▲ Minjae Kim
Kim Min-jae played full-time with a solid defense, but his team Bayern Munich halted their winning streak of all four games in the opening game against ‘defending champion’ Leverkusen.
Munich drew 1-1 with Leverkusen in the 2024-2025 Bundesliga 5th round home game held today (29th) at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany.
Leverkusen won the trophy last season by stopping Munich’s 12-game losing streak in the league.
The Munich players took to the field with enthusiasm and performed well to restore their honor that day, but they were unable to score as many goals as they wanted and had to be content with taking only 1 point.
The opening winning streak also stopped at 4 games.
They remained at the top of the league standings with 13 points.
The gap with 2nd 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 midfield, and even induced a yellow card for Leverkusen midfielder Florian Wirtz, who made a rough play by raising his foot to face level.
Footmob, a soccer 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 due to Robert Andrich’s surprise mid-range ground ball shot from a corner kick.
Munich responded eight minutes later with Aleksandar Pavlovic’s long-range wonder goal.
When the opponent’s header flowed out of the penalty area from the front, Pavlovic trapped it once with his chest and then fired a strong shot with his right foot.
The shot, which stretched out like a ‘laser beam’, passed the goalkeeper’s hand and hit the goal post.
Munich dominated the game, recording 69% of the ball and taking an 18-3 lead on shots, but failed to produce 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 strikers in the Mainz 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 center back Andreas Hanze Olsen was sent off for accumulating 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 gave up the winning goal in extra time in the second half thanks to Tomas Civanzara’s header.
Jung Woo-young, who scored his debut goal in Berlin in the third round, failed to increase his attack points on this day and was replaced in the 30th minute of the second half.
(Photo = AP, Yonhap News)
