Bayern Munich, the reigning German Bundesliga champion, missed the opportunity to reclaim the top spot on Saturday as Union Berlin held them to a 1-1 draw.
Sheraldo Becker’s goal-bound volley of Christopher Tremmel’s free kick gave Union the lead.
Joshua Kimmich, however, helped Bayern fight back three minutes later, and both teams battled valiantly to a draw.
Bayern are now in third place in the Bundesliga standings following the draw.
After Borussia Dortmund defeated Hoffenheim 1-0 on Friday to take the lead, Freiburg overtook Dortmund on Saturday after winning 3-2 at Bayer Leverkusen.
Bayern will face Inter Milan on the road in their opening Champions League matchup on Wednesday.
Julian Nagelsmann, the coach of Bayern Munich, appeared irate following a dreadful draw against Union Berlin.
With their hard tackles, aggressive marking, and deep blocks, the Berliners were in their element.
In addition to this, the referee put on a terrible performance. Before ultimately receiving a booking in the 87th minute, which was irrelevant by that point, Rani Khedira and other Union players, received far too many free passes.
Union made 16 interceptions and was successful in 20 of the 28 attempted tackles.
Bayern, in contrast, only succeeded in 8 of the 14 attempted tackles and made 10 interceptions. This disparity in numbers is largely attributable to Bayern’s dominant 75 percent possession rate.
But it is unusual for Bayern to lose control of the ball to other teams on such a regular basis, and a large part of the credit for that goes to Union coach Urs Fischer and his team, who executed their strategy remarkably well.
Was Bayern able to outrun the Union bus? Definitely. There were certainly times during the game when Bayern had possibilities, but the Bayern attackers did not move together well.
It wasn’t until Muller arrived that the Bayern onslaught began to seem connected.
Sadio Mane didn’t have a fantastic workday; his passes were inaccurate, and he dropped a few golden opportunities to get the winning kick beyond the last line of defense and free up Leroy Sane and Kingsley Coman.
Because of Bayern’s carelessness and Union’s bothersome but effective behavior, the outcome was equitable for both parties.
Bayern Munich won each of their first three games, but none of their last two.
Initially, the season appeared to be a walkover for the Bundesliga team because they began their Bundesliga campaign this season as Champions and won their opening games by a significant margin based on the number of goals they scored. Will Bayern regain their winning ways and reclaim the title? Time will tell.
