Super Cup Insights: What Makes Brown Bayern’s New Weapon | OneFootball

FC Bayern wins the Super Cup with a 2-1 victory over Borussia Dortmund. FCBinside offers three takeaways from the match.

The Munich team won in Dortmund and secured their first title of the season. The game yielded the following takeaways:

1. This makes Brown Bayern’s new weapon

Nathaniel Brown was signed primarily as a left back—but after just a few weeks with FC Bayern, it’s becoming clear that the 23-year-old could be much more than that. In the 2-1 win over Borussia Dortmund, Vincent Kompany—as he did in the preseason friendly against Heidenheim—surprisingly deployed the new signing in the number 10 role. And Brown delivered: With his goal to make it 1-0, he scored for the third consecutive game.

It’s no coincidence that Brown is showing up in the attacking midfield. Max Eberl had already explicitly highlighted the versatility of the new signings Ismael Saibari and Brown: “They give the squad more flexibility. Nathaniel Brown can play on the left, but he can also play on the right. Even in the center.”

It is precisely this versatility that makes Brown a new weapon for Kompany. The coach explained after the Super Cup: “He’s done well in training and in the friendlies. He’s an incredibly smart player. Sometimes, the difference between our fullbacks and the number 10 isn’t always as big as you might think. That’s why he moves very well in those spaces and has a knack for scoring goals.”

Joshua Kimmich also highlighted Brown’s game intelligence. The national team player “consistently moves cleverly in space” and is “overall a very, very intelligent player who can help us a lot.”

This opens up entirely new tactical possibilities for Brown’s coach. He can start in the classic role of left back, move into the center, or even be deployed directly as an attacking midfielder. Especially in Kompany’s flexible system, positional boundaries blur anyway time and again.

Brown himself admitted that he didn’t start the game at his best. But his goal changed all that. The player once seen as Davies’s main competitor on the left side of defense is already proving to be much more than that: a player whose role is difficult for opponents to predict—a new weapon for Bayern.

2. Kimmich is more critical than Kompany

While Vincent Kompany primarily praised his team’s mentality and fitness after winning the first title of the season, Joshua Kimmich struck a surprisingly critical tone. And that’s likely no coincidence.

The Super Cup has once again shown just how far FC Bayern has pulled ahead of the domestic competition. As the runner-up, Dortmund should actually be the biggest challenger. Until they scored in the 75th minute, however, BVB appeared clearly outclassed for long stretches of the game. Bayern led 2–0 and could have sealed the victory even earlier.

Nevertheless, Kimmich wasn’t blinded by the result. “To be honest, I didn’t think the first half was that good,” he explained on Sky. There were particular problems with ball control. In addition, the 31-year-old criticized Bayern for allowing too many crosses and failing to control the game after the break.

Photo: IMAGO

His assessment of the victory over their supposedly strongest domestic rival was remarkably candid: “We’re satisfied with the result, but not necessarily with the way we played.”

Kimmich is thus already rubbing salt in the wound after just the first competitive match. After all, this team’s ambitions extend far beyond domestic dominance. On Thursday, the group stage draw for the Champions League will take place—and against Europe’s top teams, the weaknesses that Dortmund was only able to exploit sporadically will become far more dangerous.

Kompany is in a position to offer praise after the successful start to the season. Kimmich, on the other hand, is taking on the role of the voice of caution early on. The ambitious leader knows this: Anyone who truly wants to reach for Europe’s crown this season cannot measure themselves by whether they’re good enough to beat Dortmund.

3. Olise remains world-class—and nonchalant

During and after the World Cup, there were repeated rumors of Real Madrid’s potential interest in Michael Olise. Anyone who was therefore curious to see how the Frenchman would perform upon his return to FC Bayern got a pretty clear answer in Dortmund: just like before.

Olise had returned from his extended World Cup break just over a week ago. He’d completed a mere three or four training sessions with the team—and yet he played the full 90 minutes in the 2-1 win over BVB. What’s more, Olise was immediately the best Bayern player on the field again. He set up the 1-0 goal by Nathaniel Brown and scored the 2-0 goal himself. For that, he earned an FCBinside rating of 1.

Even Vincent Kompany was amazed by his star’s fitness: “That’s insane. Harry and Michael trained three or four times and played 90 minutes in Dortmund.”

And after the final whistle? Olise was his usual self there, too. The 24-year-old was named Man of the Match and kept a straight face during the obligatory victory photo. Even at the subsequent title celebration, his euphoria—at least outwardly—remained in check. While his teammates were cheering, Olise merely raised one hand briefly.

Anyone who knows the Frenchman is familiar with these scenes. Even at previous title celebrations, Olise sometimes seemed as if the whole spectacle could barely rattle him. Why should that suddenly change?

More importantly, nothing has changed on the field either. Vacation, a short preseason, rumors about Real Madrid—none of it matters. Olise simply picks up right where he left off: with world-class performances and the nonchalance that is his trademark.

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