Ever tinkering with his team's shape, Bayern Munich manager Pep Guardiola went with something that would be classified as a 3-3-3-1 today. His team were obviously comfortable in possession and dictated the tempo of the game as you would expect, but it took them 27 minutes to open the scoring against VfB Stuttgart at the Allianz Arena.
Bayern Munich vs. VfB Stuttgart: Final score 2-0, comfortable win for Bavarians
Defending champions Bayern Munich eased to a win at home over Stuttgart thanks to goals from Mario Götze and Franck Ribéry.
Alex Grimm
World Cup hero Mario Götze slotted it past Sven Ulreich following a set piece that wasn’t cleared completely. The ball fell to Götze on the right side of the area and his cool finish along the ground to the far side of the net made it 1-0.
Holger Badstuber was forced off a thigh problem two minutes before half, and was replaced by exciting 17-year-old Gianluca Gaudino. Badstuber was able to walk off the pitch under his own power, which is encouraging considering his history with injuries. This meant the formation would be tweaked, since Gaudino is not a central defender.
Bayern were perfectly happy keeping possession and creating the occasional chance in the second half, but play became somewhat stagnant about an hour into the game. Franck Ribéry made his return to the team, coming on for Götze with just over 20 minutes to play.
Stuttgart's best chance came from Antoni Rüdiger, who was instrumental in the air defensively as well, in the 81st minute, when his header from a set piece went just wide of Manuel Neuer's left post.
Ribéry put it out of reach with five minutes left to play, cooly putting it through the Ulreich’s legs. Although they might not need him every week in domestic competition, getting the French winger back to top form will be important in European competition. He might have made it 3-0 if not for a goal line clearance from Rüdiger just moments before the final whistle.
Bayern Munich: Manuel Neuer, Jérôme Boateng, Dante, Holger Badstuber (Gianluca Gaudino 43'); Philipp Lahm, Xabi Alonso, Juan Bernat; Thomas Müller, Mario Götze (Franck Ribéry 68'), David Alaba; Robert Lewandowski (Claudio Pizarro 87').
Goals: Götze (28’), Ribéry (85’)
VfB Stuttgart: Sven Ulreich, Gotoku Sakai, Antoni Rüdiger, Daniel Schwaab, Florian Klein; Christian Genter (69’), Oriol Romeu; Timo Werner, Martin Harnik, Moritz Leitner (Alexandru Maxim 81’), Vedad Ibišević (Filip Kostić 46’).
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