Pep Guardiola’s Bayern Munich enjoyed a 2-0 win at home against his former employers Barcelona in Wednesday’s friendly as the Spaniards only played their stars until the break.
Although Barcelona left new Brazil signing Neymar at home, first-team regulars Lionel Messi, Javier Mascherano, Adriano, Alex Song and Alexis Sanchez all played the first half in Munich.
Goals by Philipp Lahm and Mario Mandzukic either side of halftime were enough to give the Champions League winners victory over the Catalan giants at a sold-out Allianz Arena in front of 71,137 fans.
Photo: AFP
With the Uli Hoeness Cup on offer, in honor of Bayern’s president, it was Munich’s second pre-season title in four days, having won Sunday’s Telekom Cup final with a 5-1 win at hosts Borussia Moenchengladbach.
“It was a good preparation for Borussia Dortmund,” said Guardiola, whose Bayern travel to Dortmund for the German Super Cup tomorrow in a repeat of May’s Champions League final.
With 23 players involved in his match-day squad, Guardiola said there will be talks about the possibility of reducing that number after the Dortmund match.
Barcelona had something to prove on their first return to Munich since their 4-0 drubbing in April’s Champions League semi-final, which the Germans backed up with a 3-0 win in Spain. Yet with Gerardo Martino back in Spain ahead of Friday’s official unveiling as Barcelona’s new manager, caretaker coach Jordi Roura had no qualms about blooding his entire bench of juniors at halftime.
Likewise, with the Bundesliga season two weeks away, Guardiola gave both Brazil centerback Dante and Germany’s Bastian Schweinsteiger, back from a minor ankle operation, their first pre-season appearances.
Messi made a bright start with a run through midfield before blasting his shot wide, while at the other end, Toni Kroos forced Barcelona goalkeeper Jose Manuel Pinto into a diving save.
Franck Ribery and Arjen Robben then combined and only the desperate boot of Barcelona’s Adriano deflected the Dutchman’s shot in a lively first five minutes.
Bayern took the lead 13 minutes into the game when captain Philipp Lahm latched onto Ribery’s chipped cross and lobbed his header over Pinto.
At the other end, Bayern goalkeeper Manuel Neuer denied Barca’s Sergio Roberto with the ball at his feet and pushed the shot wide.
Thomas Mueller, playing as Bayern’s lone striker, was only denied again by Adriano’s desperate intervention as Bayern pressed for a second with halftime approaching.
The halftime break heralded a host of changes, including the full Barcelona team, while goal-scorer Mandzukic would become one of 10 second-half introductions.
Bayern grabbed their second on 87 minutes when squad member Diego Contento whipped in a cross which Mandzukic buried in the net from close range.
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