Bayern Munich warmed up for tomorrow’s Champions League semi-final, second leg at home to Real Madrid with a 5-2 come-from-behind win against Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga on Saturday.
Just three days before they try to overturn a 1-0 first-leg deficit against the Spanish giants, Bayern fell behind twice against Bremen at the Allianz Arena before scoring four second-half goals for the win.
The flattering scoreline failed to mask Bayern’s woeful first-half defending, which must sound the alarm bells for coach Pep Guardiola given the danger of conceding an away-goal to Real.
Bayern have conceded the first goal in seven of nine matches since winning the Bundesliga last month with a record seven games left.
Once again the Munich defense was wanting in the first 45 minutes before the reigning European champions roared back.
Bayern got off to a bad start on Saturday when defender Theodor Gebre Selassie fired the visitors into the lead after 10 minutes. However, die Roten were behind for just 10 minutes before Franck Ribery slammed a shot past Bremen goalkeeper Raphael Wolf.
The visitors regained the lead when Aaron Hunt fired past despairing Bayern ’keeper Manuel Neuer, but the hosts equalized again when Claudio Pizarro made it 2-2 on 54 minutes and took the lead for the first time three minutes later when Ribery combined with David Alaba for Pizarro to fire home his second.
Bastian Schweinsteiger then powered home a header to make it 4-2 on 61 minutes, before Arjen Robben hit the net to make it 5-2 on 74 minutes, less than 60 seconds after coming off the bench.
In other league action, second-placed Borussia Dortmund held hosts Bayer 04 Leverkusen to a 2-2 draw, with all four goals coming in the first 45 minutes. The point kept Leverkusen fourth in position for the Champions League.
Also on Saturday, VfL Wolfsburg’s own Champions League bid was dealt a blow when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home by SC Freiburg, while Eintracht Braunschweig remain bottom of the table after falling 2-0 at Hertha BSC.
At the Coface Arena, striker Shinji Okazaki became the highest-scoring Japanese player in a Bundesliga season when he scored his 14th goal to break Shinji Kagawa’s previous record in FSV Mainz 05’s 2-0 win at home to Nuremberg.
In the day’s other games, VfB Stuttgart were 3-1 winners over Schalke 04, while TSG Hoffenheim 1899 drew Eintracht Frankfurt 0-0.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite