High Horse Sports

For three minutes Friday night, VfB Stuttgart got to believe the Bundesliga might be interesting. Josha Vagnoman smashed home an equalizer in the 52nd minute, Bayern Munich looked briefly uncomfortable, and the Allianz Arena had the audacity to feel tense. Then Michael Olise scored, Vagnoman put one into his own net, and Bayern spent the rest of the night reminding Germany that hope is a dangerous hobby.

Bayern’s 5-1 win was not just an opening-day victory. It was the kind of performance that makes the rest of the league stare at the schedule and wonder whether second place comes with a trophy. Stuttgart did not get robbed. Stuttgart got processed.

Dayot Upamecano started the scoring in the 21st minute, meeting Joshua Kimmich’s corner at the near post and flicking a header into the far corner. Stuttgart had opened the match with some confidence and even clipped the top of the bar through Tiago Tomás, but Bayern gradually took control. Luis Díaz nearly doubled the lead before halftime after a gorgeous half-volley pass from Harry Kane, only for Fabian Bredlow to make the save.

Then came Stuttgart’s big moment. Upamecano gave the ball away, Bayern failed to clear the danger, and Manuel Neuer saved Deniz Undav’s header before Vagnoman buried the rebound. It was 1-1 in the 52nd minute. Stuttgart had climbed the mountain and planted its flag. Bayern responded by firing up the industrial snowplow.

Kimmich drove straight through midfield and slipped Olise into the penalty area three minutes later. Olise calmly rolled a left-footed finish into the bottom corner because panic is apparently an emotion he left in London. Two minutes after that, Alphonso Davies sent in a fairly harmless cross, Vagnoman slipped while trying to clear it and suddenly the man who had tied the match had also untied it in Bayern’s favor.

That five-minute sequence was the match. Stuttgart went from celebrating an equalizer to trailing 3-1 before the stadium had finished processing what happened. Bayern did not need an extended tactical adjustment or a dramatic speech. They simply raised the speed, attacked the spaces around Stuttgart’s back three and turned a competitive game into another Allianz Arena public service announcement.

Kimmich was the engine behind everything. He assisted Bayern’s first two goals, recorded 86 touches and created two big chances. Bayern completed 145 passes in the final third compared with Stuttgart’s 78 and piled up 49 touches in the opposition penalty area to Stuttgart’s 17. This was not empty possession. This was Bayern parking the furniture in Stuttgart’s half and refusing to leave.

Olise was just as cruel. He scored once, fired six shots and had another goal erased by an offside decision after combining with Kane. Díaz also attempted six shots and eventually got his reward in stoppage time. Kane did not score, which should be encouraging for Bayern and deeply irritating for everybody else. They hung five goals on one of Germany’s better teams without needing their star striker to fill the box score.

The late goals belonged to Ismael Saibari, who entered in the 61st minute and immediately started making friends. He powered behind Stuttgart’s defense in the 82nd minute, then unselfishly pulled the ball back for Aleksandar Pavlović to tap in. In stoppage time, he punished another Stuttgart giveaway and released Díaz for the fifth. Two assists on a Bundesliga debut is a decent way to introduce yourself, especially when both passes arrive with the message that Bayern’s bench is also here to ruin everyone’s evening.

Stuttgart will point to the strong opening, the equalizer and the fact that the match was technically close for nearly an hour. That is all true. It is also the sort of comfort people find when they are carefully avoiding the final score. The problem was not that Stuttgart had no plan. The problem was that Bayern answered its best punch with three goals, another disallowed goal and enough pressure to make the final half-hour feel inevitable.