Arjen Robben said Mario Goetze’s imminent league debut for Bayern Munich can only be a good thing for the defending champions ahead of today’s Bundesliga trip to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Goetze, 21, came off the bench and scored twice for Bayern in last Sunday’s friendly win at Hungarian champions Gyori ETO, his first appearance since tearing a hamstring while playing for previous club Borussia Dortmund in the UEFA Champions League semi-finals last season.
Having cost Bayern 37 million euros (US$49 million), Goetze is another top name coach Pep Guardiola needs to accommodate in his star-studded midfield.
Photo: AFP
Goetze is an option alongside Spain under-21 captain Thiago Alcantara in an attacking midfield role, flanked by France winger Franck Ribery and Germany’s Thomas Mueller, leaving Dutchman Robben on the bench.
The 29-year-old, who scored Bayern’s winning goal in May’s UEFA Champions League final against Dortmund, only returned to the starting lineup last season after injury to Toni Kroos, but he said competition for places is a healthy thing in the Bayern ranks.
“It was our strength last season that we never lost our quality, even when players dropped out with injury,” Robben told German daily Bild. “You have to trust yourself and not be afraid of the opposition and with a World Cup at the end of the season, even if you sit out the occasional game it could be a positive thing at the end of the day.”
Photo: EPA
With 10 full international midfielders in the Bayern squad, Brazil’s Luiz Gustavo is on the verge of a move to VfL Wolfsburg according to reports, while Munich travel to a Frankfurt side who are licking their wounds just now.
While Bayern kicked off the season with a 3-1 win over Borussia Moenchengladbach, Eintracht were hammered 6-1 at promoted Hertha BSC and they could be forgiven for feeling a sense of trepidation ahead of this weekend’s game, given that Bayern have not lost in any of their past 19 away matches in the Bundesliga.
Bayern’s Spanish star Javi Martinez will also be looking to maintain his remarkable record of having yet to lose a Bundesliga match after 25 wins and three draws.
UEFA Champions League finalists Dortmund host promoted Eintracht Braunschweig tomorrow, with Germany international midfielder Ilkay Gundogan out for two weeks with a back injury he aggravated playing for his country in Wednesday’s 3-3 draw with Paraguay.
Dortmund got off to a flying start last weekend when Gabon international forward Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scored a hat-trick on his Bundesliga debut in the 4-0 win at Augsburg and Poland international striker Robert Lewandowski is set to make his 100th league appearance having scored 55 goals in Germany’s top flight.
Having won promotion, Braunschweig went down to a late goal at Werder Bremen last weekend.
Braunschweig coach Torsten Lieberknecht and Dortmund boss Jurgen Klopp were teammates at FSV Mainz 05 between 1995 and 2001, while Lieberknecht’s last five games for Mainz came with Klopp as coach.
Hertha are flying high after their 6-1 victory at home to Eintracht Frankfurt, the biggest win on the opening day of the season for any newly-promoted club in Germany’s top flight.
Having spent last season in Germany’s second tier, the club from the capital’s result left them as the surprise league leaders after the first week.
“The standings are just a snapshot, if we get beaten 6-1 next week no one will be interested in what happened against Frankfurt anymore,” Hertha captain Fabian Lustenberger said.
Taiwanese gymnast Tang Chia-hung on Sunday topped the men’s horizontal bar event at the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) World Cup in Osijek, Croatia, scoring 15.233 to take his third title this season. Tang delivered an outstanding performance in the final, earning a difficulty score of 6.500 and an execution score of 8.633 with a 0.1 stick bonus. His closest competitor was Milad Karimi of Kazakhstan, who finished second with 14.933 points. It was Tang’s third gold medal in the FIG World Cup series this year, following his horizontal bar wins in Azerbaijan on March 8, and in Turkey on March
This year’s Taiwan Athletics Open, which offers Taiwanese athletes an opportunity to compete against their international peers, would be held under a new name after its organizers had earlier announced the event’s cancelation. In a statement issued yesterday, the Chinese Taipei Athletics Association said the competition would still take place on June 6-7 at Banciao Stadium, but under the name “New Taipei City Athletics Open 2026.” The event was given a new name to emphasize its local identity and conform with the international practice of naming World Athletics Tour events after cities, the association said. It said it would soon
Denmark’s double Olympic badminton champion Viktor Axelsen, long a rival of Taiwan’s former world No. 2 Chou Tien-chen, yesterday announced his retirement at age 32, saying back problems meant he could no longer “compete and train at the highest level.” Axelsen, who won gold at the Tokyo Games in 2021 and again in Paris in 2024, had back surgery in April last year and said he had not overcome his physical issues. “Accepting this situation has been incredibly difficult,” he said in a statement. “But I have now reached a point where my body won’t allow me to continue.” Axelsen retires as one
SEASON ENDING: The Nuggets took the third seed in the Western Conference and are to face the sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round The Denver Nuggets, fueled by 23 first-half points from Nikola Jokic, on Sunday beat the San Antonio Spurs 128-118, notching their 12th straight victory to clinch the Western Conference third seed on the last day of the NBA regular season. On a day when coaches rested dozens of players in preparation for the looming playoffs, three-time NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Jokic had to play at least 15 minutes to be eligible for end of season awards, including MVP. The Serbian big man played just over 18, propelling the Nuggets to a 70-56 halftime lead that they would not relinquish
RSS