When the draw for the Champions League quarterfinals was released, no one paid much attention to the fixture pitting Villarreal against Bayern Munich. Villarreal, currently in seventh place in La Liga with just 45 points to their name and not even close to a Champions League spot for next season, were widely expected to be easily swept aside by the prohibitive favourites to win European football's biggest tournament this season.
However, as it turned out, Bayern failed to deliver in a way that almost no one could have seen coming. After losing the first leg 1-0 due to an early goal scored by Arnaut Danjuma, the Bavarian powerhouse will have it all to do when they host the Spanish club at the Allianz Arena in next week's second leg.
To make matters even worse for Bayern, this was not a case of a "smash and grab" victory. Villarreal outplayed Bayern for almost the entirety of the match and arguably should have won by more. Bayern were also clearly inferior on the tactical front - a stunning development given the fact that at the age of 34, head coach Julian Nagelsmann is regarded as one of the best young coaches in world football. Despite this fact, Nagelsmann was easily outwitted by his veteran counterpart Unai Emery.
Looking at the starting lineups, one could argue that Nagelsmann overthought matters by attempting to catch Villarreal off-guard. This could be seen in his decisions to deploy Kingsley Coman on the right as well as Serge Gnabry on the left rather than in their usual spots. One could also make the case that Leroy Sané should have started in place of either Coman or Gnabry as his two-way play as well as his dribbling and passing skills would have done much to open up the field and present Bayern with several clear goalscoring chances.
The decision-making on the part of Bayern's playmakers was also extremely questionable. Again and again, they would choose to freeze out Robert Lewandowski for just about no reason at all. Almost every time he would find himself in position to create a chance for himself, he would not receive the ball. Even on the few occasions when he had the ball in the final third, he would almost always find himself stranded without any help. In short, Bayern were disjointed, discombobulated, and a mere shadow of the team which they had been for the vast majority of this season.
That being said, Bayern are probably still the favourites to advance to the semifinals. It must be kept in mind that in the first leg of the round of 16 tie against Red Bull Salzburg, they only managed a 1-1 draw against the Austrian underdogs in the first leg before storming back to destroy Salzburg 7-1 in the second. This is a Bayern team which has several "gears"; they can seemingly flip the switch and play at the peak of their powers at any given time.
Nevertheless, even if they beat Villarreal in the second leg and advance to the final four, serious changes will need to be made if Bayern are to win the Champions League for the seventh time in the club's history. These tactics and this level of play will simply not cut it against Liverpool, the team Bayern will likely play against in the semifinals.
Could this have been a case of complacency and underestimation of Villarreal? More than likely. Bayern appeared to have bought into their own hype and strode into Estadio de la Cerámica assuming that they would be handed the victory on a plate. Perhaps this mentality was fueled by their unchallenged domination of the Bundesliga - a league in which they are about to win for the 10th consecutive season by a large margin, as they always do.
For Bayern, a quarterfinal elimination at the hands of Villarreal would be one of the most shocking upsets in Champions League history. Yet, that is the reality of the situation that Bayern face right now. While they can (and arguably should) turn it around, their spot in the semifinals which once seemed guaranteed now looks very shaky indeed.
We could be on the verge of witnessing a failure of truly epic proportions.
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