A lackluster start to the festivities: star striker Harry Kane and Bayern Munich said goodbye to the Christmas holidays with a stale mandatory win and remain close to league leaders Bayer Leverkusen. In the last game of the year, the record champions muddled their way to a 2-1 (2-1) win against favorite opponent VfL Wolfsburg, despite a few problems.
“These are very important three points before the winter break, they are really good,” said Bayern’s sports director Christoph Freund on “Sky”: “It was clear that we had to push through today because the personnel situation is tense.”
Jamal Musiala (33rd) and Kane (43rd) scored a dream goal for Thomas Tuchel’s team. Maximilian Arnold’s goal (45th + 1) wasn’t enough for the Wolves, who didn’t have a chance.
Bayern are now unbeaten in 17 Bundesliga games against Wolfsburg and go from second place in the hunt for Leverkusen next year. The gap to the factory club is still four points, but Bayern still have to play the catch-up game against Union Berlin. Wolfsburg remains a gray average in the league.
Musiala writes Bavarian history
“Let’s see what challenges the game brings. We hope that we will have the right answers,” Tuchel said before the game. But first his offensive around Musiala, who at 20 years and 297 days became the youngest player in history to play 100 Bundesliga games for Bayern, had to look for the right ideas for the massive Wolves defense.
Mattias Svanberg’s early opportunity (4th) for VfL remained the best opportunity of the game for a long time in front of 28,917 spectators. The guests, in whom Raphael Guerreiro and the young Aleksandar Pavlovic replaced the sick Joshua Kimmich and Leon Goretzka, as they did in the 3-0 win against VfB Stuttgart, had much more of the game in the Wolfsburg rain for a long time. And as the game went on, Bayern increased the pressure.
Kane scores fantastically for Bayern
But first Thomas Müller, who has just extended his contract again until 2025, hit the crossbar with his head (32′). Seconds later, whirlwind Musiala nodded in after a Müller cross to take the deserved lead. “King Kane” scored with a wonderful shot from around 20 meters – it was the Englishman’s 21st goal of the season.
But Arnold kept things exciting with his powerful shot from distance before the break. In addition, Bayern could have gotten a lot more out of their superiority, but promising attacks were completed too sloppily by Müller and Sane, for example. On the other hand, Tiago Tomas and Rogerio (58th) had the equalizer for the increasingly courageous Wolves.
FC Bayern is wobbling after the break
As a result, Bayern gave up some control and an increasingly open exchange of blows developed.
Of course, Bayern wanted to win and had a good opportunity through Kane (74′), but Wolfsburg also sensed their chance. And so the spectators didn’t see a high-class game at the end of the year, but they did see a surprisingly exciting and open game. In stoppage time, Manuel Neuer made a good save against Arnold (90+2).