Berlin (AFP)
In camera and without shining, Bayern Munich provided the essential for its return after two months of break, winning 2-0 Sunday in Berlin on the lawn of the Union, thanks to goals from Lewandowski and Pavard .
After 26 days, the defending champion maintains his four-point lead over Dortmund, also a winner (4-0 against Schalke 04) and six over Mönchengladbach, who won 3-1 in Frankfurt on Saturday.
"We clearly have room for improvement," admitted Thomas Müller after the match at the microphone of Sky Germany, "but we are four points ahead and the goal is clear: we have taken a step today. Today, the match in Dortmund (May 27) will be decisive in part. After just one match, it is difficult to assess how the teams will manage the workload in the coming weeks, and how they will find the rhythm ".
The loser of the weekend is Leipzig, held at home by Freiburg, which drops to fourth place at seven lengths, a chasm for a title candidate, when there are only eight days left to try to prevent the "Rekordmeister" to win an 8th consecutive championship title.
- Lewandowski's 26th goal -
For this recovery match after ten weeks off, coach Hansi Flick chose Serge Gnabry and Thomas Müller to support attacking goal scorer Robert Lewandowski. French international Kingsley Coman was on the bench at kick-off.
From the start, Bayern Munich was unsurprisingly superior in the game, but it always missed the tenth of a second or precision in the last gesture, to make the difference.
Thomas Müller smashed a goal ball within six meters (22nd), Goretzka missed the frame by a few centimeters on a cross shot (49th), Lewandowski (3rd), Gnabry (63rd, 79th), Müller (72nd) were countered in extremis, and Gnabry again was too short on a Coman caviar (77th) ...
It took a penalty, at the end of the first period, to force the destiny and make respect the hierarchy. After an unintentional, but indisputable, foul by Neven Subotic on Leon Goretzka, Lewandowski added a 26th goal to his league collection this season (1-0, 40th).
Eight days to go, the Pole is on his way to breaking his own record of 30 goals (2016-17). But it would have to end on supersonic bases to worry about the absolute record of Gerd Müller, author of 40 goals in 1971-72.
- Empty cauldron -
At the end of the match, the world champion Benjamin Pavard doubled the bet with a very clean header on a corner (2-0, 80th).
Like Saturday for the restart matches, the atmosphere was strange in the picturesque little stadium of the Alter Försterei, "the old forest house", notoriously become since the start of the season and the accession of the Union in the most boiling D1 of all Bundesliga "cauldrons".
For its first reception of the "Rekordmeister", the 22,000-seat enclosure sounded hollow. As everywhere in Germany, the fans followed the instructions and did not try to gather. The Berlin police, strongly mobilized, just asked before the match two or three dozen curious to disperse, calmly.
The Koepenick metro station, which serves the stadium, usually red and white crowded on match days, was sadly deserted. And for the 300 or so people authorized in the stadium, including journalists, entry was subject to temperature control: accreditation invalid from 38 ° C!
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