Pep Guardiola Must Follow in Jupp Heynckes' Footsteps to Bolster Bayern Munich

Bayern Munich suffered a rare and rather humiliating defeat on Tuesday, falling 3-2 to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium. Intrinsically, there is nothing to be ashamed of in losing to the English champions away from home and by a narrow margin. But the manner in which Bayern capitulated in Manchester was embarrassing.

Bayern were masters of their own defeat on Tuesday, their performance riddled with errors that saw their 2-1 lead overturned in the final five minutes. From the visitors' perspective, each of City's three goals was avoidable; each came following a poor mistake by Bayern.

Sergio Aguero put the hosts ahead after fielding a simple, long aerial pass only to be fouled from behind by Mehdi Benatia. The Moroccan was sent off for a challenge that can only be described as senseless, which left the Argentine with a penalty that he converted and Bayern to play with 10 men for 70 minutes.

It was therefore an incredible feat that the Bavarians turned things around not long thereafter and went into the half-time break with a 2-1 lead. At 11-vs.-11, Bayern dominated the overall play despite conceding the penalty. At 10-vs.-11, it was closer but with the visitors still getting the better of the English side.

Xabi Alonso's free-kick equalizer stunned and in a sense humiliated City, a shot that resembled a pass skipping across the grass and into the lower-right corner with hardly a flinch from goalkeeper Joe Hart or any member of his wall that seemed to have been expecting a higher attempt towards the near post. Minutes later, Robert Lewandowski nodded a perfect header from Jerome Boateng's precise cross to give an understaffed Bayern a shocking lead. What the visitors were unable to do in 20 minutes with a full team they managed to do twice in 25 with a one-man deficit. Incredible!

Bayern were generally quite comfortable for much of the match, but threw it all away late in the game. First, Aguero capitalized on a rare, loose pass from Alonso that left him with a breakaway from which he converted. Then, Boateng made a loose touch that conceded possession to the Argentine, who made no mistake with his finish. In five minutes, City had reversed a seemingly certain 2-1 defeat to a 3-2 victory. And although Aguero deserves high praise for taking his chances and rescuing an otherwise woeful City side, it was above all a case of Bayern collapsing and beating themselves.

Tuesday is not the first time in recent memory that Bayern suffered a shock defeat in the Champions League group stage that could have been avoided. In November of 2012, two years ago, they lost 3-1 to BATE in Minsk. That was in many ways a different loss, with the Belarusian side significantly weaker opponents than City and Bayern never holding a lead at any point. However, it similarly came as a surprise and was rather humiliating.

Losing to BATE as they did could have severely damaged Bayern's confidence, but then-coach Jupp Heynckes rallied his side immediately. Their next match they won 2-0. They went on to win 38 and lose just two of the 45 matches that followed before season's end.

Heynckes took the BATE defeat, ostensibly a negative, and turned it into a positive. After their hugely disappointing defeat, his team went on to become arguably the most dominant Bayern team ever, both domestically and in the Champions League. By season's end, the BATE debacle was only a distant memory.

Pep Guardiola now faces a somewhat similar situation to that which Heynckes faced two years ago. With his team's collective ego—and the confidence especially of Benatia, Alonso and Boateng—having taken a hit, he'll need to turn things around immediately. Confidence can be a fragile thing, as Bayern fully know from the collapse they suffered late last season.

On the plus side, Guardiola seems to have brought his team to a new level in terms of confidence. The way they reacted to Benatia's sending off was truly incredible. Whereas most teams would simply capitulate after such an unfortunate turn of events, Bayern continued confidently and ought to have won the match.

Bayern ultimately did not win Tuesday's match and will have to try again this Saturday as they visit Berlin to take on Hertha BSC. Their hosts will be entirely beatable opponents, having earned just 14 points and a 13th-placed standing after 12 matchdays. Bayern will have to use them as a bit of a punching bag to recover confidence lost in midweek and have a good chance to do so considering that Hertha have conceded an average of two goals per game this season.

Two years ago, Heynckes turned a negative into a positive after a humiliating defeat to BATE, the veteran trainer transforming his side into one of the strongest teams Europe has ever seen. Now that Guardiola finally has a setback to work with, it's his turn to follow in Heynckes' footsteps.

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