Munich Muller in Bremen Rout

Thomas Müller scored twice as Bayern Munich warmed up for Juventus in the Champions League with a routine 5-0 rout of Werder Bremen in the Bundesliga on Saturday. Thiago Alcantara opened the scoring after nine minutes when he beat his marker to Kingsley Coman’s sharp cross. Coman was again provider for the second in the 31st minute, beating a defender on the left and crossing for Müller to convert past Werder Bremen’s goalkeeper, Felix Wiedwald.

Bayern had around 80% ball possession as Bremen failed to threaten in a flat first half of football. Thiago struck the crossbar from distance after the break.

Mario Götze, playing for the first time since getting injured on international duty in October, had two efforts on goal, and went off shortly after his second attempt after 50 minutes.

Müller sealed the game with his 19th goal of the season in the 65th minutes, converting the rebound after Wiedwald saved Franck Ribéry’s volley from 20 yards.

Robert Lewandowski, who came on for Müller after 74 minutes, claimed his 24th goal of the campaign in the 86th minute, and there was still time for Thiago to complete the scoring in the final minute, again set up by former Juventus player Coman.

Bayern, who host Juventus on Wednesday after drawing 2-2 in their Champions League last 16 first leg, moved eight points clear of Borussia Dortmund who play Mainz on Sunday.

Werder Bremen were missing top-scorer Claudio Pizarro to injury, as well as their captain, Clemens Fritz, and midfielder Zlatko Junuzovic after they intentionally picked up yellow cards to incur suspensions which they hoped would make them available for later games. The German Football Association (DFB) decided to fine the pari e20,000 each for deliberately picking up yellow cards but not to give them additional suspensions.

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Dortmund End VW Arena Record

Borussia Dortmund coach, Thomas Tuchel, said it was “awesome” to become the first visiting manager to win at Wolfsburg’s Volkswagen Arena since March last year.

Dortmund very nearly threw away the chance to close the gap to Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich, who lost on Saturday, when Ricardo Rodríguez netted a stoppage-time penalty for Wolfsburg to cancel out Marco Reus’s opener.

But a late Shinji Kagawa strike earned the Westphalians a 2-1 triumph and edged them to within five points of Bayern, much to the delight of Tuchel.

He said: “Of course, our disappointment was unbounded when we conceded the penalty, although I’ve got to say the equaliser had been coming. But then we played the final few minutes like we had played in the first half and it’s awesome that we still managed to win it.

“We’re over the moon about this win, but I’m far from happy with the way we played in the second half. The first 36 minutes were excellent and one of our best games yet.”

Wolfsburg could and perhaps should have done better in the second half, but a mixture of misses and saves by the goalkeeper Roman Burki saw them lose on home soil for the first time in 30 games.

Their manager, Dieter Hecking, said: “We were lucky when they hit the crossbar twice, but then we gifted them their goal. Then we found our way into the game after 35 minutes and played the football I had hoped to see from the start of the game.

“We then had the game under control and we dominated in the second half, and I cannot criticise anything up until the 93rd minute.

“We had more than deserved to level, but then we gave the ball away too easily and were punished with their second goal. After all of our efforts, that’s very frustrating.”

Wolfsburg will now need to recover their energy as quickly as possible for the visit of Manchester United in the Champions League on Tuesday.

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Borussia Glad to beat Bayern

Borussia Mönchengladbach struck three times in 14 minutes in the second half to floor Bayern Munich 3-1 and inflict the champions’ first Bundesliga defeat of the season.

Oscar Wendt put the hosts ahead in the 54th minute and quick goals from Lars Stindl and Fabian Johnson knocked out Bayern, who looked stunned after winning 13 of their 14 league games in a record-breaking start to the campaign.

Franck Ribéry scored on his comeback after an eight-month injury break but the Frenchman’s 81st-minute goal came too late to turn the game around.

Gladbach stretched their unbeaten run under André Schubert to 10 league games and climbed to third on 26 points. Bayern are top on 40, eight ahead of Borussia Dortmund, who take on VfL Wolfsburg later on Saturday.

Bayern, repeatedly caught napping at the back and lacking their usual pace on the wings with Arjen Robben and Douglas Costa out injured, were still the better side in the first half. Robert Lewandowski connected with a superb Philipp Lahm through ball in the 18th minute and Thomas Müller had a shot on goal but Yann Sommer was well placed to save both efforts.

Pep Guardiola’s side kept up the pressure and Kingsley Coman hit the post with a low drive in the 25th minute.

Gladbach, however – in sensational form under Schubert since a five-game losing start – refused to buckle and hit the champions on the break, Raffael combining beautifully with Wendt and the Swede curling a low shot past Manuel Neuer.

Julian Korb came agonisingly close to a second goal but Neuer, at full stretch, kicked the ball on to the bar. Stindl, however, was given far too much space in the box and he volleyed in on 66 minutes as the game tipped firmly in the hosts’ favour.

Johnson beat the offside trap, with defender Jérôme Boateng caught out, two minutes later before Ribéry scored a consolation for Bayern.

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Dortmund Suffer Hamburg Loss

Hamburg hit Borussia Dortmund on the break to clinch an unexpected 3-1 victory on Friday as the Bundesliga resumed amid tight security following the deadly shootings in Paris last week and the cancellation of Germany’s friendly with Holland due to security fears.

The game in front of 57,000 fans in Hamburg’s Volksparkstadion started 15 minutes late due to heavy traffic and long queues for increased security checks following the attacks that left 130 dead and hundreds injured in the French capital last week.

Germany had played France last Friday in Paris and the players spent the night inside the stadium before being whisked off to the airport.

The friendly against Holland, scheduled for Hanover on Tuesday, with Chancellor Angela Merkel set to attend, was then called off only two hours before the start.

The game in Hamburg started with a minute’s silence for the victims in Paris as well as another for the former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who died on 10 November, with fans holding French flags and messages of support.

Dortmund, attempting to close in on leaders Bayern Munich, who take on Schalke 04 on Saturday, quickly lifted spirits with an attacking game but were twice caught on the break, with defender Mats Hummels heading in an own goal to complete a disappointing evening for them.

Ivo Ilicevic had a golden chance in the 16th minute only to fire desperately wide but the Croatian made amends, latching on to a superb through ball from Lewis Holtby and forcing keeper Roman Bürki to bring him down. Pierre-Michel Lasogga drilled in the 19th-minute penalty.

Dortmund, with Marco Reus back from injury, again dominated but were once more caught off guard with a quick counterattack and Holtby slotting in from a tight angle three minutes from half-time.

The visitors came out battling after the break with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang spilling a big chance wide and Dortmund shooting four times on goal in four minutes before Hummels turned a lone Hamburg cross into his own net to end any hopes of a comeback.

Aubameyang clinched a late goal to take his tally for the season to 14 but could not avert their second league loss of the season.

Dortmund remain on 29 points, five behind leaders Bayern, while Hamburg, who needed a relegation play-off to stay up last season, move up to eighth with their second win in seven matches.

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Eintract Hold Bayern Even

Bayern Munich’s express start to the season finally ran out of steam on Friday with a goalless draw at Eintracht Frankfurt after 10 wins from their 10 previous Bundesliga games.

The champions lacked their usual punch and, despite dominating the match, did not often break past a disciplined backline, thereby failing to equal a European major league record for the best start to a season, held by Tottenham Hotspur with 11 straight wins in 1960.

“Every week we think it can’t get more defensive and then comes a team that plays even more defensive,” Bayern’s captain, Philipp Lahm, said. “I think Frankfurt played a 6-3-1 tonight. But if we had used our chances and scored, we would be sitting here saying how much fun it was.”

Indicative of Bayern’s frustrating evening was the yellow card for Lahm, who had not committed a single foul in his previous 24 consecutive league matches, in his 450th appearance for the club.

The Bavarians, on 31 points, extended their lead to eight above Borussia Dortmund, who travel to Werder Bremen on Saturday when Schalke 04, in third a further four points behind on 19, host promoted Ingolstadt.

Eintracht, who recovered from their ignominious German Cup second-round exit to the third-tier club Erzgebirge Aue on Tuesday, moved up to 11th on 13 points.

Bayern, who had won their previous six matches against Eintracht without conceding a goal, were more aggressive from the start and Arturo Vidal tested Lukas Hradecky with a looping header in the 11th minute.

Javi Martínez’s glancing header minutes later floated just wide as Bayern set a quick early pace and the home side frantically defended.

A double defensive blunder by the hosts at the start of the second half left Douglas Costa unmarked in front of goal but again Hradecky, at full stretch, got a leg to the ball to send the Brazilian’s low shot wide.

Eintracht grew in confidence and came close to scoring with an Alex Meier effort before the Bayern keeper, Manuel Neuer, almost handed a goal to Marc Stendera with a bad clearance.

Bayern gradually reclaimed control and had Eintracht on the backfoot for the final 20 minutes but could not make their dominance count. The league’s top scorer, Robert Lewandowski, marked tightly by Carlos Zambrano, fired wide in a one-on-one with Hradecky in the 80th minute with his biggest chance of the game.

The Poland striker did manage to get the ball into the net later but he was adjudged just offside.

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Robben Marks Bayern Return

Arjen Robben sparkled on his comeback from injury after almost two months, scoring Bayern Munich’s first goal in a 4-0 demolition of Köln for the club’s 1,000th victory in the Bundesliga, which put the champions 10 points clear at the top.

Robben, out since 3 September when he was injured in Holland’s 1-0 loss to Iceland in a Euro 2016 qualifier, slotted in from close range after a back heel from Robert Lewandowski as they looked to bounce back from Tuesday’s Champions League defeat at Arsenal.

The Chile international Arturo Vidal drilled in from Kingsley Coman’s darting run and cutback as the Bavarians extended their record-breaking start to the season to 10 wins in 10 games.

Lewandowski, the Bundesliga’s top scorer, then got on to the score sheet himself with a glancing header in the 62nd minute, after Douglas Costa whipped in a free-kick, the Pole taking his league tally to 13 goals in 10 games.

Thomas Müller added their fourth goal with a well-taken penalty as Bayern moved to 30 points, with second-placed Borussia Dortmund, who are on 20, in action at home to Augsburg on Sunday.

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Is The Premier League Over Cooked

Perhaps the biggest happenstance in the German domestic game – which at first appeared a major crisis – was the collapse in 2002 of Kirch TV, the company that been funding the Bundesliga for over a decade. Not unlike the ITV Digital’s collapse in 2002 in the UK, it left many clubs with over-geared budgets, huge wage bills that would have only been possible through TV money - and could not be honoured any more. As result many players were released. 

The Kirch collapse also meant that the imported players, all attracted to the Bundesliga by the very generous pay scales, were on their way out. The result being that it propelled the unknown younger local talent into the first team of many a Bundesliga club - by default. Ironically it has been onward and upward in German football ever since. 

In Spain the history is probably slightly different, but in the same vein, as the academies of Athletic Bilbao, Barcelona and Real Madrid are producing talents such Ces Fabregas, Xavi, Lionel Messi, Raul, Fernando Llorente and Fernando Torres, all learning to play a system at Barcelona for instance, which was a legacy of Johan Cruyff's affinity with the club since 1973. 

The result of which has been La Liga teams dominant in the European Cup competitions, including this year as the Europa League final was played between Valencia and Atletico de Madrid, with Athletic Bilbao eliminated in the semi-final. Which in away addresses the misnomer that Spanish football is just about the two top clubs – Real and Barca. 

Let us not forget either the French successes in the 1998 World Cup and the EURO 2000 were a product of the French Football Federation [FFF] blueprint at Clairefontaine which cultivated players of the calibre of Patrick Vieira, Thierry Henry, Nicolas Anelka, David Trezeguet, and so on. With a number of high profile coaches like Gerard Houllier also establishing reputations all over Europe. 

Worryingly for Irish football these days is the similarity of the German story in the Premier League in England and evidenced every time an England manager gets injuries in his squad ahead of a major tournament. There always seems little strength in depth.

For all the good Peter Scudamore CEO of the Premier League might claim for the domestic game with the billions in TV revenues, the facts do not bear that benefit out in real terms as young English players are failing to get into their club sides given the competition from the increasing number of overseas players. At least 65% of the players in English game are now foreigners. 

The top source for players being France, Ireland, Scotland and Wales – and in that order. 

When it comes to the English national team and injuries occur to players like Frank Lampard or Gareth Barry, there always appears to be no replacements at hand or even being blooded. Yet an English team has either won or appeared in the Champions League every other year since 2005 – the top club competition in Europe – too often three quarters overseas players. 

Soon it will be difficult to justify the costly club academies as agents keep providing overseas options and clubs are unable recoup their investment with transfer fees from the players they have developed since 15 or 16 years of age. In addtion, domestic players appear to be more costly – given the valuation of Andy Carroll at £35m last season as an index.

No doubt some day there will be a Kirch type moment when fans, sponsors or pay-tv subscribers find the Premier League no longer attractive. Or value for money and the income slows down. 

At least one of the highest earners in the world Wayne Rooney is eligible for England and his salary of £17.6m will see some return as long as Manchester United remain at the top of the  Champions League club. However the salaries for Sergio Aguero at Manchester City of £14.7m and Yaya Toure on £13.9m or indeed, Fernando Torres at Chelsea are costly to the game as it’s currently structured and income that is leaving the English game. 

In Germany, Philip Lahm is the highest paid player on £11.9M, and in fairness it’s a right earned after a nearly a decade playing for his national team – and his German club Bayern Munich. 

With the new BSkyB and British Telecom deal worth £3.018 billion to the Premier League - a substantial increase on the current £1.178 billion three-year UK deal that runs until the end of the 2012-13 season - it would be naive to believe that this increased money will not be spent by club’s to increase wages for some players. Or allow clubs chase some up to now unobtainable targets on the continent. All of which only adds to the long term problem 

The BSkyB deal maybe the death knell for development of future Irish talent and might mean that the days seeing the likes of Liam Brady, Roy Keane, Niall Quinn, Kevin Moran, Ronnie Whelan, Paul McGrath – in large numbers - at major clubs may never be repeated. The national team will be the loser of that experience and reliant on players battling it out in the championship Or at best the struggling Premier League teams. 

All very unlike the EURO 1988 squad where the Irish players were stars at major clubs like Manchester United, Liverpool, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Aston Villa, or Celtic - and to boot were all winners in their own right of League titles, FA or League Cups. But those days too seem of a bygone era. 

Republic of Ireland, EURO 1988 team 

Packie Bonner: Celtic 

Scottish League: 1979, 1981, 1982, 1986, 1988, Scottish Cup: 1980, 1988; Scottish League Cup: 1983 

Chris Morris, Celtic 

Scottish League: 1988, Scottish Cup: 1988; 

Chris Hughton; Tottenham Hotspur 

FA Cup: Winner 1981 & 1982), UEFA Cup 1984; FA Charity Shield: Winner (1981), runner up (1982). 

Mick McCarthy; Celtic 

Scottish Premier League 1988; Scottish Cup 1988 

Kevin Moran; Manchester United 

Dublin GAA All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (2): 1976, 1977; Leinster Senior Football Championship (3): 1975, 1976, 1977; Manchester United FA Cup 1982–83, 1984–85; FA Charity Shield 1983 

Ronnie Whelan; Liverpool 

League Championship 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1988; FA Cup 1986; League Cup 1982, 1983, 1984; Charity Shield; 1982, 1986, 1988; European Cup 1984 Super Cup 1986 

Paul McGrath, Manchester United 

FA Cup: 1985 

Ray Houghton; Liverpool 

League Championship 1988; League Cup 1986; 

John Aldridge; Liverpool 

Newport County Welsh Cup 1980; Oxford United, 3rd Division Winners 1984; 2nd Division, Winner 1985; Football League Cup 1986; League Championship 1988; Charity Shield 1988; 

Frank Stapleton; Manchester United 

Arsenal FA Cup 1979; Manchester United Charity Shield 1983; FA Cup 

Tony Galvin; Tottenham Hotspur 

FA Cup winner 1981; FA Cup winner 1982; UEFA Cup winner 1984 

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Nein Danke Says Guardiola

Bayern Munich coach Pep Guardiola walked out of a news conference on Friday after being asked about reports linking him with the England job.

Guardiola is out of contract with the Bundesliga champions next June, but has refused to discuss his future publicly.

Reports on Friday suggested the Football Association wants the former Barcelona boss to succeed Roy Hodgson.

Pressed to comment, Guardiola said: "Oh come on, I'm coach of Bayern Munich. Many thanks and auf wiedersehen."

He then left the briefing, organised to preview Bayern's trip to Mainz on Saturday.

Hodgson's contract with England expires after Euro 2016, and his future will not be discussed until the tournament is over, FA chief executive Martin Glenn has indicated.

Guardiola made clear at his news conference he did not want to discuss the issue, having earlier answered a more general question about his future plans with a polite "next question please".

The 44-year-old has led Bayern to two Bundesliga titles in his two years at the club, yet he questioned at the start of this season whether he was the right man for the job.

He said he would step down if he ever got the feeling somebody else would be a better choice for the club, leading to speculation that he will leave next summer.

Bayern have said that negotiations over a new contract would be held as and when Guardiola is ready.

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