Defeat at Dortmund Shows Work Carlo Ancelotti Still Has at Bayern Munich

"But it's good for the league. It's what everyone has been wishing for," said Philipp Lahm, per Kicker. Not without a degree of irony after Bayern Munich's defeat at Borussia Dortmund on Saturday, as it means that RB Leipzig—the other club German football fans love to hate—will end the weekend on top of the Bundesliga table.

For the first time in 39 Matchdays, some 425 calendar days, Bayern will not be top of the league ahead of the next round of games. It is an inhabitual position for the record German champions, who find themselves in second place, three points behind the leaders and—perhaps more significantly—just a victory ahead of Dortmund, now lurking ominously on their shoulders in third.

At most clubs, it would not be much of a concern, but at Bayern, it all but constitutes a crisis. What is even more worrying is that this defeat has been coming.

Carlo Ancelotti's men came into the game unbeaten in domestic competition, but performances like the one at Eintracht Frankfurt suggested they were not as impressive as their stats would have us believe. Against the best of the rest in the Bundesliga—sorry, Leipzig, but you're not there yet—this was always going to be a real test for Bayern, and it is not a massive surprise they failed it.

You have to credit Dortmund and manager Thomas Tuchel, whose 5-3-2 formation flummoxed and frustrated Bayern. The visitors could have learned something from the discipline with which the hosts remained supremely organised.

Tuchel had clearly noted Bayern's difficulties at picking their way through compact defences, and bet—rightly, as it turned out—his rearguard action could make them suffer even more than they had against Germany's lesser lights. He rather parked the BVB bus, though it was more of a luxury coach, and it was done so cleverly, perfectly, to nullify Bayern.

The match stats tell the story: Bayern with 66 percent possession, played 694 passes—exactly double Dortmund—yet BVB were not chasing the ball around needlessly. They tallied only a collective 1.3 kilometres more than their opponents, whose efforts were channelled into attempting to knock a hole in the formidably well-drilled banks of yellow and black in front of them.

Dortmund patiently let a huffing and puffing Bayern blow their own storm out.

"We lacked the final ball, especially in the first half," Lahm analysed afterwards, per Bayern's official website, with the sort of laser-guided precision his team's passing in the final third was crying out for. "We were never exact enough, otherwise we would have had numerous chances."

Poor Robert Lewandowski, who was superbly handled and manhandled by Sokratis, got not so much as a sniff of a decent ball, never mind of the goal.

With Ancelotti's system requiring the full-backs to provide width, both Lahm and David Alaba needed to deliver quality service into the box. Only once, when Lahm lunged near the by-line to volley over a cross, did either of the pair produce something resembling danger, though it required the most acrobatic of attempts by Thiago Alcantara to even make anything of it.

Also at the opposite end, the 4-3-3 of Ancelotti did not work, once again. The ability of Bayern's wide players to beat their man one-on-one, which made them such formidable adversaries under Pep Guardiola, is all but nullified by the new Bayern boss' narrower approach. And the reliance on the full-backs to compensate for that makes the side vulnerable.

Martin Meissner/Associated Press

It was especially evident early on and—in fact—decided the game. Alaba, in particular, was uncharacteristically all over the place, and it caused the defensive chaos that led to Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scoring.

With Alaba AWOL, Mats Hummels was pulled out wide to face Mario Gotze, whose cross squeezed between the former Dortmund man's legs and found Aubameyang in the six-yard box all alone to score. You have to think Hummels would have been tight to the Gabon international striker had Alaba been doing his job.

There was a carbon copy just a few minutes later when it was Aubameyang wide on the Bayern left. Hummels was again the man covering only to leave a lonely Andre Schurrle on the edge of the box to send a first-time shot towards the goal that—either side of Manuel Neuer—would have given the Germany No. 1 something seriously tough to chew on.

As Ancelotti has been prone to do when his preferred formation has not been working, he switched to 4-4-2/4-2-3-1 with Douglas Costa coming on for Kimmich just before the hour mark. The fact the Brazil international raced on to the pitch yelling the new tactical setup to his teammates without using his hand to thwart lip-readers like some Cold War spy suggested urgency rather than carelessness.

Martin Meissner/Associated Press

The switch did not work this time, however.

Costa had—along with fellow South American Arturo Vidal—been classed as being "tired" by Ancelotti after international duty, per Bayern's official website. And there was little doubt the Brazilian's habitual spark was conspicuous by its absence.

There was one moment where he cut inside onto his left foot before sending a shot over the bar. It reminded everyone that it probably would have been different had Arjen Robben been on the pitch given the Dutchman's stunning form this season.

But he wasn't, so it wasn't.

Bayern desperately needed a moment of individual inspiration to get them back into the match—Xabi Alonso's shot that struck the bar almost did—but with Robben sidelined by injury and Franck Ribery, who had just returned from injury, looking every inch a player who had only just returned from injury, inspiration was in desperately short supply.

They might have had more shots—18 to Dortmund's 11—but Roman Burki was not seriously stretched, unlike Neuer with the block to prevent Aubameyang doubling Dortmund's lead 19 minutes from time.

"I was happy with the performance, not with the result," claimed Ancelotti, per Bayern's official website, after the final whistle at the Signal Iduna Park. If the former Chelsea boss does not change his ideas, notably his formation, it is a phrase he is likely to utter after a number of key matches this season.