Momentum building at Guardiola's Bayern

The momentum in German football is with Bayern at the moment. After a settling-in period, the 2013/14 version of the team are building up a head of steam, scoring goals and winning matches with increasing assurance. FCB beat Hannover 2-0 in the league, eased past CSKA Moscow 3-0 in Europe, thrashed Schalke 4-0, and defeated Hannover again on Wednesday 4-1 in the DFB Cup, as Pep Guardiola’s side begin to piece together a good-looking run of results. “I think we can be very pleased with our recent performances,” commented captain Philipp Lahm, “we’re definitely heading in the right direction.”

Reaction to Bayern’s cup victory over Hannover

Pep Guardiola: “We played very well, but in the last ten to 15 minutes of the first half we lost our shape. I’m surprised at the way we played in the second half. It’s our mentality, we just kept attacking. We’ve won a tough game against a great team. I’m surprised by Hannover’s performance. It’s not possible to win trophies with only 11 players. We have lots of good players and all of them are good enough to start.“

Claudio Pizarro: “If we take our chances, we’re tough to stop, but we didn’t play very well after going 2–0 up. We might be able to afford that against Hannover, but against the really big names, the kind of carelessness we showed after going 2-0 up can be fatal.“

Happy Birthday Rummenigge

Karl-Heinz Rummenigge was born in Lippstadt, Germany 25 September 1955.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag

Bayern benam Hannover

Bayern meneruskan rentak cemerlang.

Bayern successfully negotiated the second round of the 2013/14 DFB Cup on Wednesday night with an assured 4-1 victory over Bundesliga rivals Hannover in the first of two home games during the famous Oktoberfest. Munich, with five new faces in the starting line-up, had the game under control for all but a brief spell at the end of the first half, and slowly but surely turned their superiority into goals as the match wore on.

FC Bayern ready for Hannover 96

“The cup competition in Germany is very, very dangerous. One bad game and you’re out,” remarked Pep Guardiola. However, in the light of his team’s recent convincing displays, the head coach is confident: “We’re ready for it.“

Quotes of the day

“It's nice to see so many people when you drive round the city. Women in Dirndls, men in Lederhosen. It's really nice. I like it. Beer and party.“
(Pep Guardiola at Tuesday’s press conference, talking about his impressions of the Oktoberfest)

“He’s one of the best goalkeepers in history. I’m sure he’s one of the best on planet football.”
(Pep Guardiola on Manuel Neuer)

Alianz Arena: Intensive turf maintenance

More than a million visitors swarmed the Oktoberfest on the first weekend as the hugely-popular festival got off to a fairytale start. However, the fairground hosting the annual event in Munich is not the only busy location in the city, because the Allianz Arena is staging six matches in no fewer than 15 days.

The phase that started on 14 September with Bayern's Bundesliga match against Hannover is unlike anything the Arena has ever before experienced in eight years of operations. The game against the men from Lower Saxony was followed by the Champions League match against CSKA Moscow (17 September) and will continue with another game against Hannover in the DFB Cup on Wednesday (25 September). This will be followed by the Bundesliga meeting with Wolfsburg (28 September), marking Bayern’s last match of the phase. The remaining two fixtures feature TSV 1860 Munich as the home team, with FCB’s rivals having entertained Aue (21 September) and now gearing up to meet Dortmund in the cup on Tuesday (24 September).

The two DFB Cup ties (1860 v Dortmund on Tuesday, and FCB v Hannover on Wednesday) are the highlights of the ‘frantic fall’. However, Arena CEO Jürgen Muth is not concerned, as he confirmed: “It's not the first time we’ve had two games in two days.” The last occasion was in September 2009, and this season there are two more weekends scheduled to have both 1860 and Bayern play at home (once in December, once at the end of March). “The DFL knows we’re capable of managing the heavy load.”