Is Vincent Kompany good enough to lead Bayern Munich on a Champions League run or win trophies?

CHARLOTTE, NC — As one of the biggest clubs not only in Germany but also Europe, Bayern Munich are expected to compete for the title in every competition they play in.

Winning their last Champions League title in 2020, the Bavarian beasts are a force to be reckoned with at their best, sporting a squad full of talent, money, and explosiveness.

Even the most expensive squads, however, need a manager to get the most out of them, setting the players up to not only perform at their best but combine to create a collective that's greater than the sum of their parts.

While Bayern Munich are dominant against clubs with a clear talent deficit, they have struggled under manager Vincent Kompany to impress against sides with equal talent or exceptional togetherness.

In the wake of their quarterfinal exit in this past season's Champions League at the hands of eventual finalists Inter Milan, followed by a drab 1-0 defeat to Benfica to conclude their Club World Cup group stage slate in the scorching United States heat, questions have to be asked about Kompany's viability as the right man to helm the squad into next season's push for European glory.

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Vincent Kompany tactics with Bayern Munich

At Bayern Munich, Vincent Kompany has focused less on a nuanced tactical approach and instead looks to put his best players in position to make the most of their individual and collective talents.

Largely, Kompany sets his team up in a 4-2-3-1 formation, but he allows for significant flexibility in the buildup. At various points of penetration into the opposition third and then subsequently the penalty area, the Bayern shape can look more like a 2-4-4, a 2-3-5, or even as aggressive as a 2-1-7.

When buildup is slow and Bayern want to draw the opponent out, one of the defensive midfielders can drop to one side of the two center-backs while one full-back sits in midfield and the other pushes high, creating a 3-2-5 or 3-3-4 formation, as seen below in the Club World Cup match against Benfica. In this image, Aleksandar Pavlovic has dropped to the right of Dayot Upamecano and Josip Stanisic, while Joao Palhinha sits at the base of midfield behind full-backs Sacha Boey and Raphael Guerrero pinching in. Meanwhile, the two wingers go high and wide while striker Thomas Muller and No. 10 Tom Bischof sit centrally alongside one another.

In the build-up, the center-backs will widen to begin filtering forward, while the full-backs push up into the base of midfield and pinch. This gives the center-backs options to feed either the pinched full-backs, the midfielders in a central area, or the wingers high and wide, while all of them can combine as well to create triangles or squares with which to exploit.

The idea is to take advantage of overloads and half-spaces with the striker (often Harry Kane) or No. 10 (Jamal Musiala) dropping into space which either draws defenders to allow wingers to make runs in behind or fills space vacated by defenders stepping up to face the ball.

The most effective move for Bayern in Kompan's first season in charge was when the winger would carry the ball to the top-corner of the penalty area and feed a lateral ball across the opponent's defensive shape to an unmarked full-back or midfielder occupying space atop the 18-yard-box.

None of this is overtly revolutionary. For a top team with a talent advantage, stepping players further up the pitch to suffocate an opponent and counter-press heavily is not exactly a groundbreaking concept.

Can Vincent Kompany lead Bayern Munich to European heights?

While Vincent Kompany's approach worked extremely well in Bundesliga play as Bayern scored loads of goals and overwhelmed opponents in domestic play.

Yet against better teams that they cannot overwhelm with numbers or talents, such as in the Champions League or Club World Cup, Kompany's approach doesn't exactly add value to the club's collective or optimize the players at his club.

Indeed, when the squad experienced injuries or were playing opponents of equal or greater talent, Kompany did not know how to better the side and give the opponent a new approach to game-plan for.

This is why, ahead of the Benfica match in the Club World Cup, Kompany's response to how they hope to improve next season revolved not around tactics or talent, but instead fitness. To have a chance, they need their best players healthy because Kompany cannot cover for an injury-stricken squad.

"If there's anything I could wish for our team...I mentioned some of the underlying numbers to our performances that are really positive, but if I'm looking forward to what we want for the future is in the big moments having all our best players available to give us the best chance to win other trophies," the Belgian said in his pre-match press conference.

"These big competitions are about big moments and for that, you need your squad fully there, which is why we are trying to work our way towards the next step, because on the continent we showed a lot of promising signs."

While that's certainly true, it also betrays a manager who is unable to add value to his side. Every club suffers injuries at various stages throughout a season — some more than others, sure — and a manager must have the ability to adapt and create new ways of playing more than a simple plug-and-play system which does little to highlight its best players and most unique skill sets.

Certainly not, at least, to the level of Mikel Arteta at Arsenal last season, for example.

This was evident against Benfica, when he saw Harry Kane, Jamal Musiala, Joshua Kimmich, Michael Olise, Jonathan Tah, and Kingsley Coman all start on the bench to begin the match. Without many of their regulars, the team struggled mightily to create any kind of attacking pressure, content to simply knock the ball around in a non-threatening manner with few ideas on how to break down the opposition.

Indeed, it was clear that Kompany's primary instruction was to have his best attacking players receive the ball and, for lack of a better descriptor, do some stuff.

When they have the space to do lots of stuff, such as playing lower-level opposition in Germany, they can cook, but against top-class opponents who deny them the space, possession, or ability to showcase their talents, it becomes not only a strain on their offensive output but also a danger to their defensive strength.

Every club is stymied offensively on occasion, even the best in the world. But when there's no ingenuity or creativity, as they seemed to be lacking against Benfica, the ideas run out quickly and the club looks lost. When they look lost, they suffer defeats — as they did against Benfica, or against Inter, Aston Villa, or Celtic in the Champions League this past season.

Bayern fans are not likely to tolerate such lapses too often, and Kompany may wish to dig deeper to help his side challenge the most skilled opponents while avoiding too many slips against lesser-caliber sides.