Mario Mandzukic scored twice against his former club VfL Wolfsburg as Bayern Munich eased to a 3-0 win on Tuesday to maintain their perfect start to the Bundesliga campaign.
Mandzukic’s goals plus one from Bastian Schweinsteiger saw Bayern to their fifth successive win in the league as they bid to reclaim the title after missing out in the past two seasons to Borussia Dortmund.
Eintracht Frankfurt were unable to keep pace with them as they dropped their first points of the season — drawing 3-3 against Dortmund.
Photo: EPA
Schweinsteiger hit the post twice before giving Bayern the lead in the 24th minute. With Wolfsburg rarely venturing forward, Mandzukic doubled the advantage with a header in the 57th minute.
The Croatia international finished off Wolfsburg for good with his fifth Bundesliga goal of the season in the 65th minute.
“We know ourselves that the season is still young, and that we have to keep going and keep our feet on the ground, but we want more,” said Mandzukic, who earned his move on the back of impressive performances at Euro 2012. “It’s really fun to play here. I am enjoying every moment with the team. It doesn’t matter how many goals I score, the main thing is that we win titles.”
Bayern Munich’s Peruvian veteran striker Claudio Pizarro came on as a substitute late on to make a 337th appearance in the German league — a joint record for a foreign player, which he now shares with Brazil’s former Bayern star Ze Roberto.
Bayern have a perfect 15 points from five matches and are two points ahead of Frankfurt and seven ahead of Dortmund.
Dortmund went 2-0 up with goals by Lukasz Piszczek in the 25th minute and Marco Reus in the 28th. Both goals came via the right flank through Piszczek, who turned inside and had his shot go in off both Bastian Oczipka and Anderson and past Frankfurt goalkeeper Kevin Trapp for the first.
Piszczek’s cross from the right three minutes later found Reus, who ran onto the ball and hammered it home from long range.
Frankfurt turned things around with two quick-fire goals within 97 seconds on two counterattacks.
Stefan Aigner pulled one back in the 49th minute and Takashi Inui equalized with a header in the 51st off a pass from Aigner.
Dortmund substitute Mario Goetze then snatched the ball from Anderson and poked his shot past Trapp to make it 3-2 for the champions on 54 minutes, but Anderson made up for his mistake in the 73rd minute with a header to make it 3-3.
“We have had a number of different phases during my time in Dortmund, but one we haven’t had is when we give up a lot of goals,” Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp said. “We are doing that now, but hopefully we can get back to not giving up many goals — or any goals at all.”
Schalke 04 were hardly convincing, but they grabbed their third victory for 10 points and third place with a 3-0 win at home over FSV Mainz 05.
Jefferson Farfan converted a penalty in the 21st minute after Junior Diaz was adjudged to have brought down Benedikt Hoewedes.
Lewis Holtby decided the game for good with his header in the 81st minute and Teemu Pukki added a third in the 90th minute.
Promoted side Fortuna Duesseldorf continued their strong, unbeaten, showing with a 2-0 win at SpVgg Greuther Fuerth to move onto nine points.
Duesseldorf, who got goals from Oliver Fink in the 26th and Ken Ilsoe in the 33rd minute, remain the only team in the league not to have conceded a goal.
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