In Mainz this weekend, where spring is reaching the trees but not yet the air, Nicolas Jackson scored the goal that began Bayern Munich‘s resurrection, but the Chelsea cloud continues to hover over him.
Three goals down after first-half goals from Dominik Kohr, Paul Nebel and Sheraldo Becker, the Bundesliga champions looked like a great machine stripped of animation; gears intact, movement absent, one eye on midweek.
Then, Senegal‘s Jackson struck — meeting Konrad Laimer‘s cross in the 53rd minute — and that grand old apparatus began to shudder back to life.
A second goal followed, a brilliant effort from Michael Olise, then a third, Jamal Musiala from close range, before Harry Kane secured a remarkable second-half comeback after capitalising on Daniel Batz‘s parried save.
By evening, the newspapers reported their expected result, even if the route to get there hadn’t been anticipated; comeback, character, champions.
Yet beneath the talk of triumph, and celebration of Vincent Kompany’s ‘mentality monsters’, there lay a quieter truth. Even on the day when Jackson saved Bayern, he still remains unable to step fully out of Kane’s shadow.
Kane was the match-winner, the poster boy of the success, but would it have been possible without Jackson?
News reports of Bayern’s stunning comeback were quickly followed by reports that Jackson’s time in Bavaria would not be extended beyond the end of his current loan deal. It’s not entirely a surprise.
There are players who enter a club via the frontages, announced with amplitude, escorted by expectation. Others arrive via the side entrance. Jackson belonged in the second group.
Bayern didn’t recruit him to inherit the attack, to lead the line. They summoned him because Kane, while magnificent, cannot occupy every minute of every match. So Jackson became the alternative, the spare.
When Kane plays, Bayern become orderly, this machine we discuss. The attack has a centre, a focal point, the passes have an address, the game moves to his familiar grammar.
Kane is not merely a striker, but a system of punctuation. He finishes moves, begins them, pauses them, redirects them.
He’s raised Bayern, not just as a goalscorer, but as an advanced playmaker, as an offensive leader. He’s their reference point. When Jackson’s played, the syntax has changed.
Naturally, Bayern have been less composed, more urgent, scrappier, less architectural, changes in the weather. He runs into spaces before they are visible, he asks defenders questions they dislike, he presses with impatience and opportunism.
While Kane offers certainty, inviting the ball to his feet, Jackson offers disturbance, with much of his best work done before possession arrives to him.
Disturbance is not celebrated like certainty. It’s why even this season, a success by the striker’s standards, is ending on a flat note, feeling provisional.
Jackson has scored efficiently — a goal every 121 minutes in the Bundesliga, even better in the Champions League — and supplied valuable energy, changing games from the bench, and reminding observers that there are different ways for us to appraise strikers.
As his form has sharpened — he’s had a hand in seven goals in his last seven matches — old criticisms have softened. It happened at Chelsea as well, there are fine lines, when Jackson is concerned, between erratic and dangerous.
Some days we focus on the misses, on other days we focus on the movement… a reckless red card against Bayer Leverkusen last month, after being given a rare start, hardly helped. Football is a game of opinions, after all, and judgement can change quicker than facts can catch up.
1:50
Laurens: The winner in PSG vs. Bayern will be the team who presses better
The ESPN FC panel look ahead to the UCL semifinal first leg between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.
Against Mainz, with Bayern distracted, perhaps, by their UEFA Champions League clash against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday, habit fell to complacency, and suddenly they looked moral.
Jackson launched the rescue mission, the goal that made the belief possible again. But despite his impact, when the stadium emptied, the old question remained: what becomes of Jackson beyond this season?
The answer from Munich is becoming increasingly clear; he won’t return next year. Bayern are not expected to make his move permanent; why invest so many resources, commit, to a player whose place in the pecking order is conditional?
Jackson has fulfilled his brief at Bayern, but still appears thoroughly expendable as Kompany and Co. look to the future. He’s done what Bayern wanted: stretched defences, added rotation, scored goals, given Kane valuable rest.
He may yet have a big role to play in the latter stages of Europe’s premier club competition… but usefulness does not equal a new deal.
Perhaps the PSG double-header offers him the perfect stage to bow out with a reminder of his importance to Bayern, and the impact he can still have at the business end of continental competition.
But it’s unlikely that any European heroics would lead to an offseason u-turn. His road may be winding back to Chelsea, and its overflowing dressing room.
This is a club of many uncertain destinies right now; manager-less, a swollen squad, an identity in transition. Jackson returns as a different footballer from the one who left, improved by travel, and a greater asset for the Pensioners.
However, any potential future in London is uncertain. Chelsea may view him as a saleable asset, although they may yet consider whether this rare — if unfinished — striker can still offer something beyond João Pedro and Liam Delap.
While Jackson’s club future will surely be decided in the months to come, he also has a World Cup with Senegal to look forward to, with the Teranga Lions now set to challenge on the grandest stage of all as Africa’s champions (at least depending on whose version of affairs you subscribe to).
He doesn’t have so much to prove with the West Africans, where he retains a key and clear value despite the increasing competition for places. He can run in behind, cut inwards from wide positions, operate as a classic centreforward against higher defences, or enter as an ungainly substitute when the Lions need something different in attack.
He’ll arrive at the World Cup with greater experience: Spain taught him improvisation, England taught him scrutiny, Germany has taught him patience. Will he finally be rewarded for his experience over the months to come?
