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Rabu, 22 Desember 2010

VfB Stuttgart vs Bayern Munich: Twice in four days

These are the kind of stories that only football, the beautiful game, can write. German Bundesliga rivals VfB Stuttgart and FC Bayern Munich would meet twice in four days and that too at the same venue, Stuttgart's Mercedes Benz Arena just before the Christmas break. Last Sunday, December 19, they faced each other in the league and last evening they would meet again 73 hours later, only in a different competition, the German Cup - the DFB Pokal.

Just looking at the pure stats - 17 goals scored in two matches. Bayern Munich coming out as winners in both the games, a 5-3 on Sunday and then a 6-3 last night. It was some interesting football, really entertaining games.

Stuttgart went into this unusual double header by changing their coach over the weekend earlier firing inexperienced Jens Keller and bringing in Bruno Labbadia, a former Bayern Munich striker. The reason being that the club from the southwest of Germany is surprisingly fighting against relegation from the Bundesliga. And in Stuttgart Bayern has suffered some unwanted defeats over the years.

On Sunday Stuttgart looked initially better, but three quick goals between the 31st to 43rd minute from Mario Gomez, Thomas Mueller and Franck Ribery gave Bayern a good looking 3-0 half time lead. At this stage it looked an easy game for the Bavarians, but five more goals would be scored in a crazy second session. First Stuttgart reduced the deficit through substitute Martin Harnik before Mario Gomez would score two more to give Bayern a comfortable 5-1 lead, but then Stuttgart would close in on the champions with another goal from Harnik and Christian Gentner to reduce the deficit to 5-3. And suddenly Bayern looked vulnerable, but Stuttgart on this day just didn't have the quality to stop Bayern from winning.

After last Sunday's game many thought that the German Cup match wouldn't be such a thriller, but actually it was even more intense and had ups and downs for both sides. The game quickly got out of the blocks with an Andreas Ottl long ranger and Mario Gomez goal giving Bayern a 2-0 lead by the 8th minute and it looked like in the match on Sunday that Bayern could win easy, but once more Bayern looked over-confident and started making mistakes. Two goals from Russian Pavel Progrebnyak for Stuttgart would take the match on even terms into half time and anything looked possible from there on.

And Stuttgart came out as the better side after the break, but once more Bayern Munich would take the lead and this time substitute Miroslav Klose would score the 3-2 in the 54th minute. Thereafter it was often one way traffic towards the Bayern goal with Stuttgart's Harnik hitting the crossbar but they were reduced to ten men as Khalid Boulahrouz received his second yellow card. It looked all over for Stuttgart, but that wasn't the case as things became more and more hectic as the match was moving towards its climax. In the 74th minute Stuttgart got a penalty as Hans-Joerg Butt brought down Cacau, but he made up for his mistake by blcoking Christian Gentner's shot. Still only three minutes later Stuttgart got their 3-3 equaliser through a header from Matthieu Delpierre. And now anything seemed possible. But Bayern Munich got the control of the match back as Thomas Mueller and Miroslav Klose would score to make it 5-3. Would it be a déjà-vu? But first Delpierre would also get his second yellow card to reduce Stuttgart to nine men and it was all over as Bayern Munich played out the last few minutes, but there was one left as Franck Ribery would score off a rare header late in stoppage time to make it 6-3.

Some players said afterwards that they were happy that they have a break now after those crazy two games, while the pitch will be happy to get some break after three matches in six days which has destroyed the playing surface in this terrible weather.

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