Lille, in white, surrender to Bayern
GettyImagesMickael Landreau is helpless to stop Claudio Pizarro's finish Well... huh. Other than one small blip by Javi Martinez - which allowed Solomon Kalou to get lucky from distance - what else do you say about this butt-whippin' at the Allianz? Sublime performance from Munich. When your 68,000 faithful (minus the sections of the Suedkurve striking this match) are doing the Mexican wave before half-time? It's a good day in football.
Bayern Munich moves up from third in the table to second, after Valencia best Borisov 4-2; the Spanish side leading the Germans by a plus one goal differential. Not a bad place to be for Munich, facing Valencia away in their next Champions League encounter, and facing Borisov at home to finish off the group stage.
- Bayern produce six of the best
No real surprises in the line-up as both Marios were unavailable to start at forward, leaving Peruvian Claudio Pizarro as lone striker. Even though Toni Kroos had recovered from stomach flu, Thomas Mueller still started in the hole until Kroos was subbed on after the hour mark.
It only took Bayern five minutes to get on the scoreboard after Mueller was denied by Lille keeper Mickael Landreau a scant minute earlier. Bastian Schwinesteiger bent it like Beckham over a crumbling Lille wall to open the scoring for the Reds. Thirteen minutes later, Pizarro shot his first of three after a lovely exchange with Ribery.
Arjen Robben scored the third in the 23rd minute after his free took a deflection from Florent Balmont. Can I just say: Does anyone remember the last time FCB scored two goals in a match on a free?
Pizarro would complete the third-fastest hat-trick in Champions League history after Philipp Lahm whipped in crosses on 28 and 33 minutes.
Not to be totally humiliated, Kalou - formerly with Chelsea - pipped Javi Martinez in the 58th minute, sending a long shot, deceiving Neuer, bouncing down off the bottom of the crossbar and over the line. Kroos, recovered from stomach flu, replaced Mueller on the hour-mark, and only needed six minutes on the pitch to catch Landreau wrong-footed, stroking home the sixth and last for Bayern Munich on the night. Antoily Tymoshchuk came in for Bastian, and Xherdan Shaqiri for Franck Ribery as Bayern took the tempo down a few notches, once again, before the final whistle blew.
In fine form, die Bayern face surprising third-placed Bundesliga upstarts Frankfurt over the weekend. They find themselves in a great position to go through to the elimination rounds in the Champions League, and in a very envious place in the Bundesliga.
Not a bad way to start.
Odds and ends:
Bastian shouldn't copy Mairo Gomez' hairstyle. Not a good look.
People want to say Arjen had a sub-par, or average, match. Nonsense. He did miss a couple of one-on-ones... But, sheesh. It's a long season.
I know I mentioned it in this piece, but when is the last time Bayern scored two goals from FK's?
Garcia didn't make HT subs for Debuchy and Balmont. Both who'd be shown yellows in the first half.
And, super-cheeky by Basti, going through the legs of a frozen defender.
Dante and Boateng were both fan-freaking-tastic today.
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