Bayern Munich were humbled 2-1 by promoted minnows Mainz in the Bundesliga on Saturday, while the Bavarians’ rivals Bayer Leverkusen routed Freiburg 5-0 to lead the table.
Bayern Munich’s new coach Louis van Gaal is still waiting for his first Bundesliga win since taking charge last month as his side were outplayed by Mainz.
Van Gaal left unfit midfielder Franck Ribery out of his squad, but the Frenchman is expected to be given game time in next Saturday’s clash with champions Wolfsburg, with Bayern badly needing their playmaker back.
PHOTO: AFP
“I think everyone saw we started very badly,” Bayern’s Dutch coach van Gaal said. “Our work-rate was disappointing from the beginning, which is why I made two changes early on.”
Bayern got off to a dreadful start, finding themselves 2-0 down after just 37 minutes.
Austrian midfielder Andreas Ivanschitz struck the first blow on 25 minutes when he collected the ball on the edge of the penalty area and curled his shot inside the near post, out of the reach of Bayern goalkeeper Michael Rensing.
Burkino Faso striker Aristide Bance added the second on 37 minutes when he finished the move he started by winning an aerial battle with Bayern’s Belgium defender Daniel van Buyten and his header was pin-point accurate.
Bance had further chances to increase Mainz’s lead, while Bayern striker Mario Gomez went closest when forward Ivica Olic threaded a pass through the defense, but the Germany star fired wide just before halftime.
The expected response from Bayern came after just two minutes of the second half.
Bayern’s teenage striker Thomas Mueller, who had replaced midfielder Hamit Altintop during the first half, fired home, his shot deflecting off Mainz defender Nikolce Noveski.
Bayern could not force the equalizer, however, and the defeat leaves them with two points from three games.
Bayer Leverkusen went top of the table after three games when they hammered Freiburg.
Germany squad member Stefan Kiessling and Swiss midfielder Tranquillo Barnetta scored early on for Bayer, but the floodgates opened with 20 minutes left.
First Leverkusen’s Swiss striker Eren Derdiyok smashed his free-kick at Freiburg goalkeeper Manuel Salz, who parried the shot, but it still flew into the back of the net to make it 3-0.
Barnetta scored his second of the game with 15 minutes left, while Derdiyok also grabbed his second to complete the rout on 80 minutes.
Hannover striker Jiri Stajner scored twice and missed a penalty in his side’s 2-0 win over Nuremberg, while Cologne were held 0-0 by Eintracht Frankfurt and Stuttgart drew 1-1 at Borussia Dortmund.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier