and hit the goal post.

Munich dominated the game, recording 69% of the ball and taking an 18-3 lead in shots, but they failed to score the winning goal.

Mainz, with Lee Jae-seong and Hong Hyun-seok as starters, lost 2-0 in the home game against Heidenheim amid bad news.

Lee Jae-seong and Hong Hyun-seok were placed side by side as second line attackers in Mainz’s 3-4-2-1 system.

Hong Hyun-seok, who started four consecutive league games, was replaced by defender Stefan Bell in the 32nd minute of the first half.

This was a tactical reason as Mainz defender Andreas Hanze Olsen was sent off for collecting yellow cards in the 29th minute of the first half.

Jae-Sung Lee played until the 30th minute of the second half and was replaced by Nelson Viper.

While Mainz, outnumbered, struggled, neither Lee Jae-seong nor Hong Hyun-seok were able to increase their attack points.

Heidenheim took the lead in the 15th minute of the first half thanks to Marvin Firinger’s goal, and won 2-0 with Jan Schöpner’s header in the 41st minute of the second half.

Mainz, with 5 points, was in 11th place, and Heidenheim, with 9 points, was in 5th place.

Union Berlin, where Jung Woo-young started for two consecutive games, lost 1-0 in the away game against Mönchengladbach.

They conceded the winning goal in second-half extra time thanks to Tomas Civanzara’s header.

Jung Woo-young, who scored his first goal in Berlin in the third round, failed to increase his attacking points on this day and was replaced in the 30th minute of the second half.

(Photo = AP, Yonhap News)