How did he not score?! Bayern Munich forward Joshua Zirkzee brilliantly rounds the Ajax goalkeeper in a pre-season friendly… before trying to walk the ball into an empty net and being tackled
- After being dispossessed, Joshua Zirkzee won the ball back after a loose pass
- He then beat Jurrien Timber and Remko Pasveer and had the goal at his mercy
- But incredibly, instead of slotting home, Zirkzee decided to walk the ball in
- Per Schuurs got back and challenged to leave the forward with egg on his face
- Julian Nagelsmann hoped that the forward would be more ‘serious’ in future
- Zirkzee’s short career has already featured a number of big highs and lows
Bayern Munich youngster Joshua Zirkzee is already firmly in contention for gaffe of the season after an astonishing passage of play in a pre-season friendly against Ajax.
With the score at 1-1 just before half time, the forward seemed like he would do everything right.
After his dribble upfield was stopped by Perr Schuurs, a loose pass by Ryan Gravenberch allowed the 20-year-old to win the ball back, nipping it past Jurrien Timber before rounding goalkeeper Remko Pasveer.
Joshua Zirkzee had the goal at his mercy after rounding Ajax goalkeeper Remko Pasveer
But his attempt to walk the ball in embarrassingly failed as Per Schuurs got back to challenge
“Joshua Zirkzee makes it two…OH NO…oh my word!” ¿¿¿
An absolutely incredible miss for the Bayern man after rounding the goalkeeper ¿¿
What was he thinking? ¿¿ pic.twitter.com/m6MwC2h7Ka
— Premier Sports ¿¿ (@PremierSportsTV) July 24, 2021
All Zirkzee had to do was to put the ball into an empty net from a few yards, but he tried to walk it in with the goal at his mercy and Schuurs slid in with a last-ditch challenge to nip it off his toes.
The forward’s cocky attitude did not go down well with Julian Nagelsmann, who said: ‘I think that [Joshua Zirkzee] hasn’t seen his opponent approaching.
‘He wanted to finish this one casually. I hope that he has a different sense of seriousness in competitive matches.
‘Basically, he is doing many things right. At the beginning of this situation, he recovered the ball very well.
‘We all wished that we could have gone ahead there and I don’t think he did this deliberately. I will not talk to him about this because he knows he could have done better.’
The game finished 2-2, with 19-year-old Tanguy Nianzou putting Bayern ahead just after the break before Victor Jensen equalised almost immediately.
Zirkzee scored two decisive goals in the first two Bundesliga matches of his career in 2019
Zirkzee burst onto the scene in December 2019, scoring with first touch on his Bundesliga debut in second-half stoppage time to help Bayern to a 3-1 win at Freiburg.
He then incredibly repeated the feat three days later in his next match, again netting with his first touch, this time less than a minute after coming on to break the deadlock against Wolfsburg in the closing stages.
The forward scored twice more in a breakthrough campaign against Wolfsburg and Borussia Monchengladbach, but he struggled for game time at Bayern last season and was also handed a three-game ban in January while playing for the reserves after kicking TSV 1860 Munich goalkeeper Marco Hiller in the head.
But the forward was sent off in a reserve game in January and struggled to feature last season
Zirkzee then secured a loan move to Parma a month later but only played four Serie A games as the team were relegated from Serie A, with lower-back and knee injuries blighting his time in Italy.
Nagelsmann’s appointment in place of Hansi Flick may give Zirkzee a new lease of life, but he will need to get out the silly mistakes to rediscover his blistering start to his Bayern career.
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