Bayern Munich's defence of their Bundesliga crown begins on Friday evening with a trip to Borussia Monchengladbach in the inaugural game of the 2021-22 season.
Both sides enter the new campaign with new men in control of the reins, as Adi Hutter and Julian Nagelsmann both seek to get off on the right foot in competitive action.
Match preview
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Bigger things may have come calling for Marco Rose in the form of Borussia Dortmund, but former Eintracht Frankfurt coach Hutter oversaw a relatively successful pre-season period with Monchengladbach, which included a 2-0 win over Bayern just two weeks ago.
Die Fohlen also saw off Metz and Groningen in their exhibition period before opening their competitive campaign against Kaiserslautern in the first round of the DFB-Pokal on Monday, where an 11th-minute winner from talisman Lars Stindl saw Monchengladbach to a 1-0 success.
Starting the season as he means to go on, 32-year-old Stindl proved both his goalscoring and playmaking prowess with 14 goals and 10 assists in 30 Bundesliga games last season, and the versatile attacker will undoubtedly need to keep his shooting boots fresh in order to fire Monchengladbach back into Europe this term.
A dismal run of Bundesliga form between January and March all but killed off Die Fohlen's hopes of a second consecutive stint in the Champions League - with their poor fortunes starting around the time that Rose was confirmed to be taking the Dortmund job - and three defeats from their final five games saw them finish eighth and miss out on Europe entirely.
A sense of managerial stability therefore ought to prove priceless in Monchengladbach's bid to break back into the top four - no mean feat indeed - and the hosts have only failed to score in one of their last three 33 Bundesliga games on home soil before a daunting visit of the perennial champions.
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Having won everything that was there to be won during his short-lived spell as Bayern manager, Hansi Flick has since swapped league action for international dugouts after being appointed Joachim Low's successor for the German national team.
Still a managerial rookie at just 34 years of age, Julian Nagelsmann said no to Tottenham Hotspur and yes to Bayern Munich, but with a whole host of international stars missing a good chunk of pre-season, early results have not gone in the former RB Leipzig coach's favour.
Indeed, the 31-time German champions - now seeking their 10th consecutive crown - suffered pre-season defeats to Monchengladbach, Napoli and Koln while also playing out a 2-2 draw with Ajax, with their makeshift youthful defence conceding 10 goals over their four exhibition games.
Nagelsmann was due to kick off his competitive Bayern career against Bremer SV in the DFB-Pokal before the tie was postponed due to a coronavirus outbreak at the fifth-tier club, so Friday's tie represents the Bavarians' only 'warm-up' game before next week's Super Cup tie versus Dortmund.
While a 2-0 defeat to Monchengladbach in pre-season is hardly a good indicator of how the campaign will pan out, Bayern only took one point from their final two away games last term and shipped at least two goals in each of their final three encounters on the road, so a shock result to open the new season is certainly not off the cards.
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Team News
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Borussia Monchengladbach begin the new campaign with a number of injury woes bedevilling them, as Mamadou Doucoure, Breel Embolo, Kouadio Kone, Marcus Thuram and Ramy Bensebaini seem set to miss the visit of Bayern.
In the latter's absence, two 18-year-olds in Joe Scally and Luca Netz will battle it out to start at left-back, and the former could get the nod after featuring in the win over Kaiserslautern.
Denis Zakaria is still building up his fitness after testing positive for coronavirus earlier in the summer, but he is confirmed to be seeking a move elsewhere.
Bayern have been boosted by bountiful returns over the past couple of weeks or so, with record-breaker Robert Lewandowski, Joshua Kimmich and Manuel Neuer among those building up their fitness following their Euro 2020 exploits.
Alphonso Davies, Kingsley Coman and Corentin Tolisso are also back in training with the Bavarians after overcoming various injury and illness-related issues, but it will surely be too soon for the trio to start, while Benjamin Pavard (ankle) Lucas Hernandez (knee) and Marc Roca (ankle) are definitely out.
If pre-season is anything to go by, Nagelsmann seems in favour of a 4-2-3-1 setup compared to the three-man backline he utilised at Leipzig, with Dayot Upamecano and Tanguy Nianzou likely to form the centre-back pairing following David Alaba's departure.
Borussia Monchengladbach possible starting lineup:
Sommer; Lainer, Ginter, Elvedi, Scally; Kramer, Neuhaus; Hofmann, Stindl, Wolf; Plea
Bayern Munich possible starting lineup:
Neuer; Sarr, Nianzou, Upamecano, Stanisic; Kimmich, Goretzka; Gnabry, Muller, Sane; Lewandowski
We say: Borussia Monchengladbach 1-2 Bayern Munich
Bayern's pre-season form may have led to a few alarm bells ringing, but the champions are seeing their crop of international stars working their way back to top condition and are always guaranteed goals with Lewandowski leading the charge.
The hosts will certainly hope to take inspiration from their pre-season triumph over Nagelsmann's men, but we think Monchengladbach will just fall short on the opening day.
Top tip
Data Analysis
Our analysis of all available data, including recent performances and player stats up until an hour before kickoff, suggested the most likely outcome of this match was a Bayern Munich win with a probability of 60.23%. A win for Borussia Monchengladbach had a probability of 19.98% and a draw had a probability of 19.8%.
The most likely scoreline for a Bayern Munich win was 1-2 with a probability of 9.63%. The next most likely scorelines for that outcome were 0-2 (7.89%) and 1-3 (7.16%). The likeliest Borussia Monchengladbach win was 2-1 (5.27%), while for a drawn scoreline it was 1-1 (8.63%). The actual scoreline of 1-1 was predicted with an 8.6% likelihood.
