French midfielder Franck Ribery and Germany striker Lukas Podolski fired Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich to a 2-0 win over Arminia Bielefeld on Wednesday, but the German giants show no sign of easing up.
Bayern were crowned champions after their 0-0 draw at Wolfsburg on Sunday and the celebrations began at the Allianz Arena in Munich after they beat Bielefeld. Ribery put his side ahead with a first-half strike, while Podolski, replacing broken-nose victim Miroslav Klose, scored early in the second half.
“We will travel to play Duisburg now on Saturday looking for another win and then I am looking forward to my last game on May 17,” said Bayern coach Ottmar Hitzfeld, who will coach the Swiss national side next season. “Of course we are pleased with the way things are going, but we want to stay professional until the end.”
PHOTO: AP
After another clean sheet, Bayern are now just two games away from the record for the lowest number of goals conceded in a Bundesliga season. Their defense has leaked just 18 goals this season, the current record is 22, and they have a 10 point lead at the top of the table.
Nine-man Werder Bremen reclaimed second place in the league with a 1-0 win at Hamburg in the north Germany derby. Bremen were lucky not to lose goalkeeper Tim Weise in the first half after he leapt into Hamburg striker Ivica Olic attempting to clear the ball and kicked the Croat on the shoulder.
“Yes, it was a dangerous thing to do, but I did make contact with the ball,” Wiese said. “It wasn’t worth a red card, but the main thing is we won.”
The Bremen keeper escaped with a yellow card and his side took the lead when Hugo Almeida smashed home his shot from 17m in the second half. But Werder were reduced to 10 men when captain Frank Baumann earned his second yellow card for a clumsy challenge to leave his side a man down for the last 30 minutes, while Jurica Vranjes was shown a straight red for dangerous play early in injury time.
The mid-week results means Bremen and Schalke 04 are both guaranteed Champions League places next season.
VfL Wolfsburg kept their dream of a UEFA Cup appearance next season alive with a 3-2 victory against Eintracht Frankfurt.
But Bayer Leverkusen’s dreams of another season in the UEFA Cup took a hammering when guests Hertha Berlin beat them 2-1.
While Nuremberg took a big step toward avoiding relegation when they conjured a 2-0 win over fellow bottom three side Duisburg.
Australian Alex de Minaur reached the second week of the US Open for the third year in a row with little fanfare on Saturday and said he intended to keep winning until the tournament organizers were forced to give him better billing. Despite being the eighth seed and a quarter-finalist last year at Flushing Meadows, De Minaur’s third-round match against German Daniel Altmaier was scheduled for Court 17 — the smallest of the four stadium venues in the precinct. “It is a little bit of a headscratcher for me. I’m not gonna lie,” he told reporters after progressing 6-7 (9/7), 6-3, 6-4,
Noah Lyles on Thursday warmed up for the upcoming athletics world championships by chasing down Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo to win the 200m at the Diamond League final. Lyles trailed Tebogo at the start, but gradually erased the deficit over the final 100m and pipped the Botswana sprinter to the line by centimeters. Lyles, the Olympic 100m champion and reigning world champion in both the 100m and 200m, clocked 19.74 seconds in a slight headwind. Tebogo was 0.02 seconds behind. It was Lyles’ sixth Diamond League title, a record for track athletes. “Six, that’s a big number,” Lyles said. “Shoot, that’s another record on
Jonas Vingegaard on Tuesday claimed the overall Vuelta a Espana lead while Jay Vine earned the stage 10 victory for his second triumph of the race. Two-time Tour de France winner Vingegaard overhauled Torstein Traen’s lead to head the general classification by 26 seconds from the Norwegian, with Joao Almeida third and trailing the Dane by 38 seconds. Vine put in an unmatchable performance on the final climb to finish ahead of Spanish Movistar riders Pablo Castrillo and Javier Romo. “Back in red, I’m happy with it, it’s a beautiful jersey,” Vingegaard said. “I’m happy with how the day went,
Brentford striker Yoane Wissa says he wants to leave the English Premier League club and that it is “unduly standing in my way.” A day before the end of soccer’s summer transfer period, Wissa posted a lengthy statement on social media yesterday criticizing Brentford for rejecting an apparent offer from another Premier League club despite his willingness to switch between the teams. Wissa, a reported target for Newcastle, is yet to play for Brentford this season and had already removed any association with the club from his Instagram account. Yesterday, the 28-year-old DR Congo international took it a step further on the social
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